Progress Now Action

As published in today's Rocky Mountain News

Coloradans are reeling from skyrocketing prices at the pump while the oil and gas industry is pulling in record profits. In his April 30 column ("Smeared with oil"), Vincent Carroll asks if Bob Schaffer's connection to an energy company is a liability. And the answer is: It should be.

As a congressman, Schaffer voted for $33 billion in tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. When he left office in 2003, the industry, it seems, returned the favor. Schaffer promptly took a job as an oil industry executive and has since earned more than $1 million working to maximize his oil company's profits.

We also question whether Schaffer is profiting from the war in Iraq. As a congressman, he voted to go to war. Then he went to work for the oil company and, in that position, he led the company's delegation in Iraq to lobby local speculators for oil contracts.

At the time, the Iraqi government had secured a hard-fought compromise to ensure that all parties in the country could work together to manage the oil fields and share the profits. For President Bush, the national oil-sharing agreement was a key benchmark of progress in Iraq.

But Schaffer's moves seem to undermine all that. By negotiating directly with American companies like Schaffer's, the local speculators were ignoring the Iraqi national government and working against American interests.

Schaffer's trip to Iraq was bad for Iraq and bad for American interests but it paid off for him: This past November, as the war dragged into its fourth year, Schaffer's oil company was awarded a lucrative license for 269 square miles in northern Iraq.

Congressman Schaffer consistently voted to help the oil and gas industry and, since leaving office, he's personally benefited from that industry. And his company has profited from working around the rules in a war he voted to authorize.

Michael Huttner heads Denver-based ProgressNowAction.