LUCKY SEVERSON: It's very unusual to celebrate the arrival of heating oil in a part of the country where the price this year has already increased 50 cents a gallon and is expected to rise even more.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN (At Podium): I thank you all for coming here to our Penobscot Nation -- to our Indian Island.
SEVERSON: Indian Island is in northern Maine, where the winters are especially brutal. This event was meant as a "thank you" to the oil company CITGO for giving subsidized heating oil to four Maine Indian tribes. For the last few months, CITGO has been supplying oil at nearly half price to needy neighborhoods, homeless shelters, nursing homes, and schools throughout the Northeast.
This delivery is near Portland, Maine where, as in the rest of the country, fuel prices have soared. Last year a group of senators asked major oil companies to donate some of their record profits to reduce the heating costs for those in need. The only one to respond was CITGO, a company wholly owned by Venezuela, whose leftist leader Hugo Chavez is no friend of the Bush administration.
FELIX RODRIGUEZ (CEO, CITGO Petroleum Corporation): President Chavez in Venezuela that call me, and he called and said, "Hey Felix, go for the United States in order to help the poor people."SEVERSON: President Chavez has called President Bush a madman and has condemned capitalism. The Bush administration regards Chavez as a troublemaker. But international politics mean little to those who need assistance, like Mary and Malcolm Lyons. They have been married 68 years.
MALCOLM LYONS: And I tell Mary she was mighty lucky to find me.
SEVERSON (To Mr. Lyons): Is that what you tell Mary?
MARY LYONS: And I tell him the same thing.
SEVERSON: Mary and Malcolm raised five of their own children and several foster kids. Now they're struggling to make ends meet on a fixed income.
Ms. LYONS: I have to be very thrifty with everything, you know. We don't travel. We don't spend money foolishly at all, with the fuel oil prices the way they have been going.SEVERSON: The Lyonses have plenty of company. There are 48,000 low-income households in Maine, which is why Governor John Baldacci applied for CITGO's oil assistance program.
Governor JOHN BALDACCI (D-ME): As far as I'm concerned, as long as they're helping Mainers stay safe, secure, and warm, that's what I care about.
MICHAEL HEATH (Executive Director, Christian Civic League of Maine): We have a significant concern with our governor having anything to do with the likes of Hugo Chavez.
SEVERSON: Michael Heath is the executive director of a conservative activist group called the Christian Civic League of Maine, and he's not happy about the governor doing business with Hugo Chavez.
Mr. HEATH: You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there may be some kind of connection there between him coming into our country and appearing to be this great savior -- this great helper of the poor over that big bad George Bush down in Washington, DC who doesn't care and who lacks compassion, et cetera.SEVERSON: In the beginning, critics were quick to say this is nothing more than a political slap in the face of the Bush administration. But that's an argument that never gained traction in neighborhoods where heating oil prices are skyrocketing, where they care less about politics and more about making it through the winter.
Ms. LYONS: Why don't other oil companies chip in and help? It would be a very good idea, I should think.
MARION JENSEN: I think it is nice of them to offer to give a helping hand. Not anybody would do it, and I think Mr. Bush better go along with it.SEVERSON: In fact, no one at the White House has condemned the Chavez largesse. And if they did, they might hear from Marion Jensen. She's 81, lost her leg to diabetes, and qualifies for CITGO oil.
(To Ms. Jensen): Have you ever had to go without food to pay for your energy bills?
Ms. JENSEN: Oh, yeah. I have it hard. At the end, about the last week of the month, I have to scrape. I don't even have a slice of bread in the house.
Professor NANCY BAUER (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University): If you look at any kind of decent Christian ethics, you see that Jesus is endlessly interested in taking care of the outcasts -- the poor, the people who don't have anything. From the point of view of religious ethics, there's no reason in the world for the government not to come in and help these people.
Gov. BALDACCI: When you start looking at the bottom line, especially of these multinational major oil companies, and you're just asking for a small portion to help out the most vulnerable in our society, it seems like a no-brainer.
Ambassador BERNARDO ALVAREZ HERRERA (Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States): Everybody in the world, including the U.S., uses this idea of helping relieve the poor people as part of their diplomacy.
Ms. LYONS: The help with our fuel oil expenses is very much appreciated. We are both nearing 90. He is nearer it than I am. But thanks to the Venezuelan people -- we thank that country very much, and their leaders.
