Officials: More Heating Help Needed For Struggling Families

[Judi Lynn]

Source: The Boston Channel

Officials: More Heating Help Needed For Struggling Families
Citizens Energy Gets Oil Shipment From Venezuela

POSTED: 4:52 pm EST December 10, 2007
UPDATED: 6:11 pm EST December 10, 2007

BRAINTREE, Mass. -- Help for families trying to stay warm this winter arrived in the form of an oil tanker in Braintree on Monday. But even as Joe Kennedy accepted a huge shipment of oil for Citizens Energy, he said he is worried that it won't be enough.

NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill reported that it is the third year that Citizens Energy has partnered with Venezuela's Citgo to provide millions of gallons of heating oil to families in 16 states.

Kennedy said his program might not be enough to help many families struggling to heat their homes amid skyrocketing oil prices this year.

"We can get them 100 gallons, but that's it. Unless the federal government puts money back into fuel assistance, I'm so worried about what people are going to go through this winter," Kennedy said.



Read more: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/14816257/detail.html

[magellan]

1. BushCo would rather let Americans freeze to death

...unless a way to make serious profit off their hardship can be found.

[MADem]

2. 100 gallons won't see them through a month.

this is the SHAMEFUL part of the story:

Citizens Energy said so far, no other major oil companies have been interested in entering into similar partnerships.

[ooglymoogly]

3. Much better to give the money to cronies feeding at the corporate welfare troff

than to waste it on the poor and elderly to keep them alive. fkn greedy, stingy bastards should be hung by their toes in the town square where people can throw rotten garbage at them...and all the while they are telling us why Chavez is such a slim character for helping the desperate folks who need it. This year they pegged inflation at a little over 2% when in fact it has gone up by about 16% to be charitable.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Citizens Energy accepts $25m of oil from Venezuela

Citizens Energy accepts $25m of oil from Venezuela
Kennedy seeks to defuse potential criticism
By Peter J. Howe
Globe Staff / December 11, 2007

BRAINTREE - He may have been named for a former ambassador to the king of England. And he may have been sitting in front of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's American ambassador.

more stories like thisBut as the charity run by Joseph P. Kennedy II formally received a third annual donation of heating oil yesterday from Venezuelan-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp., Kennedy was talking the language of dockworkers, not diplomats.

"Our government gets their panties in a knot much more than most Americans do about Hugo Chávez," said Kennedy, founder of Citizens Energy, seeking to defuse possible criticism about taking $25 million of heating oil from Venezuela's state-controlled petroleum monopoly. No other oil company Kennedy solicited was willing to make the donation, he said.

"I know there's a lot of controversy about the fact that this oil ultimately comes from Citgo, from Venezuela and, yes, from Hugo Chávez. I'll never be in the tank to Hugo Chávez, but I'll tell you I wish we had a little more leadership in this country that has a concern for the poor and the disenfranchised as we do in other parts of the world," said Kennedy, a former congressman and grandson of the late ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, patriarch of the political clan that produced a president, senators, and representatives.

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/11/citizens_energy_accepts_25m_of_oil_from_venezuela/