Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Obama's Crusade
In 2010, when President Obama signed an executive waiver for BP to test new deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, he was embarking on a crusade to repay his 2008 campaign benefactor, Goldman Sachs, an investment bank with a large energy portfolio, especially in oil.
In 2012, when Obama announced his administration had opened up millions of acres for gas and oil in 23 states, as well as 75% of potential oil resources offshore, he was ushering in the fracking boom that brought us chemical injection aquifer contamination and ‘bomb trains’.
In 2014, when Obama supported Shell Oil’s bid to drill in the Arctic, he was following through on promises made privately to Wall Street in 2006, when he was vetted by investment bankers to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
What many Americans fail to understand is that energy sector investors like Goldman Sachs often hold stocks in more than one type of energy–including coal, oil, gas and nuclear. When one is down, another is up. They don’t care so much which energy Americans consume, as long as they make money–a lot of money.
Their investments in up-and-coming politicians like Obama make it possible.
