The Inconvenient Truth Al Gore Hopes You Forget!

So, I wake up this morning to hear Al Gore has won an Oscar for trying to save the world!

Then I went out and shoveled 18” of his global warming out of my driveway.

First question: Why didn't he do anything to try to save the environment during his 8 years as Vice President and how many years as a senator?

Some say the Vice President has no power, can’t make policy, blah, blah.

Next question: Then why was he able to pull off selling one of our few oil reserves at Elk Hills in California to his big oil buddies at the expense of the environment and fuel reserves. This story was widely reported, but that was 10 years ago. How soon we forget.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468

[snip]Occidental's planned drilling of the Elk Hills doesn't only threaten the memory of the Kitanemuk [Indian tribe}. Environmentalists say a rare species of fox, lizard and the kangaroo rat would also be threatened by Oxy's plans. A lawsuit has been filed under the Endangered Species Act. But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore.

Gore recommended that the Elk Hills be sold as part of his 1995 "Reinventing Government" National Performance Review program. Gore-confidant (and former campaign manager) Tony Cohelo served on the board of directors of the private company hired to assess the sale's environmental consequences. The sale was a windfall for Oxy. Within weeks of the announced purchase Occidental stock rose ten percent.

That was good news for Gore. Despite controversy over Dick Cheney's plans to keep stock options if elected, most Americans don't know that we already have a vice president with oil company stocks. Before the Elk Hills sale, Al Gore controlled between $250,000-$500,000 of Occidental stock (he is executor of a trust that he says goes only to his mother, but will revert to him upon her death). After the sale, Gore began disclosing between $500,000 and $1 million of his significantly more valuable stock.

Nowhere is Al Gore's environmental hypocrisy more glaring than when it comes to his relationship with Occidental. While on the one hand talking tough about his "big oil" opponents and waxing poetic about indigenous peoples in his 1992 book "Earth in the Balance," the Elk Hills sale and other deals show that money has always been more important to Al Gore than ideals.