Letter: Oil industry exerts influence

Tuesday, April 1, 2003 | 8:47 a.m.

Not since the days of the "Teapot Dome Scandal" has the petroleum industry wielded such influence. The president in 1922 was Warren G. Harding and his secretary of interior was Albert Fall. There was collusion between the administration and several oil companies. When the smoke finally cleared, Albert Fall was resting in a penitentiary.

Recently, the Senate turned down the Bush administration's proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. No sooner had the Senate acted when Secretary of Interior Gale Norton said the administration will continue the fight.

When one looks at the recent resignation, for potential conflict of interest, of Richard Perle from his position as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, and the questions raised about Halliburton (Vice President Dick Cheney's former company) being given an unsolicited contract in Iraq, one has to be concerned about the petroleum industry's influence.

From the time it was the core of the group that generated the president's "National Energy Policy," the petroleum industry has continued to exert its influence in this administration. I hope we are not headed for another scandal like Teapot Dome.

RAYMOND HARBERT