Politically Correct Donations Only
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. When was the last time anyone heard of a major U.S. oil spill? Also I don’t know where he gets the idea that people associate oil and oceans with spills. To me it seems far more likely that ocean drilling would be associated with these words.
In case Sant hasn’t noticed many of the large oil companies who are members of the API have begun to embrace the idea that global warming is real which should go hand in hand with his own beliefs.
For the API’s part the money they want to contribute will go towards sponsoring a web site called Ocean Portal where they would have their logo appear and receive acknowledgement of their support. The content of the site will be left to the Smithsonian.
Sant and Leahy need to get their collective heads out of the sand and accept the American Petroleum Institute’s offer and stop turning the Smithsonian into some sort of political football.
Don Irvine is the chairman of Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
Don Irvine
Donald Irvine is the chairman of of Accuracy in Academia (AIA), a non-profit research group reporting on bias in education. Irvine follows his father’s legacy, Reed Irvine, to critically analyze the liberal media’s bias and brings over thirty years of media analysis experience. He has published countless blog posts and articles on media bias, in context of current events, and he has been interviewed by many news media outlets during his professional career. He currently hosts a livestream weekly show on AIA’s Facebook page which discusses current events.
Irvine graduated from the University of Maryland and rose up the ranks to become chairman of Accuracy in Media until his transition to AIA.
He resides in the suburbs around the nation’s capital and is a proud father and grandfather.
