Vice President Al Gore delivered a scathing speech back on Oct. 7, 1997, at Georgetown University in Washington chiding those who “ignore the scientific warnings [about global warming] and continue stubbornly on our current course.” How will our children and grandchildren ever forgive us, Gore asked, if we do not act in the face of overwhelming evidence that burning more oil and coal is changing the earth’s climate?
On that very same day, thanks to recommendations Gore made as part of his crusade to “reinvent government,” the Department of Energy announced that Occidental Petroleum was buying the Elk Hills reserve in California, 47,000 acres of oil-rich, publicly owned land that had been off-limits to commercial development since 1912. President Nixon had tried to open up Elk Hills to private interests in 1973, after the first oil shock. President Reagan tried three separate times to do the same. Each time, Congress blocked the sale. But Al Gore, with President Clinton’s help, succeeded.
The purchase of Elk Hills tripled Occidental Petroleum’s domestic oil reserves overnight. It also enriched Occidental’s stockholders, including Gore’s father, Al Gore Sr. The elder Gore owned more than $500,000 worth of Occidental stock at the time of the Elk Hills purchase in 1997. When he died the following year, his son became the executor of his estate and, according to the vice president’s federal income disclosure forms, the estate continued, as of May 1999, to hold the Occidental stock.