Venezuela Oil Affirmative Updates - SDI 2013

Wake Forest Debate 1 / 14Matt Struth

Venezuela UD


CASE


Say Yes UDsMaduro is irrelevant- Cabello actually controls Venezuela policy- AND he’s a pragmatistLees, 13 -- corporate attorney in Washington, DC [Kevin, "It’s Diosdado Cabello’s world, the rest of Venezuela is just living in it," Suffragio, 6-4-13, suffragio.org/2013/06/04/its-diosdado-cabellos-world-the-rest-of-venezuela-is-just-living-in-it/, accessed 7-27-13, mss]

It’s Diosdado Cabello’s world, the rest of Venezuela is just living in itVenezuela, just over a month after its still-contested presidential election, has made global headlines in the past couple of weeks for its chronic shortages of everything from toilet paper to church wine, with rationing soon to begin in the large western state of Zulia. That means that the country’s economic collapse is proceeding more or less as depressingly predicted — with oil prices stagnating, and with the state-owned Venezuelan oil industry’s production reducing, it means that the country has fewer and fewer dollars to fuel its increasing dependency on imported goods, a shortage that’s been exacerbated by the government’s somewhat inefficient system of auctioning off the dollars to importers and the fact that the Venezuelan bolívar is fixed at an artificially high rate. That’s one of the reasons that Nicolás Maduro, even with the full force of a government that has excelled at blurring the line between the Venezuelan state and chavismo, only barely won election follow Hugo Chávez’s death and why his challenger Henrique Capriles is still waging a campaign in the court system, however quixotic, to expose voting fraud in April’s election that could well reveal that Capriles won the election instead. Maduro’s loss weakened his already tenuous position within the ranks of chavismo, and the key power brokers under Chávez have largely retained their roles under Maduro, including Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister and the president of the state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), and Jorge Giordani, the former finance minister who remains the planning minister under Maduro. Forget the fact that new policymakers could potentially reverse course on Venezuela’s economy or that Giordani, Ramírez and Maduro appear to be doubling down on the same policies that have led to Venezuela’s precarious situation — it shows that Maduro lacks the power to replace his rivals with ministers who owe their loyalty to Maduro. But as the economy melts down, it isn’t surprising to see chavismo itself breaking down . The first major breach came a couple of weeks ago, when a

purported recording of a conversation emerged between Mario Silva, who hosts the popular, massively pro-chavista ’La Hojilla’ television program, and Aramis Palacios, a Cuban lieutenant colonel in G2, the Cuban intelligence agency. Silva is as much of a true believer in chavismo as anyone in the top circle of Venezuela’s ruling elite, so if Silva has such wide doubts about Maduro (at one point he says, ‘we are in a sea of shit’), imagine what the rest of the government thinks. It’s also, of course, somewhat of an international scandal as well — though Cuban intelligence long worked hand-in-hand with Chávez and the Venezuelan government, what exactly was a pro-Chávez talk show host doing talking to a Cuban spook? The link between the two countries became an issue during the campaign, with Capriles attacking the generous oil subsidies to Cuba that Chávez initiated a decade ago, and Maduro is widely believed to have been Havana’s top choice to succeed Chávez. But the recording was most tantalizing with respect to Diosdado Cabello (pictured above) and his role in Venezuela’s future — no one has more power in post-Chávez than Cabello , including even Maduro . Cabello (yes, his full name translates from the Spanish into English as ‘God-given hair’) has been a Chávez supporter since Chávez’s 1992 coup attempt, but his career really took off a decade later, when he became Chávez’s interior minister and his infrastructure minister. He was the governor of Miranda state from 2004 to 2008. Since 2011, he has been the vice president of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV, or United Socialist Party of Venezuela) and since January 2012, he has been the speaker of the Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly). His brother, José David Cabello, heads Venezuela’s revenue collection agency. A master of the intricate chavista bureaucracy, think of Diosdado in part as the Venezuelan Dick Cheney — the octopus with tentacles in every corner. There’s a strong argument that under Venezuela’s constitution, Cabello (and not Maduro) should have become Venezuela’s acting president following Chávez’s March 2013 death. But Maduro quite clearly had Chávez’s endorsement and Cabello certainly must have approved of the decision to install Maduro with immediate effect in March. It’s pretty clear why — Cabello’s reputation for corruption would have made him an absolutely horrible choice to lead chavismo into the April election, especially in light of his 2008 loss of the Miranda gubernatorial election to Capriles. Among the inner circle of chavistas, Cabello is widely seen as the most corrupt, given that he and his family have developed conspicuous wealth over the years under Chávez. Unlike Maduro and former vice president Elías Jaua, he does not have incredibly strong links to Cuba’s leadership, though he does have ties to the military. More than Maduro , Jaua or Giordani, he’s seen as a pragmatic fixer, not an ideologue committed to ‘bolivarian’ revolutionary sentiments . So Maduro, despite his

weaknesses, was still probably the most likely candidate to be successful in the April election. But as Maduro’s position seems to weaken by the day, Cabello’s has strengthened, especially in light of his power base within other elements of the government. He’s indicated that he’s willing to read from a different script than Maduro . In the wake of Maduro’s dicey election victory, Cabello tweeted that the government should engage in some inquiry as to why its election performance was so poor — Maduro showed no such similar reflections about the campaign. When Cabello presided over a brawl that ended in chavista deputies attacking opposition deputies a few weeks ago on the floor of the National Assembly, some critics argued that he allowed the attack in order to embarrass and undermine Maduro. So throughout the recording, Silva divulges the following views on Cabello: Cabello controls the intelligence and police apparatuses of


Venezuela. Cabello essentially controls — and receives funding from — both SENIAT (the revenue service his brother heads) and CADIVI (the foreign exchange board). Giordani allegedly threatened to leave Chávez’s government over the extent of the corruption that Cabello effected at all levels of the state. Cabello is essentially plotting to become the true successor to Chávez with Maduro as essentially a figurehead president. Maduro is ‘obliged’ to put Cabello ‘up against the wall,’ lest Cabello fully take over the government from Maduro, and that Cabello has even plotted to pit defense minister Diego Molero against Maduro, including perhaps a coup to relieve Maduro of the presidency (charges that Cabello and Molero have both vigorously denied). You don’t have to believe that Silva’s gossip is necessarily 100% true to realize that chavismo is going through an internal civil war to determine whether Maduro or Cabello truly controls the government. Cabello doesn’t necessarily need to effect a coup against Maduro in order to win that fight, however — he has allies and loyalists in so many various parts of the Venezuelan government that he can effectively checkmate Maduro from his perch in the National Assembly. Even if Cabello could push Maduro out of office tomorrow, why would he want to take ownership of Venezuela in its immediate state anyway if he can control enough behind the scenes to ensure his continued role in diverting sufficient gains to himself and his supporters?

Cabello is a pro-business pragmatist- he’ll say yesDevereux, 12 – covers Venezuela for Bloomberg News[Charlie, and Corina Rodriguez Pons, "Chavez Turns to Generals to Defend Revolution Amid Illness," Bloomberg, 3-22-13, www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-22/chavez-in-failing-health-turns-to-generals-to-defend-revolution.html, accessed 7-27-13, mss]

Cabello, 48, has stood alongside Chavez throughout, occupying the presidency for a few hours in the chaos that followed Chavez’s ousting by a civilian-backed faction of the military in 2002 and return to power two days later. As head of the National Assembly, he’s first in line to assume the presidency if Chavez wins re-election but is unable to be sworn in for a new term in February. He’s also one of the leading candidates to substitute Chavez should the president drop his re-election bid. When Chavez returned from Cuba March 16, Cabello greeted him at the airport and a day later joined him as he addressed supporters from the “People’s Balcony” of the presidential palace. “He’s emerged as one of the most prominent figures within Chavismo and to the extent that there will be a discussion about succession he’ll play a very important role,” Francisco Rodriguez, a senior Latin America economist at Bank of America Corp., said in a phone interview from New York. Calls to Cabello’s office at the National Assembly went unanswered, while Chavez’s information ministry didn’t respond to a phone call and e-mail seeking comment. Pragmatist Business leaders see Cabello as more of a pragmatist than the civilian, pro-Cuban wing of the government. In 1999, as chief telecommunications regulator, he ended Cia. Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela’s monopoly on fixed-line phone service. “People in business felt that Cabello was someone they could talk with,” said Rodriguez, who was an economic adviser to Venezuela’s congress from 2000 to 2004. “While I don’t think that’s currently the

case it does appear to illustrate less of an ideological strain of thinking .”

The anti-Americanism narrative is dead wrong- economic self-interest overrides ideology every time Baker, 13 -- University of Colorado Boulder political science professor [Andy, and David Cupery, PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science, University of Colorado Boulder, "Gringo Stay Here!" Americas Quarterly, 7.2, Spring 2013, www.americasquarterly.org/gringo-stay-here, accessed 7-27-13, mss]

Anti-Americanism in the region isn't what you think. Here's why."Why do they hate us?” This question1, on so many U.S. citizens’ minds over the decade following the September 11, 2001, attacks, is often asked about Islamic extremists and even the broader Muslim world. Among the most common responses is that “they” resent U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. When the focus shifts to Latin America, U.S. foreign policy similarly appears to be the principal reason for anti-Americanism. This seems to make sense. One would be hard-pressed to find another world region with greater and more long-standing grievances about Washington’s actions. The Monroe Doctrine, Dollar Diplomacy and Cold War Containment were euphemisms for imperial abuses committed against Latin America over the course of two centuries. However, as we show here, Latin American citizens today are not overwhelmingly anti-American. In fact, polling data suggest that on balance the opposite is true. Clear majorities of respondents in nearly every Latin American country hold positive opinions of the United States. Even more surprising, many of the countries where U.S. intervention has been most frequent and dramatic (e.g., the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama) are also the countries where mass opinions about the U.S. are most favorable. The fact is, the question at the start of this article should be turned on its head: “Why don’t Latin Americans

hate us?” What accounts for these puzzling findings? Economic self-interest offers one clue. The polling data indicate that the stronger the economic ties between a Latin American country and the U.S.—whether related to trade, aid, migration, remittances, or investment—the more favorable are its citizens’ opinions toward the “Colossus of the North.” This explains why Caribbean and Central American countries, despite being more historically victimized, are the most pro-American. Put another way, Latin Americans like the U.S.


because of their stronger economic ties, relative to the rest of the world, with their northern neighbor. Assuming Anti-Americanism … You would not know this from the rhetoric favored by some of the region’s intellectuals and political leaders. Historical events ranging from the annexation of half of Mexico’s territory (1848) to the deposition of democratically elected leaders (Guatemala in 1954) have, according to some Latin American elites and various scholars, built up a deep resentment in the region toward the United States. Leaders of Latin America’s new Left have followed closely in their footsteps. Among his many colorful statements, the late Hugo Chávez noted that “in all history, there was never a government more terrorist than that of the U.S. empire.”2 When Nicaragua and 32 other countries created the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2011, Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega boasted that the group’s creation amounted to “sentencing the Monroe Doctrine to death.”3 Many scholars believe anti-Americanism is deep-seated among ordinary Latin Americans as well. “Latin Americans are disparate peoples, but there are few things that unite them more than their shared resentment at the persistent record of U.S. high-handedness in the region as a whole,”4 according to George Yúdice. Another prominent thinker, Alan McPherson, believes that the more significant and frequent the U.S. intervention, “the more widespread, deep and visceral anti-U.S. sentiment became.”5 This resentment continues today, McPherson added, because “a generational sedimentation of grievances shaped historical memories and national mythologies.”6 Julia Swieg sees an “instinctive anti-American reflex”7 in the region, and Michael Radu describes anti-Americanism as a “deeply rooted disposition.”8 Overall, the story is simple and compelling: Latin Americans do hate us, and this resentment is richly

deserved. The problem, however, is that this story is categorically untrue . … but Observing Pro-Americanism Even a cursory glance at public opinion data shows the alleged “shared resentment” to be non-existent—certainly since the 1990s. According to data from the 18-country Latinobarómetro survey series, the average Latin American held a positive opinion of the U.S. in every year between 1995 and 2010.9 In all 18 countries, respondents holding favorable views of the U.S. outnumbered those expressing negative views over this decade and a half. Typically, the former outnumbered the latter by a large margin. Figure 1 depicts these straightforward results. More than 75 percent of those surveyed expressed favorable opinions of the U.S. in 10 of the 18 countries, and in no country did negatively inclined respondents outnumber positively inclined ones. The average percentage of Latin American respondents who expressed favorable opinions toward the U.S. (77 percent) was the same as the percentage who expressed favorable opinions toward China (77 percent), less than the percentage of respondents who expressed favorable opinions toward the EU and Japan (87 and 86 percent, respectively), and more than the percentage who expressed favorable opinions toward Cuba and Venezuela (55 and 51 percent, respectively). A point of comparison is the average degree of anti-Americanism in the “rest of the world,” based on a sample of 45 other countries gathered through the Pew Global Attitudes project between 2002 and 2010. The average attitude in the rest of the world is more unfavorable to the U.S. than the most anti-American country in Latin America: Argentina. In short, Latin Americans are pro-American and, in most countries, overwhelmingly so. A closer look at these results reveals a pattern that is even more surprising, and even more damning, of the aforementioned assumptions about anti-Americanism in the region. The countries that are the most pro-American are all Caribbean or Central American nations. These are precisely those countries that have been the most victimized historically by the United States. The vast majority of U.S. interventions have occurred in the countries to its near south, while imperial interventions have been a somewhat rarer occurrence in South America. The military occupations during the Banana Wars, the violent containment measures of the Cold War, and even the few visible post-1989 interventions mostly—though not exclusively—occurred in the Latin American nations of the northern hemisphere. (Recall, as another example, the Roosevelt Corollary’s goal of turning the Caribbean into an “American lake.”) All told, the findings leave us with two puzzles. First, why do Latin Americans like the U.S., despite Washington’s persistent pattern of violating Latin American sovereignty over the past 200 years? Second, why are the most historically victimized countries today the most pro-American? It’s the Economy, Stupid Answering the question requires looking a little more closely at Latin American attitudes and behavior. U.S. interventions, especially during the Cold War, were often welcomed by large segments of the societies in which they occurred (e.g., opponents of the Sandinistas or supporters of the Salvadoran military). After all, the U.S. almost always took sides in a pre-existing ideological and political struggle. Memories are also short. Latin America is an overwhelmingly youthful region, and most people under 40 have no vivid memories or experiences of the U.S. actions that enraged their parents and grandparents. We find that for most Latin Americans, the more immediate reality is that of international economic exchange with the United States. For Latin American countries, economic exchange with the U.S.—conceived in an inclusive sense as trade, investment, aid, migration, and remittance flows—coincides with positive thoughts toward El Norte. According to political scientists Joseph Nye and William Reed, strong bilateral economic ties between countries promote goodwill between partners by increasing tolerance, mutual trust, and cross-cultural understanding.10 Economic interdependence also creates a class of individuals that benefits materially from the ongoing exchange and has objective experiences to show for it. For example, in much of Central America, a large number of lower- and middle-class citizens receive remittances from friends and relatives working in the U.S. Finally, the relative wealth of the U.S. associates it, in the minds of many Latin Americans, with material success and opportunity. Many Latin American consumers see U.S. brands—Calvin Klein, Hollywood, and even McDonald’s—as symbols of quality and sophistication, something that helps explain the prevalence of knockoffs like “Kalvin Clein” in informal markets.12 Consider these statistics, reported by the Inter-American Dialogue last year: “the U.S. currently buys about 40 percent of Latin America’s exports and an even higher percentage of its manufactured products. It remains the first or second commercial partner for nearly every country in the region. And it provides nearly 40 percent of foreign investment and upwards of 90 percent of the $60 billion or so in remittance income that goes to Latin America.”11 Being so physically close to the U.S., Latin America’s volumes of trade, migration, investment, and remittance flows with the northern colossus are greater than those of other countries, and their citizens are more positive toward the U.S. Moreover, even within Latin America, it is those countries that are the closest to the U.S. that are the most pro-American. The reason why countries that were the most victimized—in Central America and the Caribbean—are the most pro-American is the greater economic interdependence they enjoy with the U.S. That’s borne out by the huge numbers of expatriates from those countries living in the U.S., and consequently more remittance flows—among other factors. Although advances in technology and policy changes have dramatically lowered the costs of international exchange, physically proximate countries are still more likely to have higher degrees of economic interdependence than distant ones. Figure 2 shows this to be the case for inter-American economic relations. The scatterplot depicts 18 Latin American countries according to the number of emigrants they send to the U.S. (x-axis) and the amount of trading they do with the U.S. (y-axis).13 The diagonal line in the plot traces out a natural breakpoint that illustrates the impact of distance. To the left of the line are nine countries


with relatively few emigrants to the U.S. and less trade with it, and they are all South American. To the right of the line are nine countries with a relatively large number of emigrants to the U.S. and a heavy volume of trade with it, and they are all Central American, North American or Caribbean (with the exception of Ecuador). In short, proximity to the U.S. correlates with a higher degree of bilateral trade and immigration. Figure 3 traces out a third dimension providing evidence for the case that economic exchange with the U.S. creates massive goodwill even toward the region’s historical bully. Here is a representation of pro-American attitudes corresponding to countries in Figure 1. On the left side of the scale are countries with a relatively low percentage of pro-American citizens. Again, the diagonal line provides a clear point of reference. Below it, in the South American countries where migrant and trade volumes to the U.S. are low, citizens are less favorable toward the United States. Above the line, in the Caribbean basin, favorability toward the northern colossus runs high.14 International economic exchange breeds goodwill.15 The one glaring outlier in the region is Mexico. The country is toward the upper-right corner of the scatterplot due to the well-known fact that Mexicans are tightly linked to the U.S. through their export markets, their relatives and friends who live there, and the remittances they receive back from them. Despite this, Mexicans are surpassed only by the Argentines in their lack of goodwill toward the United States. Does this cast serious doubt on our claims? We think not. Of all the countries in the region, Mexico has surely been the most wronged by U.S. imperialism. It is the only one to have fought a major war against the U.S., the only one to have lost 50 percent of its land to the U.S., and currently the primary victim of U.S. demand for illegal narcotics. And yet Mexicans are, on balance, pro-American: 60 percent had a favorable opinion between 1995 and 2010. [See Figure 1.] If anything, international exchange between the U.S. and Mexico seems to be overcoming a goodwill deficit that otherwise would be much deeper. Implications and Conclusions The U.S. government has spent a lot of time and energy trying to shape how foreigners view America. George W. Bush appointed advertising executive Charlotte Beers as Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in October 2001, just after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center—an effort in large part to counter the propaganda of jihadists. Beers, and later appointees Margaret D. Tutwiler and Karen Hughes, worked diligently to improve the U.S. brand. But they all left the post after a short period of largely failed efforts. Our findings suggest that at least in the Western Hemisphere, the energy involved in such activities could have been better spent elsewhere. The exchanges that take place between U.S. and Latin American economic actors are a much more effective means of promoting pro-American sentiment. Better yet, this channel of goodwill promotion is virtually free for the U.S. government, as it is driven by voluntary and daily incidences of what Adam Smith called the innate human “propensity to truck, barter and exchange.” This does not mean , however, that the U.S. can simply sit back and assume it needs to do nothing at all. There are numerous policy opportunities for deepening and humanizing international economic relations in the region. Imports from the U.S. are a particularly effective mechanism of promoting the “U.S. brand.”16 Armed with that knowledge, a first place to start in reinforcing positive perceptions toward the U.S. would be re-launching the moribund efforts to form a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). The remaining countries in the region with which the U.S. does not have a free trade agreement (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela) are also, surely not coincidently, the ones that tend to have the least pro-American citizens.17 An FTAA for which the U.S. makes true concessions on agricultural protectionism could help to shift the calculations of countries that are genuinely holding out based on economic calculations. Reform of U.S. immigration rules would also help. According to a report by the Inter-American Dialogue, “Washington’s failure to repair the United States’ broken immigration system is breeding resentment across the region, nowhere more so than in the principal points of origin and transit: Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.”18 To reiterate, we find little evidence of seething resentment in these countries, but we do agree that well-targeted immigration reform can only further goodwill toward the U.S. Of course, foreign attitudes will not and should not be the principal worry of U.S. policymakers, but the beauty of these measures is that they are good not just for building mass goodwill but for the hemisphere’s economies as well.


OFF-CASE


A2 China CPOnly US can solve- China fails- culture gap, lack of cash, lack of techHearn ‘12(Kelly Hearn, staff writer for the Washington Times, “Venezuelan oil a risky investment for China”, 3/12/2012, The Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/12/venezuelan-oil-a-risky-investment-for-china/?page=all)

In 2010, CNPC signed a deal to help Venezuela develop a major Orinoco oil field known as Junin 4, which includes the construction of a facility to convert heavy oil to a lighter crude that could be shipped to a refinery in Guangdong, China. “Although the contract was signed in December 2010, not one barrel of oil has yet been produced , much less upgraded,” said Gustavo Coronel, a former PDVSA board member. “So far, nothing much seems to be happening, except for the arrival of a large group of Chinese staff to the CNPC’s Caracas office,” he added, referring to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. “Apart from money, there seems to be little that China can offer Venezuela in the oil industry ,” he said, adding that a “culture gap will make working with China very difficult for Venezuelan oil people, who were mostly trained in the U.S.” Erica Downs, a former energy analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency now with the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the Junin-4 project could be key to China’s future in Venezuela. “If all that happens, China will be in a position to take substantial volumes of Venezuelan oil,” she said. “The problem is that the project hasn’t gotten off the ground.” Ms. Downs said Venezuela is far from living up to Mr. Chavez’s export goals for Beijing and that PDVSA’s claims of sending 410,000 barrels a day do not match Chinese customs data, which show 322,000 barrels per day of crude and fuel oil imported from Venezuela last year. “Although Venezuela’s oil exports to China have grown along with the volume of oil-backed loans extended by China Development Bank to Caracas, the delivered volumes still fall short of Chavez’s goal of eventually shipping 1 million barrels per day to China,” she said. Critics of the loans say Mr. Chavez is using the so-called “China fund” as his personal piggy bank. The Chinese also seem to be increasingly wary. Internal PDVSA documents released by a Venezuelan congressman show that the Chinese balked at a $110 billion loan request by Mr. Chavez in 2010, after PDVSA officials failed to account fully for where the money would go. Problems with Orinoco The Chinese are now pressing PDVSA to let them list some of their investments in the Orinoco region on the Hong Kong exchange, a move analysts say would increase transparency and accountability in PDVSA’s spending. “Development of the Orinoco oil belt is only slow ly taking place because most of the companies — excluding Chevron, Repsol and China National Offshore Oil Corp. — either do not have the cash or the technology ,” said Oliver L. Campbell, a former finance coordinator at PDVSA. Unlike light and sweet crude from Saudi Arabia, oil from Orinoco is tarlike. It is laced with metals and sits beneath deep jungles. Getting to the oil field means building roads, electrical-power grids and other major infrastructure. Once the oil is extracted from the ground, it is technically difficult to process. “One of the major problems is that there are very few refineries outside the Gulf of Mexico that can handle Venezuelan crude,” said Jorge Pinon, a former president of Amoco Oil Latin America. Years ago, U.S. companies such as Shell and Exxon invested heavily in U.S. Gulf Coast refineries capable of processing heavy crude after they saw that the world’s supplies of sweet crude were diminishing, Mr. Pinon said. “The Chinese don’t have that kind of capacity,” he said.

China can’t solve- Venezuela distrusts China due to reselling of oilAFP ’10 (Agence France-Presse, “China 'resold $5-a-barrel Venezuelan oil at a profit'”, 10/16/2010, The National, http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/americas/china-resold-5-a-barrel-venezuelan-oil-at-a-profit)

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez's government sold China oil for as little as US$5 a barrel and was upset that China apparently profited by selling fuel to other countries, according to a classified US document released by WikiLeaks. The report about Chinese companies diverting oil was one of several newly released documents that also describe falling crude output in Venezuela caused by a host of problems within the national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA. The documents, posted online by the Spanish newspaper El Pais, also showed that American officials had managed to cultivate sources within the state oil company in spite of Mr Chavez's antagonism toward Washington. The confidential memo from the US Embassy in Caracas on February 26 said a PDVSA director revealed that the state company "had analysed its crude sales to China and determined that China had only paid $5/barrel of crude on a couple of deals" - a small fraction of the market price. The document said that according to the official, Mr Chavez's government was "extremely upset with Chinese companies due to the discrepancy between Chinese petroleum import statistics that suggest [China] is profiting from Venezuelan oil purchases by diverting the crude to third markets and earning a sizeable margin". The Venezuelan official, whose name was not released, "intimated that tankers had been diverted to the US, Africa, and elsewhere in Asia". Neither the Venezuelan government nor PDVSA reacted to the report. Calls to the Chinese Embassy in Caracas went unanswered on Tuesday. In China, there were no immediate responses to requests for comment from Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner; the China National Petroleum Corp; the Foreign Ministry and the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning body. Mr Chavez relies on oil sales to his top client, the United States, to help fund his socialist-inspired programmes. But he has been building up oil sales to China, and in October he said that oil


shipments to China had reached about 500,000 barrels a day, in spite of higher transport costs to reach Asia. Jorge Pinon, an energy expert and visiting research fellow at Florida International University in Miami, said he doubted that Venezuela's heavy crude would have been resold by China elsewhere because specialised refineries were needed to handle it. He said if there were any reselling by China, it would have been fuel oil and could have gone to Africa, Asia or the Caribbean "for blending and further re-export" to other markets. China, meanwhile, has also agreed to invest billions of dollars in a joint project to pump crude in Venezuela. Another embassy report on September 23, 2009, said a US diplomat had interviewed "PDVSA's senior executive director" when he was spotted in line at the embassy waiting for a US visa, and that the official revealed Venezuela had been manipulating its oil price index. It said the official confirmed that Venezuela "manipulates its Venezuelan Crude Oil basket index by including refined products in the mix". That method of calculating oil prices, which the official said "accurately reflected revenue from all of PDVSA's sales of crude petroleum and refined products", was responsible for narrowing the gap between prices for Venezuela's heavy sulphur-laden crude and benchmark light, sweet crude.

Venezuela says no to ChinaHearn ‘12(Kelly Hearn, staff writer for the Washington Times, “Venezuelan oil a risky investment for China”, 3/12/2012, The Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/12/venezuelan-oil-a-risky-investment-for-china/?page=all)

BUENOS AIRES — China has poured billions of dollars into Venezuela’s oil sector to expand its claim over the country’s massive oil reserves. But Beijing is getting relatively little for its investments , and Chinese officials are increasingly frustrated with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, according to energy analysts and former managers of the state oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela, or PDVSA as it’s known by its Spanish acronym. Mr. Chavez, who is battling a life-threatening recurrence of cancer, said his goal is to send 1 million barrels of oil a day to China, which has given Venezuela more than $30 billion in loans and promised billions of dollars more in energy investments by 2016. PDVSA claims to send 410,000 barrels a day to Chinese markets, the bulk of which is used to pay back the loans. Already this year, PDVSA has announced that Citic Group Corp., China’s largest state-owned investment company, will acquire a 10 percent stake in the Petropiar heavy-crude project held with PDVSA and U.S.-based Chevron Corp. It also said that the China Development Bank will spend $4 billion to help boost production in a joint venture with China National Petroleum Corp., or CNPC. The Chinese bank and the Venezuelan government also have agreed to renew a $6 billion bilateral investment fund, of which $2 billion will help boost PDVSA production. But Tom O’Donnell, an oil analyst who teaches at the New School University and writes an oil-industry blog, the Global Barrel, said the payoffs of China’s loans amount to a “consolation prize.” He said China’s goal is not to get oil for loans, but to have its own national oil companies contract for major oil-production projects in Venezuela’s Orinoco Tar Sands, the largest single known petroleum reserve in the world, with 513 billion barrels of heavy crude oil. Chinese displeased “The Chinese have not gotten the kind of preferential access they want [to the tar sands], and my sources tell me they are extremely unhappy,” said Mr. O’Donnell.


A2 China SOINon-Unique- the US is Venezuela’s largest importerUS Department of State 1/17/13 (It’s the freakin’ US DoS, cmon kid!, “U.S. Relations With Venezuela,” http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35766.htm //Bobby)

The United States is Venezuela's most important trading partner. U.S. exports to Venezuela include machinery, organic chemicals, agricultural products, optical and medical instruments, autos and auto parts. Oil dominates U.S. imports from Venezuela, which is one of the top four suppliers of foreign oil to the United States. About 500 U.S. companies are represented in Venezuela. U.S. foreign direct investment in Venezuela is concentrated largely in the petroleum, manufacturing, and finance sectors.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35766.htm


A2 NeoliberalismTurn- Chavez’s alternative to neoliberalism will collapse without aid AND the US can learn from Venezuelan alternatives- engagement is keySchultz, 13 -- freelance writer and anthropologist [Kylie, "The Rocky U.S.-Venezuela Relationship: What Both Countries Could Learn," The International, 3-17-13, www.theinternational.org/articles/370-the-rocky-us-venezuela-relationship-wh, accessed 7-2-13, mss]

On March 5, the Latin American world both mourned and spurned the death of Venezuela’s enigmatic president, Hugo Chavez. Chavez, who died after a two year battle with an undisclosed type of cancer, was one of Latin America’s most influential and admired leaders, although his presidency caused deep and polarized divides among the population in his home country of Venezuela. As the news of his death spread, condolences poured in and dignitaries from around the world, including Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Cuba’s Raul Castro, arrived for his state funeral. While the United States sent a representative, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the Obama administration itself offered no condolences. “At this challenging time of President Hugo Chavez’s passing, the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government,” said a statement released by the White House. “As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the United States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.” Criticized by many Chavez supporters for its unsympathetic and, some claim, contemptible tone, the White House statement and the reactions it has elicited are representative of the divide between the United States and Venezuela which emerged during Chavez’s presidency. The influence and standing of the United States in Latin America has decreased in recent years as domestic inequality and political polarization in America rise. There seem but few signs that Chavez’s

death will spark a shift in U.S.-Venezuelan relations. As Venezuela enters into the post-Chavez era with a struggling economy, high inflation, and some of the worst crime rates in the world, why do both countries continue to demonize one another? Chavez, his politics, and his legacy Throughout his 14 year presidency, Hugo Chavez was defined foremost as a revolutionary. Chavez believed that the inequalities of wealth and power that plagued Venezuela during his childhood were a result of western imperialism and

foreign ownership of local resources. Calling himself a “21st century socialist,” Chavez denounced and reviled imperialism, with much of his

rhetoric aimed at the United States. In line with his socialist ideology, Chavez instituted economic policies which took vast amounts of money from state-owned oil exports, Venezuela’s primary resource and export, and used the revenue to create and fund social projects called ‘misiones’. These missions

promoted literacy, free education, subsidized food, free healthcare, and other social services which vastly decreased inequality and gaps in Venezuelan wealth distribution, enhanced living standards, and promoted a participatory style of government. In a roundtable discussion for the grassroots media station Democracy Now!, author and professor Miguel Tinker Salas noted that Chavez’s rise to power helped Venezuela gain a presence and standing on the regional and international geopolitical stage. “Just recall where Venezuela was in 1998. It had no real presence on the international stage. [Chavez] had this oil-producing country that had 60 percent of people living in poverty. Today, that has dramatically changed,” Salas said. Eva Golinger, friend and advisor of Chavez, stated during the same roundtable discussion that Chavez was a “champion for the poor, for social justice, against

imperialism, against aggression, against war. He’s someone who has left an extraordinary legacy, not just in his own country, but around the world.” Although Chavez passed tremendous social policies and massively reduced the percentage of Venezuela’s population living in poverty

– from 42.8 percent in 1999, to 26.5 percent in 2011 – Chavez’s immense spending, near sole economic reliance on oil, and lack of government structuring

has left a Venezuela with staggering crime rates, economic and social insecurity, crumbling infrastructure, shortages of basic

goods, one of the highest inflation rates in the world, and a currency that has recently been devalued for the fourth time. His mixed legacy has left many wondering if Venezuela can survive by maintaining Chavez’s strict, nationalist economic policies. Venezuela and U.S.’s damaged relations While Chavismo, the term often given to describe Chavez’s social and political movement, was conceived with anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist rhetoric, it wasn’t until a failed coup in 2002 that Chavez adopted explicitly anti-American rhetoric. Although evidence shows that America was not directly behind or involved in the 2002 attempted coup against Chavez, the Bush administration’s detached reaction to the coup convinced Chavez that the United States was implicitly involved, the first cause of the struggles between the two countries. Relations between the two countries remain strained as ambassadors have not been exchanged between the two nations since 2010, and on March 5, interim president Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s hand-picked successor, expelled two U.S. diplomats from Venezuela, accusing them of trying to “destabilize” the country. The United States responded on March 11 by declaring two Venezuelan diplomats as personae non gratae and expelling them. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland claimed that the Venezuelan diplomats were expelled because “when our people are thrown out unjustly, we’re going to take reciprocal action.” Similarly, another State Department spokesman said that the “fallacious” accusations against the U.S. diplomats expelled from Venezuela leads the U.S. to “conclude that, unfortunately, the current Venezuelan government is not interested in an improved relationship.” Despite negative “tit-for-tat” relations and searing rhetoric on both sides, trade has never stopped between the two countries – unlike the U.S.’s half decade embargo on Cuba – leaving some to conclude that the harsh rhetoric between the two serves a different purpose. Author and journalist David Sirota wrote in Salon that although the U.S. media and government often criticize and portray Chavez as a despot with radical human rights violations under his belt, the American government continues to maintain friendly relations with the governments of Mexico and Colombia who have similar negative records. “No, Chavez became the bugaboo of American politics because his full-throated advocacy of socialism and redistribution at once represented a fundamental critique of neoliberal economic, and also delivered some indisputably positive results,” wrote Sirota. For the United States, Chavez’s successful socialist policies can be perceived as a threat to the corporate capitalism now under scrutiny in the United States. On the other hand, Chavez’s radical leftist approach and highly centralized government inspired his “21st century socialism,” which he believed was the only system that could yield a “genuine” society. These ideologies inspired a the complete denouncement of capitalism and free-trade policies which has limited Venezuela’s economic avenues. A report from the Inter-American Dialogue notes that other governments in the region, like Brazil, who have not utterly denounced all free-trade policies and mandated privatization but have embraced a nationalist government, have realized stabilized economies while also decreasing inequality, a feat that Venezuela is still trying to achieve. When other more pragmatic leaders in the region incorporated aspects of free-trade into their leftist and progressive governments, Chavez had to work to maintain control over a population divided by his policies. Anti-American rhetoric worked to build support for Chavismo in opposition to a common enemy. Rory Carroll, a journalist for the Guardian’s Caracas bureau, stated in an interview with Mother Jones that Chavez’s “anti-imperialist posturing so dazzled his cheerleaders that they overlooked his flaws, flaws which

worsened over time.” While confrontational rhetoric towards one another might serve some purpose for each country, the continued trade between the two countries, and the unique economic and social struggles facing each nation give both much more to


gain from establishing a positive relationship than an oppositional one. Why U.S. and Venezuela are wrong

and how they can learn from each other The aforementioned 2012 report from The Inter-American Dialogue on remaking U.S. and Latin American relations states that the longer relations are stagnant, “the harder it will be to reverse course and rebuild vigorous cooperation.” The United States has lost standing with Latin American countries who see political gridlock, poor immigration policies, and substantial inequality and wealth disparity in the United States as undermining its “capacity to propose and carry out strategies to deal with the issues that most concern” Latin America. The United States has long been accused of putting Latin American relations on the backburner which has led many Latin American countries to remain economically connected with the United States, but politically detached. The Inter-American dialogue report highlights the fact that the United States must be flexible, innovative and sensitive to different definitions of democratic ideals to reshape regional institutions and “better align them with current realities and challenges to make them more effective.” The United States has also seen a sharp increase in poverty, and as current discussions over the national budget consider cutting social programs like welfare, medicaid and social security, the government needs to consider the success of social programs throughout Latin America and Venezuela which have vastly decreased those nations’ poverty levels, lowered infant mortality and unemployment, increased literacy and availability of education, and increased living standards. Venezuela’s extreme Chavez-era policies may prove to not be economically viable; instead Venezuela could look to more conservative leftist Latin American governments, like Brazil, who have implemented policies which allow for some free-trade, privatization and foreign investment, in order to ensure a more sustainable economy in the future. There is hope that Chavez’s supposedly more pragmatic successor, Nicolas Maduro, if elected in next month’s elections, might be open to a more positive relationship with the United States. Both sides have expressed interest in open dialogue and perhaps the exchange of ambassadors, but the recent expulsion of diplomats from each country seems to illustrate stubbornness from both parties. When it comes to Hugo Chavez and his legacy in Venezuela, opinions remain divided. Whether he is remembered as a champion of the people, who trampled inequality and redistributed wealth while openly criticized the western policies which he believed promoted such inequality, or whether he is remembered as a radical leader who altered Venezuela forever through revolution but left it in shambles, the legacy of Chavez challenges the world, and the United States, to consider the effectiveness of their own governments and policies. In his Time magazine obituary for Chavez, journalist Tim Padgett states that

“Washington and the rest of the world need to remember the unmistakable reasons for his rise to power” which has been their failure to build institutions that can close the “unconscionable wealth gap.” It seems both countries have much to learn and gain from one another, but seem unwilling to do so to the possible detriment of their own people and economies.


A2 PoliticsOil lobby shields the linkFroomkin, 11 -- senior Washington correspondent for the Huffington Post [Dan, previously wrote a column for the online version of The Washington Post called White House Watch, "How The Oil Lobby Greases Washington's Wheels," Huffington Post, 4-6-11, www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/06/how-the-oil-lobby-greases_n_845720.html?view=print&comm_ref=false, accessed 3-19-13, mss]

Clout in Washington isn't about winning legislative battles -- it's about making sure that they never happen at all. The oil and gas industry has that kind of clout. Despite astronomical profits during what have been lean years for most everyone else, the oil and gas industry continues to benefit from massive, multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies. Opinion polling shows the American public overwhelmingly wants those subsidies eliminated. Meanwhile, both parties are hunting feverishly for ways to reduce the deficit. But when President Obama called on Congress to eliminate about $4 billion a year in tax breaks for Big Oil earlier this year, the response on the Hill was little more than a knowing chuckle. Even Obama's closest congressional allies don't think the president’s proposal has a shot. "I would be surprised if it got a great deal of traction," Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Senate energy committee, told reporters at the National Press Club a few days after Obama first announced his plan. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), co-author of a House bill that closely resembles Obama's proposal, nevertheless acknowledges that it has slim chances of passing. "It will be a challenge to get anything through the House that includes any tax increase for anyone under any circumstance," he told The Huffington Post. The list goes on: "It's not on my radar," said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for Bracewell Giuliani, a

lobbying firm with several oil and gas industry clients. "It's old news and it's never going to happen in this Congress. It couldn't even happen in the last Congress." Indeed, the oil and gas industry's stranglehold on Congres is so firm that even when the Democrats controlled both houses, repeal of the

subsidies didn't stand a chance. Obama proposed cutting them in his previous two budgets as well, but the Senate -- where Republicans and consistently pro-oil Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu had more than enough votes to block any legislation -- never even took a stab at it. Now that the House is controlled by the GOP, Obama's proposal is deader than an oil-soaked pelican. Over the last decade in particular, the Republican Party's anti-tax policies and pro-drilling campaign rhetoric have become nearly indistinguishable from those of Big Oil. "Obama's been proposing to get rid of these subsidies since his first budget in February 2009," said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen. "The obstacle has been the petroleum industry. The American Petroleum Institute has dug in their heels and is fighting tooth and nail to retain these subsidies." The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the industry's enormously powerful lobbying and trade association. "API is very focused on making sure that we have a voice in policy debates," said Martin Durbin, the organization's executive vice president for government affairs. "Certainly I hope we're having some role in the debate here." Is he pleased at the industry's success in heading off this particular debate? "I feel that we are successfully getting the point across, successfully educating policy-makers about the importance of our industry throughout the economy," he said. Even before Obama's 2011 State of the Union address, API president Jack Gerard used his "State of American Energy" speech to cast the repeal attempt as a tax increase and a job-killer. "The way I see it, our policy-makers are at a crossroads," Gerard said. "They face two choices: One leads us forward and promotes jobs, investments, revenue and growth -- or one that takes us backward, threatening the progress we've made and closing the door on future opportunities." Gerard was speaking to a receptive audience. As Time noted, "Republican Fred Upton, the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was in the front row of the audience for Gerard's speech." Upton did not return calls for comment. A PAMPERED INDUSTRY In January, Obama previewed his 2012 budget proposal during his State of the Union address. "I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies," he said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own." The line got a laugh, and then Obama pointed out the trade-offs of giving public support to a powerful private interest: "Instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's." he said. With the actual budget proposal came more details: a list of tax breaks that, if eliminated, would generate $43.6 billion of additional revenue over the next 10 years. Two of the biggest breaks date back nearly a century, to a time when a young, untested industry needed incentives to drill. The API, after adding in the cost of some other proposed measures (including reinstating Superfund taxes and repealing two accounting gimmicks that would affect other industries as well), concluded that Obama's FY 2012 proposed budget could cost the oil and gas industry $90 billion over the next decade. The loss of subsidies would affect the industry's bottom lines, but would hardly, as Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex), recently suggested, start driving companies out of business. That's because Obama was right; the oil companies are doing just fine. The big five -- BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell -- made a combined total profit of nearly $1 trillion over the past decade, with ExxonMobil clearing $31 billion in profits this past year alone. And it's hardly the case that the oil industry needs added incentives to drill. Former oilman George W. Bush made that point as clearly as anyone when he leveled with members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in a 2005 address: "I will tell you with $55 [a barrel] oil we don't need incentives to oil and gas companies to explore," he said. "There are plenty of incentives." Slocum, of Public Citizen, concurs: "With prices around $100 a barrel, it is asinine to suggest that $4 to $6 billion a year collectively is driving decisions about whether or not to pursue extraction opportunities in the U.S.," he said. "It is market prices that are driving investment decisions." While the oil industry warns that repealing the subsidies -- in addition to costing jobs -- would lead to higher gas prices, that too is hardly evident. Fuel costs largely reflect the price of oil, and that price has little to do with how much it costs to produce it. According to a U.S. Energy Information Administration survey, between 2007 and 2009, major U.S.-based oil companies spent an average of $29.31 to produce a barrel of oil. About one third of that amount went for extraction and taxes, and two thirds for exploration and development -- precisely why those companies are making such a killing when prices are $100 a barrel or more. Rather than production costs, the price of oil is set by the global market, and is affected by multiple factors. Those can include financial speculation and geopolitical fears that lately have been causing wild price swings. The repeal of a few billion dollars in subsidies isn't enough to make more than a small ripple in an approximately $3 trillion-a-year global market. Blumenauer argues that subsidies aren't appropriate for any well-established industry. Instead, he says, they should be used to support developing ones. "What's happened over the years, as the oil industry matured, as the giants consolidated into global players, and as the price of oil has been on a pretty steady upward trajectory -- with some hiccups along the way -- is that there ceased to be any rationale for providing these tax subsidies other than they were in the code and they benefited some of these companies." By contrast, he points out: "The rationale for providing tax subsidies for emerging technologies and energy sources now makes perfect sense for solar, wind, and geothermal -- where helping them come to scale would help provide a better balance to our energy choices." Oil and gas subsidies don't appear to wash with the general public, either. In a February NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that proffered suggestions for things that might be cut or eliminated as a way to reduce the current federal budget deficit, "eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries" was considered acceptable by a whopping 74 percent of Americans. Nearly 50 percent called it "totally acceptable." The only policy proposals that were more popular were raising taxes on the rich, eliminating earmarks, and canceling unnecessary weapons systems. The API says it has gotten very different signals from people.. Durbin said API's own polls show otherwise. "If you ask people, 'Should we take away unfair advantages to Big Oil,' then of course they'll say yes," he said. "If you ask a straight question, as we do... you get a much different answer." API's poll question asked "Do you support or oppose increased taxes on America's oil and natural gas industry?" ENERGY GIANTS ANTE UP With so much public opposition, why do subsidies remain? You might as well ask why there is

no carbon tax, or why there was no significant reform legislation passed after the BP oil spill. The answer is that one of the many things the industry can do with its fat pocketbook is hire a veritable army of sharp lobbyists and back them up with big wads of cash in the form of campaign donations and spending. The end result is that the industry has a remarkable ability to get its way on Capitol Hill . According to the Center for Responsive Politics' website, the oil and gas industry has spent more than $1 billion on lobbying since 1998, including a jaw-dropping $147 million just last year. For comparison's sake, $147 million is about equivalent to the total budget of 100 congressional offices. That's more than the $103 million spent in 2010 by the financial service industry, another potent lobbying force -- but considerably less than the $240 million spent by the pharmaceutical industry. Among major industries, Opensecrets.org ranked

Big Oil fifth in terms of lobbying dollars spent, behind only Big Pharma, electric utilities, business associations and insurance. The oil and gas industry used its $147 million to employ 788 individual lobbyists in 2010 -- some 500 (or almost two thirds) of whom, according to

Opensecrets.org, are former federal employees who came through the revolving door particularly well versed in the ways of government. All told, that's well more than one oil and gas lobbyist per member of Congress out there on the Hill arming allies with talking points and briefing books, spinning the undecided and pressuring the opposition . And there's more of them every year. Consider the trendlines. As recently as 2004, the oil and gas industry spent about $52

million a year in lobbying; by 2009, that figure was up to $175 million -- or a 300 percent increase in just five years. The industry backs up its extraordinary lobbying effort with lavish spending on political campaigns. Candidates associated with oil and gas companies made about $15 million in direct campaign donations during the 2010 mid-term election cycle ($26 million during the 2008 presidential cycle). The industry was also responsible for more than $10 million in donations through its political action committees, or PACs, in the 2010 cycle. The trendlines are notable here, as well. In the early ’90s, oil and gas campaign spending favored Republicans over Democrats by about a 2 to 1 margin: For every $1 the industry gave to Democrats, it gave Republicans $1.78. But starting in the 1996 election cycle (think Al Gore), that changed dramatically. Now, for every $1 the industry gives Democrats, it gives Republicans about $3.35. Among the top oil and gas industry donors in the 2010 cycle, Koch Industries and ExxonMobil head the list. And

Opensecrets.org's top 20 list of oil and gas money recipients is 4 to 1 Republican. In addition to contributions to individuals and PACs, there's the whole


new world of spending opportunities opened up by recent Supreme Court rulings that essentially blew a hole through the post-Watergate campaign finance laws. Super PACs are groups that can now accept unlimited contributions, though they must disclose their contributors. Opensecrets.org calculates that companies with interests in the energy sector combined to give more than $5.6 million to Super PACs in the 2010 cycle. Former Bush political guru Karl Rove's American Crossroads group, for one such Super PAC. It spent $21 million on political advertising in the 2010 cycle; oil and gas interests contributed just over $3 million of that amount. The recent court rulings also opened the way for nonprofit groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns -- and unlike the Super PACs, they don't have to disclose their donors. All they have to do is report how much they spent. These groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, reported $140 million in campaign spending in the 2010 cycle, the vast majority of which went to support conservative causes.

There's no way to know how much of that money came from Big Oil. Adding yet more firepower to its lobbyists’ arsenal, API announced last month that it will start funding political campaigns directly through a new PAC of its own -- in addition to what its member organizations give already. "API is very focused on making sure that we have a voice in policy debates," said its spokesman, Durbin.

"We're always looking at ways to improve the way we do our jobs here. This just adds one more tool to leverage our ability to get the point across about the critical nature of this industry." One more thing: According to another study by the Center for Responsive Politics, oil and gas industry holdings are some of the most popular investments among lawmakers and their spouses, and in recent years have grown in value, offering a bundle of potential conflicts of interest problems. "Without question, among all the different industries that lobby the federal government, that make campaign contributions, oil and gas is right at the top of the top," said CRP's

Dave Levinthal. "They can invest incredible resources into the political process that make so much of a difference in Washington, at the cost of a fraction of a faction of their haul." And it's not just the breadth of their efforts -- it's the ferocity and the effectiveness.

Venezuela Oil Affirmative Updates - SDI 2013

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