Ask Oil Companies to Help in Haiti

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-01-18 13:14:00 UTC
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Update 1/21/10, 12:11am: Chevron has donated $1.2 million to relief efforts via its foundation, the Chevron Global Fund.

Update 1/19/10, 7:11pm: Valero has just emailed Change.org to alert us that they have encouraged headquarter employees to donate, and its Canadian subsidiary, Ultramar, has made a contribution to the International Red Cross -- both efforts that the company, to its credit, hadn't publicized. Kudos to Valero, and we hope that Exxon Mobil and Chevron likewise step up.

Among the current catalog of Haiti's needs, fuel ranks near the top of the list, with UNICEF warning that fuel shortages in Haiti could force relief efforts to “grind to a halt” as soon as tomorrow.

Indispensable for everything -- moving people and supplies, generating electricity for cooking, communications, hospital and lighting -- supplies are running perilously low, aid workers say. Hospitals are running on generators "day and night," Benoit Leduc, operations manager for Médecins Sans Frontières, told reporters on a conference call today. Whatever fuel stocks MSN had in the country, they are falling short.

Which leads to the question: why haven't oil companies stepped up to the challenge?

Around the world, the corporate has responded to the crisis in Haiti with an outpouring -- at least $61 million in contributions to date.

That, though, doesn't include Exxon Mobil and Chevron, and Valero Energy, one three of the top 10 U.S. corporations. While the rest of the 10 largest companies in the United States have contributed, so far, Exxon those oil companies have has yet to step up to the plate.

Ask Exxon these companies to join the rest of America’s top 10 corporations in supporting Haiti here:

Photo Credit: 10b travelling

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.
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