Obama’s Crusade

Chukchi Sea next Gulf of
Mexico?

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.