DON BELL REPORTS

A WEEKLY COMMENTARY

Year Twenty-Nine ... Number Eleven ... March 12, 1982

Table of Contents

PIPELINE SCAMS AND OTHER SWINDLES

When former Senator Harrison Williams, victim of the controversial ABSCAM entrapment, tendered his resignation to the jury of his senatorial peers, he was much quoted by the media for having used the words the Apostle Paul had written to Timothy when nearing the end of his ministry: "I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith." More appropriate for the time and the occasion would have been the quotation he had intended to use had Williams continued his own fight. It is reported that he had searched the Bible and had decided that he should look at his accusers and quote the words found in the Gospel of John, 8:7. The scribes and the pharisees of that day had tried to entrap Jesus by asking Him to judge a woman who had been caught in adultery. The words of the Lord might aptly fit our 97th Senate: "Let him who is without sin first cast the stone..." For, to the close observer, the machinations of our national politics has been a wonder to behold; and it has been a wonder that the people of the United States continue to tolerate the many sins of commission and omission on the part of those supposedly representing them in Washington, without casting hypothetical stones. The evidence of swindles in which so many of our "democratic" legislators are engaged can be seen in a series of pipeline decisions, about which the media has been not surprisingly silent. There are three connected instances: The Trans-Alaskan Pipline, the gas pipeline that is being built at our expense from Siberia to Western Europe and the proposed gas pipeline that is to be laid from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to run through Canada to San Francisco and Chicago.

These pipelines all have connections with the New World Order movement and the promotion of INTERdependence on a global scale. And the tie-in: the fake energy crisis that had been created to raise and equalize petroleum prices on a world-wide scale. Court historian Henry Steel Commager had presented the proposition clearly in the "Declaration of Interdependence," that he wrote and delivered, and was signed by 125 U.S. Senators and Representatives in 1976. He said: "We affirm that the resources of the globe are finite, not infinite, that they are the heritage of no one nation or generation, but of all peoples, nations and of posterity, and that our deepest obligation is to transmit to that posterity a planet richer in material bounty, in beauty and delight than we found it. Narrow notions of national sovereignty must not be permitted to curtail this obligation." The idea that "the resources of the global are finite" was the idea behind the creation, by the Rockefeller-established Trilateral Commission, of the European-based International Energy Agency (IEA) in 1974. This was an organization that was to oversee the world's use of energy. It was created to oversee the created worldwide energy crisis. The Trilateral Commission told the world's opinion makers through its Trilateral Paper #5 that "We can see the end of the hydrocarbon age .. The (energy) crisis poses fundamental questions about how our expanding industrial societies ... will fare in the coming decade when oil supplies are neither cheap nor secure ... All our countries have got to get along with less energy." The Triangle Paper concludes: "Our peoples need a wartime psychology to fight this (energy) war against ourselves. They should be prepared to share sacrifices among themselves because it will be a long, uphill battle."

This fabricated threat of running out of hydrocarbon produced a secondary reaction: there was a rush to seek out new sources of oil and gas. Even before the energy crisis was announced, nine oil companies formed a consortium, the Alyeska Pipeline Service, to construct a pipeline across Alaska so that some of that State's fabulous oil reserves could be provided to consumers. However, for reasons we won't go into at this time, just as the project was getting under way in 1969, the federal government halted it. We'll also omit the machinations and manipulations that went on for half a decade; but in 1974, when the Trilateral Commission was overseeing its energy crisis through Congress and the Administration, the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company was given permission to continue the pipeline construction. However, a project that was estimated to cost $600 million now was going to cost $12 billion! And the oil companies had to make up the difference. However, oil companies don't pay taxes -- they just collect them for the government. And they don't pay out billions to build pipelines, they just transfer the costs to the consumers. Then there followed that "Windfall Profits" tax, which was just another ploy to weaken private enterprise. As Lindsey C. Williams remarked in an excellent article appaering in March 1982 The National Educator: "The energy crisis which began in 1974 was a test to see how much you would allow yourself to be controlled." It was also an almost foolproof way of promoting interdependence -- because that Alaskan oil reportedly isn't sold in the United States. It's transported to overseas markets, especially to Japan. Incidentally, only the Prudhoe field was permitted to be pumped. There are two other fields in that part of Alaska, Kuparuk and Gull Island -- both of which are said to be far greater than Prudhoe, and potentially the richest fields on the face of the earth. Lindsey Williams refers to the Alaskan Scam as "a scandal greater than Watergate since whoever controls energy controls the people." For a detailed account of the Alaskan Swindle, we suggest you read (if you haven't already) the story of "The Energy Non-Crisis," Write to Energy, P.O. Box 7, Kasilof, Alaska, 99610, $3.70 postage paid.


The gas pipeline at Novy Urengoy, Russia

More important to our national security was the next Pipeline Promotion, from Urengoy in Siberia through the U.S.S.R. to West Germany, where it is to deliver natural gas to European (NATO) buyers. An excellent article was front-paged in Human Events of March 13, 1982. A few important quotes: "How committed is the United States to stopping the Soviet natural gas pipeline? The Administration has been sounding a bit tougher of late .. But words are cheap .. The Department of Commerce on August 3 approved a deal for Caterpillar to sell 100 super pipe-layers to the Soviets for $40 million, a deal that would clearly facilitate the pipeline transaction ... [Secretary of State] Haig pushed for approval of the Caterpillar sale, as did Robert D. Hormats [CFR], assistant secretary of state for economic affairs, and Myers Rashish [CFR], under secretary for economic affairs .. On December 9, President Reagan decided to approve an export license for Caterpillar Tractor Co. to sell 200 more pipelaying machines to the Soviet Union for its oil and natural gas projects. On February 10, The New York Times reported from Lisbon: 'Secretary Haig said today that, despite differences with the Western Europeans over a natural gas pipeline from the Soviet Union, the United States should not use the Polish crisis as an excuse to pressure them or cancel or cut back on the project... '

"The embrace of the Soviet pipeline .. is what may well end the NATO alliance, as American lawmakers such as Majority Whip Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) .. have already begun to suggest a U.S. pullout from Europe if the pipeline goes forward. The pipeline is a jeweled dagger aimed at the heart of Europe. Under the proposed project ... the Soviets would be transmitting gas to as many as 10 European countries .. Not only would Western Europe be far more dependent on the Soviets for energy supplies, but the Russians would be earning enormous amounts of foreign currencies." (unquote)

Here again, we see the sacrifice of national sovereignty in the name of Interdependence. As Leonid Brezhnev said, "The accelerated development and exploitation of Siberian natural gas resources is a matter of highest economic and political priority." The idea of eventually merging the Soviet Union and the United States has long been a goal of the financial elitists. And, just as the Trilateral Commission has indicated in its own papers, control of energy leads to control of countries and of peoples. It also leads to financial gains of enormous amounts to those politicians who become tools of the "elitists." Here is an example, which comes to us from Globescan, a Paris/Geneva-based news source which provides "real news behind the media coverage." We quote:

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EVER GET THE FEELING YOU'VE BEEN HAD?

The recent passage of the $37 billion Alaskan pipeline waiver has enabled the public to view the machinations of politics in America at their worst. In this latest test of the "government of the people." the clear winners were an influential private businessman, three major oil companies, an assortment of major banks, and the coffers of the political machinery in Washington. And the losers? The American people who could end up paying for gas they will never use. Here's the way it was done:

  1. In 1977 the Northwest Alaskan Pipeline Company (NAPC) was granted the exclusive right by the Federal Government to build a 4,800-mile natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay through Canada to San Francisco and Chicago.
  2. The government stipulated that the entire project was to be privately financed; that gas consumers would not be charged until gas was delivered; and that oil companies owning Prudhoe reserves would be prohibited from having an interest in the pipeline.
  3. But the banks wouldn't finance; Chase Manhattan, Citibank, Morgan Guarantee and Bank of America, even with their tight links to the oil companies, considered it too risky. So behind the scenes the power brokers, with their favors, pressure and money went to work. Result: John G. McMillan, chairman of NAPC, got Congress to change the law.
  4. First he made friends with the President's top advisers and Mr. Rockefeller's top aide in the White House, Mike Deaver. Mr. McMillan hired the public relations firm of Peter Hannaford, former partner of Mr. Deaver, Mr. Hannaford had purchased his consulting firm from National Security Adviser Richard Allen. That took care of the Republicans.
  5. Next he hired former Vice-President Walter Mondale as a consultant and contributed to his political action committee. Also among the Democrats was Robert Strauss, former chairman of the Democratic Party. McMillian also hired White, Fine and Verville, one of whom was the chairman of the Federal Power Commission under Lyndon Johnson. Also the law firm of Charles Mannatt, the current chairman of the Democratic Party. Even the oil companies kicked in and showered Congress with $80,000 in January alone.
  6. On September 22nd, McMillian met with Presidential counsellor Edward Messe. The President endorsed the necessary waiver on October 6th. It was sent to Congress on October 15th and on November 19th the Senate passed the bill after just one hour of debate.
  7. In the House there was not much opposition either, but Representative Edward E.J. Markey (D-Mass.) rightly observed that the bill was "nothing more than a subsidy for the oil companies and the banks," and Rep. Tom Corcoran (R-Ill.) declared that the bill had the potential to be "the greatest consumer ripoff in the history of the United States."
  8. On December 15th 1981, President Reagan signed the waiver bill. The entire legislative process took exactly two months -- for a $37 billion project which nearly equals the budget cuts Congress had been haggling over since the beginning of the year (and our legislators congratulated themselves two weeks later by raising the ceiling on members' additional outside income to $100,000 and giving themselves a special tax break for maintaining two homes).
  9. "We lobbied hard," said Mr. McMillian afterward. "I don't know how much I've given. I don't mind giving money away. Politics and the people who run our country are very important to our country's future." Obviously, Mr. McMillian never knew, and the Congressmen "forgot," that their job is not to create and change laws but to represent the people. (Globescan plus Research Reports, Great Barrington, Mass).

Globescan Comment: The pipeline is supposed to be paid for by pre-billing the consumers whether or not other segments of the pipeline are ever built and even though the consumers may never receive any gas at all. In other words, the financial risks and none of the rewards are transferred to the consumer. The government has forced the consumers to invest and assume the risks of a project on which the banks wouldn't lend. And the economic feasibility still remains unanswered. You may be pre-billed anywhere from $1.50 to $12 a month!

Now the banks are eager to lend because you are going to guarantee their loans. There is no cost limitation. The consumers are committed to guarantee the project. $37 billion? $100 billion? And to add insult to this terrible injury, no one, not even the proponents of the pipeline, denies that the Alaskan gas will be more expensive than domestic gas. One member of Congress said it will be four times more costly. This could give "forced" consumer-investors higher monthly gas bills than the return on their investment!

So the bankers are guaranteed and thanks to the new waiver, Exxon, Atlantic Richfield and Standard Oil (Ohio) now can own an interest in the pipeline. One of the curiosities of the whole pipeline's scam is that the oil companies which were prohibited from the program originally when financial risks were involved can now participate freely with virtually all financial risks transferred to the consumer. But the laws can always be changed -- can't they? Mr. McMillian and the other sponsors are gifted with foresight: the new law states that the concessions cannot be amended by Congress in the future.

Evidently American citizens have forgotten and the government no longer cares about the legislative process embodied in the Constitution. Americans used to elect and send their representatives to Washington. Now, unquestioning Americans democratically select legislators (law-makers), not representatives, who create laws and compel the people who elect them to comply. Poor America -- or more appropriately -- poorer Americans -- $37 billion poorer, at least. (Reprinted from Globescan, Paris/Geneva. U.S. subscription service center: 1545 New York Avenue, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002. 24 issues: $125.00)

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Three Pipeline Scams. One helps overseas consumers. One helps the USSR. All help the Money Barons and the Washington Politicos. None help the people who end up paying the bills. We pray this Report may awaken some of them.

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