Citizens Energy accepts $25m of oil from Venezuela

Kennedy seeks to defuse potential criticism

Citgo chief executive Alejandro Granado (right) and Joseph P. Kennedy II, Citizens Energy founder, were in Braintree. (Stephan Savoia/Associated Press)

Email|Print| Text size – + 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.

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But 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.

As several dozen Citgo employees, local dignitaries, and Citizens Energy supporters shivered under a white tent set up dockside at Citgo's Washington Street terminal, Kennedy served as a highly-caffeinated master of ceremonies, blasting oil companies for reaping huge profits and even - to the delight of the cheering crowd - mangling two paragraphs of "muchas gracias por todos"-level Spanish.

Chávez has become infamous for frequent speeches denouncing the United States and President Bush, and for blasting the injustices of capitalism abroad while people in his socialist nation suffer periodic shortages of milk, eggs, and rice. A Chávez rant at a summit of Spanish-speaking nations in Chile last month prompted Spain's King Juan Carlos I to blurt: "Why don't you shut up?!"

But Chávez let his reputation as an authoritarian strongman slip a bit earlier this month when Venezuelans voted 51 percent to 49 percent against constitutional changes that would let Chávez run for reelection indefinitely after his term expires in 2013. Chávez vowed to accept the results.

Citgo, a wholly owned subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, this month is committing to deliver 8.5 million gallons of home heating oil to 33,000 poor Massachusetts households and 60 homeless shelters, through Citizens Energy's hotline. The local donation will be part of a 23-state, 112-million-gallon contribution.

"I believe this is the biggest social program any oil company ever has done in this country," Citgo chief executive Alejandro Granado said during the ceremony after riding in from Boston Harbor on the tanker ship delivering some of the oil. "Many people say we are doing politics, but life is politics. We are helping people. We are going to make sure that less people go to bed cold this winter."

US Representative William Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat, said he was grateful to Citgo for "an extraordinary example of people-to-people humanitarianism."

"It's time that other oil companies stood up and replicated the example of Citgo," Delahunt said. He added that he planned to soon convene other members of Congress to travel to state-owned oil companies in Kuwait, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia asking them to make similar donations to help poor Americans pay heating bills.