Burma Update

While the ruling government in party continues to pay lip service to international demands by meeting with opposition leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi (and simultaneously rounding others up and keeping them under house arrest), Congress is trying to do something tangible that may put an end to the suffering of the Burmese people.

Lawmakers are advancing efforts to curtail energy giant Chevron's activities in Myanmar, which are said to provide significant financial support for the ruling military junta. The regime is responsible for recent violence against democracy activists.

Chevron is part of a multi-billion-dollar consortium that extracts and transports natural gas from the country, which has suffered weeks of violence by government troops against Buddhist monks, students and other pro-democracy activists, according to experts and human rights groups.

Much of the ruling junta's financial support comes from the royalties and other revenue paid by Chevron and the other members of the gas operation. The group paid more than $2 billion to the Myanmar government last year, according to the group Human Rights Watch.

U.S. sanctions largely prohibit investment in Myanmar by U.S. companies. Chevron's investment pre-dated the U.S. sanctions, and was grandfathered in by the ban. It is the only major U.S. company remaining in Myanmar.

That is absolutely shameful, and there should be activists in front of every Chevron station in America demanding that they get out of Burma and stop propping up a cruel dictatorship. I've been critical of Chevron for a long time, and their donation to my state party continues to rankle me. At the very least, organizations that have any affiliation from Chevron should be denouncing them on a daily basis.

The Congress is doing their part.

On Tuesday, the House Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved a bill by its chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., that would bar the firm from paying taxes to the government of Myanmar, or write off expenses relating to the project from its U.S. tax bill.

The legislation now moves to two other committees for approval, before it is voted on by the full House.

A similar Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is awaiting action in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That bill would make the earlier ban apply to Chevron's operation, and force the company to divest.

When the President made that big dog-and-pony announcement last week about new sanctions against Burma, none of them included sanctioning Chevron for doing business in the country. In case you weren't aware where his loyalties lay.

But he's out on an island when it comes to a Congressional bill. He can't have talked up democracy promotion and condemned Burma for this long only to veto a bill aimed at furthering precisely those goals. Or can he? It'd be the "freedom agenda" vs. the Supertanker Condoleezza Rice.