Cover image courtesy of Vecteezy
Last year at a Senate Budget Committee hearing, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) took Heritage Foundation economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth to task for working for organizations that accept money from the oil and gas industry.
Accepting money from people who work in the oil and gas industry? For shame!
But Furchtgott-Roth gave him a taste of his own poison. She pointed out that Whitehouse’s family fortune came from, gasp, the gas business.
Since then, new information has come to light regarding Sen. Whitehouse’s coziness with Big Oil. I’m privy to inside information on this. Correction: outside information.
It has been determined that the Senator is a serial user of products made from oil; hundreds if not thousands of such products. He denigrates Big Oil while simultaneously shelling out thousands of dollars on merchandise that ultimately props up that industry.
Examples? Let’s start with a product he had in plain sight at the Senate hearing while ironically berating Dr. Furchtgott-Roth for her alleged coziness with that industry. As he was droning on about her workplaces’ perceived funders, he had his assistant hold up a sign about “Big Oil Funding” of her current employer. The sign did not appear to be all-cardboard but rather the more common posterboard material with a foam core. The stiff foam is known as polystyrene, a type of plastic. And plastic is made from, you guessed it: crude oil.
Yes, through various chemical processes, plastic is made from naphtha, which is one of the products distilled from crude oil by heating it to certain temperatures.
So we had a situation where a Senator had a sign held up with a message implying that oil companies are scoundrels, yet the material of the sign itself came from the oil companies. Go figure.
Another Big Oil-based product the senator clearly had on display were his eyeglasses – or at least that’s very probably the case. While it’s possible he had metal frames and/or actual glass lenses, far more common these days are lightweight and durable frames and lenses made from plastic compounds.
Similarly, while the suit the senator was wearing may have been 100 percent cotton, wool, or silk, suits these days are commonly made from a blend of cotton and polyester. Yes, polyester is a type of plastic. So Big Oil may have helped supply the senator with the suit he was wearing that day, too.
And surely he must wear casual shirts during his off-hours. Such shirts are increasingly made of the smooth, silky polyester or cotton-polyester blend. We can thank Big Oil for that. Nice plastic you’re wearing!
Dare I mention some of the other Big Oil-derived products we can assume the senator uses? Here’s a partial list: pens, cell phones, computer components, pharmaceuticals, cameras, credit cards, shampoo, shaving cream, shower curtains, toothbrushes, toothpaste, trash bags, soap, and any other product made of or containing plastic.
What if he drives an electric vehicle? He’s still patronizing Big Oil. EVs are replete with plastic components. Even imitation leather seats are petroleum-based. As are tires. The electricity to charge the vehicle likely came from a fossil-fuel-using power plant. And more than 90 percent of the roads the senator drives on are made from oil. Yes, asphalt is comprised of tiny rocks held together by asphalt cement, also known as bitumen. Bitumen is a byproduct of oil refining – it’s the thick, gooey substance left over from crude oil after the various fuels and petrochemicals have been distilled.
The senator surely must be a frequent flyer. Without the services of Big Oil providing the fuel and so many other components within airplanes (plus the runways), flying would be impossible.
The next time Senator Whitehouse or others impugn Big Oil or berate people for working for nonprofits that accept donations from oil and gas companies, point out to them that their words are empty, given that they themselves use oil company products galore. And that for their words to have any meaning, they would need to first swear off using oil company products.
Of course, that would mean being mired in poverty for the rest of their lives, given that so much of the modern world is built on thousands of product lines derived from Big Oil. So they probably wouldn’t be willing to swear off them after all. Which puts them in a very contradictory and compromising position, whenever they bash the hand that feeds them.
