Bill Richardson’s Oil Refinery Holdings
by Pamela LeaveyThe N.Y. Times is reporting the net worth of the ‘08 candidates today and the holdings of one Democratic hopeful struck me as curious:
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat, reported owning more than $100,000 in stock and options worth at least $250,000 in a major oil refiner on whose board he once sat.
As former Secretary of Energy to President Bill Clinton, Richardson’s campaign website notes that Richardson “implemented tough efficiency standards to save energy;” and as Governor of New Mexico, he has “made New Mexico the Clean Energy State by requiring utility companies to produce energy through renewable resources and reduce carbon emissions.”
So what the heck is Richardson doing with an investment in Big Oil? As a candidate who says we need to “end our addiction to oil and abate our global warming crisis,” Richardson is not walking the talk with this investment. If he really wants to show sincerity in ending our “addiction to oil” his investments should be in alternative energy — not Big Oil.
Filed under: Democrats, Election '08, Environment, In The News, Politics | Get Permalink or trackback |
(1)There are those conspiracy theories that say big oil has bought up all of the best alternative energy technologies and is whithholding them from the market. For now, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s using the stock to get his foot in the door to check things out.
(2)The main reason that I’m liking the idea of rationing gasoline is that it would both bring involvement with the concept of working on global warming into our daily lives, and because we actually would be forced, on the individual level, to make some hard choices. This thing about “go build some wind farms out west someplace”, or “tell the car companies to improve gas mileage” has a couple of problems. First, it makes us feel good at the same time that we are failing to make sufficient progress on reducing green house gases. We humans love that simple fix, but this just happens to be a problem that ain’t got one. Also, we’ll get nowhere on this one without feeling some pain, and rationing would be both immediately painful and immediately effective.
Richardson’s Bold Energy Plan
Bill Richardson laid out his vision for energy policy solutions today at the New America Foundation. He’s got some good ideas, some I have heard before and personally I’m one that always believes in giving credit where credit it due.
Reg…
[...] ironment. But, I still have a question for Bill Richardson… What’s up with the oil refinery stocks in your portfolio? David Roberts of Grist called Richardson “the boldest, m [...]