Income-eligible Alaskans buy heating oil at discount

December 18th, 2006

Courtesy of  The Arctic Sounder
By Susan B. Andrews and John Creed

Kotzebue, Alaska - Citgo, the state-owned oil giant that's donating heating fuel to more than 150 Alaska Native villages this winter, is also offering big discounts on heating oil to income-eligible Alaskans trying to keep warm this winter in the nation's coldest state.

Citgo launched the program last winter in the Lower 48 states mostly in the Northeast, but this winter the program has doubled the number of states it's serving to include Alaska.

Income-eligible Alaskans can purchase up to 200 gallons of heating fuel through Citizens Energy Corp. at a 40 percent discount, said Brian O'Connor, a Citizens Energy spokesman who accompanied the Venezuelan delegation to Kotzebue on Nov. 30, when tribal members traveled to Kotzebue to thank Citgo and Venezuela for the donated heating fuel.

Citizens Energy's distribution program differs from the one that's distributing free heating oil through Native non-profits to rural Alaska communities that are at least 80 percent Alaska Native, O'Connor said.

Citizens Energy Corp., on the other hand, is distributing discount fuel oil this winter to low-income Alaskans everywhere in rural and urban Alaska and not just in villages with at least 80 percent Native populations, he said.

Experience Counts

Last winter when Houston-based Citgo needed an American non-profit to help distribute millions of dollars in discounted heating oil to low-income families in the Lower 48, it tapped Citizens Energy Corp.

The Massachusetts-based non-profit already had a decades-long track record distributing discounted heating oil to low-income families in New England states.

"We had a 25-year relationship with dealers, and the infrastructure in place," O'Connor said, adding that his organization serves both tribal and non-tribal income-eligible Alaska households throughout Alaska.

Citgo first hired Citizens Energy Corp. last winter to deliver discounted oil to needy families and the elderly in Lower 48 states, mostly in the Northeast. Before its affiliation with Citgo, Citizens Energy Corp. operations had primarily targeted New England states since its inception.

Citizens Energy Corp. is tied to one of America's best-known political families. Amid soaring energy prices during the American hostage crisis in Iran of the late 1970s, former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, D-Mass., before he became a congressman, created Citizens Energy Corp. He is the eldest son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy.

Joe Kennedy created his non-profit to provide deeply discounted heating fuel to needy families and elders in his home state, serving people who'd been hardest hit by high fuel prices.

Kennedy has taken heat from critics for his firm's alliance with Venezuela and particularly its president, the outspoken Hugo Chavez, who has repeatedly bashed the administration of President George W. Bush on the world stage. But Kennedy said he'd solicited other entities besides Citgo.

"We approached every major oil company and every OPEC nation last year to ask that a small slice of their record profits go to help the poor," Kennedy said in a late-November press release. "Only one company-Citgo-and only one nation-Venezuela-stepped up to the plate to offer a helping hand."

This winter Citgo and Citizens Energy Corp., which also promotes energy conservation, has doubled the number of states in which it operates, with Alaska joining15 other states as the only state west of Wisconsin in the program. Income-eligible residents can apply for up to 200 gallons of heating fuel at 60 percent of the retail price, O'Connor said.

A family of four earning about $48,000 a year in Alaska would be eligible, O'Connor said. (Call 1-877-JOE-4-OIL or go to citizensenergy.com.) Citizens Energy works with local heating oil dealers to distribute the fuel, he said.

Susan B. Andrews and John Creed are humanities professors at the University of Alaska's branch campus in Kotzebue, located 26 miles above the Arctic Circle in Northwest Alaska. Susan Andrews is a former news director and evening news co-anchor at KTVF-Channel 11 in Fairbanks, John Creed a former reporter for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Their latest book, "Authentic Alaska II: Voices of the Far North," is due for release in 2007.