This dovetails with a trend highlighted by MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY in the WSJ -- environmental groups don't seem to have a problem with socialist state-owned oil exploration, only with capitalist investor-owned oil companies. Despite the fact that some of the state-owned oil companies are the worst polluters.
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"I have another theory. And mine fits the pattern of resource development – or lack thereof – all over the Western Hemisphere. It comes down to this: Where government has the property right, restrictions on development tend to be low. But when the private sector is the owner, environmental concerns blossom.

Exhibit A is Petrobras. Not only did Mr. Gabrielli say there is no appetite for stopping offshore projects in his country. He went further. "Brazil has one of the freest and most investor-oriented regulation in the world. Even freer than the United States of America," he said, referring to the climate for oil exploration.That may be so, but it would be interesting to know why, given Brazil's prominent embrace of socialism. It could be that the country is changing. After all there is now private-sector competition in the oil industry. Yet it is also worth noting that the Brazilian government has a 58% controlling stake in Petrobras's voting shares and 32% of its total shares. This means that some of Petrobras profits go straight to the government's bottom line, giving the politicians more money to spend on bribing their constituents.

In the U.S., Congress doesn't have nearly such a vested interest in a successful oil industry. What good are corporate profits if they go to shareholders, pensioners and employees? Congress has even been denied the windfall profits tax. For American politicians there is a much greater incentive to respond to the concentrated power of the special interest group known as the "greens."
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