Posted on 11/06/2007 7:34:56 AM PST by bs9021
Politically Correct Donations Only
by: Don Irvine, November 06, 2007
The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Smithsonian Institution has put on hold a $5 million donation from the American Petroleum Institute over objections from two of the museum complex's Board of Regents including U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) about accepting money from the oil industry for a project on the world's oceans.
The main objection came from the regents' longtime executive committee chairman Roger Sant who ironically made his fortune as the founder of power company AES which is a member of the American Petroleum Institute.
Since that time though Sant has become a major advocate of protecting the seas including $10 million for the Smithsonian project Ocean Hall which will cost $49 million overall and include a web site to showcase ocean research, a Sant chair for Maine Science and other related programs.
"I have some real concerns about this," Sant told the Post. "I want to be sure that the sponsor's behavior is consistent with the message we're trying to deliver. It is a question mark given the record of oil spills in the past two decades."
Sant also told the Post that when people think of oil and oceans they think of spills. "I know the industry has done quite a bit to minimize [spills] in the future," he said. "I think it is in everyone's mind that oceans and oil are not consistent."
As the former chairman of the World Wildlife Fund, Sant is showing both his bias and ignorance of the oil industry today. Major oil spills have declined dramatically and rarely occur in U.S navigable waters. Also I don't know where he gets the idea that people associate oil and oceans with spills.
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
we return the donation so we can tax it.
Perhaps they could be even more pure, and refuse donations from anyone who has ever exhaled carbon dioxide or added to their city’s sewage system.
And as they finished they hopped into their SUV’s to go home to their 10k sq ft mansions lighted by coal burning fossil fuels and heated with natural gas.
How about not trying to deliver a message in the first place?
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