This year, the Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp. is donating $7.4 million in free heating fuel to about 15,000 households in rural Alaska.
It’s the fourth year Citgo has given fuel to cash-poor villages where energy costs are high and jobs are scarce.
The catch: Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is an ardent critic of the United States who once called President Bush “the devil” and teamed with Iran to fund other nations' efforts to, as Chavez put it, "liberate themselves from the (U.S.) imperialist yoke."
When the heating fuel program was first announced, four Western Alaska villages refused the controversial gift but the donation -- valued at $450 per household this year -- is largely received as a welcome relief regardless of where it comes from.
As a vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin called Chavez a “dictator” who “wanted to use energy sources as a weapon” and said the U.S. should pursue energy independence “to be less and less reliant on someone like Hugo Chavez,” according to Reuters. In her book "Going Rogue" Palin slams director Oliver Stone as a Chavez supporter and says she refused to shake his hand at the “Saturday Night Live” studios.
But as governor of Alaska, Palin was silent on the Citgo heating fuel program and didn't say whether she supported the millions of dollars in donations bankrolled by Chavez’s country.
Now a crowd of candidates are running for Palin’s old job with the primary election fewer than six weeks away. Do they support Citgo's gift?
I sent that question to the campaigns of the leading candidates today and plan to post their replies next week.
Meantime, I’d like to hear the candidates’ ideas for improving rural Alaska. What would they do about suicide? About rotting or unsafe housing? Low test scores in schools or lack of jobs?
Please help by sending any questions you’d like to see the candidates answer at khopkins@adn.com.
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.
