U.S. will accept Venezuelan oil charity: Bodman - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman on Tuesday said he would not turn down charitable donations of cheap heating fuels this winter, even if it comes from a Venezuelan leader who called
President Bush' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> President Bush "the devil."
"I can't find my way clear to object to Venezuela being charitable," Bodman told Reuters in an interview after touring a renewable energy lab at the University of Cincinnati.
"I view it as a charitable contribution and I wish more companies did it," Bodman said, referring to past donations of heating oil by Venezuela to states like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York.
Citgo Petroleum, backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, plans to expand a controversial program of subsidizing home-heating oil for the U.S. poor this year, doubling the number of states that will receive the cheap oil.
Venezuela, which provides around 12 percent of U.S. oil imports, is a member of the
OPEC' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> OPEC oil cartel.
Some U.S. politicians who once embraced the cheap oil from Caracas - including those in Maine - are now shunning it after Chavez called President Bush "the devil" in a September 20 speech at the
United Nations' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> United Nations.
The expanded program threatens to deepen an ongoing spat between Chavez and Bush, who calls the Venezuelan a threat to democracy in Latin America. Socialist Chavez says Bush is trying to undermine his political support.
(Additional reporting by Andrea Hopkins)