RALPH
NADER CRITICIZES CLINTON-GORE ENERGY POLICY
By Nader 2000 Primary Committee
June 28, 2000
WASHINGTON,
D.C. Ralph Nader said today that the Clinton-Gore Administration's
inaction on energy policy is a major contributing factor to the
high gasoline prices that are choking consumers and the national
economy.
"The
Administration has no early warning or investigative system that
would alert the nation to the oil companies' plans to tighten output
and production," Nader said. "They have simply been asleep at the
wheel and, as a result, consumers and businesses are paying a heavy
the price at the pump," Nader said.
Nader,
the Green Party candidate for President, was particularly critical
of the Administration's failure to come up with new fuel efficiency
standards over the past eight years.
"Where
are the standards that would have helped mitigate the damage stemming
from the current fuel price increases?" Nader asked.
Equally
damaging, Nader said, was the Justice Departmentıs failure to effectively
challenge such recent mergers as British Petroleum with Amoco and
Exxon with Mobil.
"The
combining of these giant oil companies concentrates the oil industryıs
economic power in fewer hands and gives these merged companies greater
opportunity to manipulate prices," Nader said. "Oil company profits
are up an average of 300 percent in the first quarter of 2000 compared
to the first quarter of 1999. This excessive profit trend is expected
to continue indefinitely and invites serious consideration of an
excess profits tax.
Nader
said the Administration's soft policies toward the oil industry
were further evidenced by the sale to Occidental Petroleum of Naval
petroleum fields at the Elk Hill Reservoir which historically have
been reserved for emergencies.
"The
Clinton-Gore Administration needs to toughen its stance on energy
policy, stop currying favor with oil companies and start protecting
consumers and small businesses, truckers and others whose pockets
are being picked at the gasoline pumps," Nader said. "All the Administration
is doing now is flinging rhetoric toward consumers who know that
nothing by way of action will follow."
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