Big Oil: Green Fiend or Friend? (National Review, 04.13.10)

Posted by hpayne on April 13, 2010

With green governments asserting more and more control over energy markets, you need a scorecard to keep track of the players. This week’s green pariah can be next week’s rent-seeking sellout — if the price is right. Auto companies were once fierce opponents of federal mpg laws. Today, auto execs like Ford CEO Alan Mulally are cheerleaders for the EPA standard. Will the oil industry buckle next?

Watch Valero Energy Corp, one of the country’s refinery giants.

Valero is Green Enemy #1 as it rides point against California’s draconian cap-and-trade global-warming law mandating CO2 reduction of 15 percent below current levels by 2020. Cap-and-trade is anathema to Big Oil’s electricity-hungry refineries. So Valero has poured $500,000 into a California ballot initiative that would halt the Governator’s pet law. Valero is also a vocal opponent of federal cap-and-trade laws. . . .

Read full article here.

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