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See, this is how it works. the Sierra Club has the lawful ability to accept donations and NOT, by law (as do many other organizations) be required to provide the names of where the funding is coming from.
during the early 90's- actually it started in the late 80's, the Sierra Club has run its marketing bell curve out. so many environmental problems were solved that they lost their donor base. So they went hunting for foundation money. thing was, after the North Sea oil finds, the Saudis were sweating it out because of the North Sea Brent competition. Oil was tanking from supply, peaking in the mid to late 90's.
So, the Saudis didn't want any more competition. In fact in '95, they went berserk when ANWR was proposed to be welled up and up and running by about '99 or 2000.
Anyway- make a long story short- some in the Arab world got the bright idea to influence Congress via these enviro-whack groups and they did.
The environental whack cases get money from oil Arabs to STOP the US from providing Americans with lower energy prices AND less dependence on their product. It's that simple. It's a business decision and those in Congress- generally in the Northeast, who accept endorsements or advertising "issue ads" from the likes of the Sierra Club or the socialists in the NRDC (a real bunch of totalitarians), should be asked to refrain from voting on ANWR. This is worse than Enron- much worse.
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Oil companies have been subsidizing the enviro-wackos for a couple of decades. Why? Two reasons, first, the more regulations their are on petroleum, the harder it is for smaller oil companies to surviver, chango presto, a reduction in competition for the big boys. Second, the problem as seen by oil companies is that there is a surplus of oil and has been for decades. The enviro-wackos stop drilling and prevent oil from coming onto the market. This reduces supply and drives up the price. The Saudis have probably been in this game for a while too.