South Florida lawmakers seek to cut off oil revenues to Venezuela

Two South Florida lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill in Congress to crack down on loopholes that allow oil company revenues to flow to the Venezuela’s authoritarian government.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, and U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Miami, are sponsoring the bill that, if passed, would prohibit “new and existing licenses for companies to transact with Venezuela’s state oil company.”

The lawmakers say that the current oil revenue provides “for the Maduro regime’s bloody crimes against humanity and his ongoing election denial.”

Venezuela’s main opposition coalition and others have called on the U.S. to cancel the licenses that allow Chevron and other energy companies to operate in the South American country to pressure President Nicolás Maduro to negotiate a transition from power.

California-based Chevron is the largest company to have received an individual permission from the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to do business with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., better known as PDVSA. The Treasury Department sanctioned PDVSA in 2019 as part of a policy punishing Maduro’s government for corrupt, anti-democratic and criminal activities.

The introduction of the legislation in Washington comes as Maduro was sworn into office Friday to another six-year term as president in Venezuela, despite credible evidence that he lost last summer’s election by a landslide.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was banned from running against Maduro, called for mass protest to block the swearing-in from happening. The opposition declared its candidate, Edmundo González, as the legitimate winner.

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In a statement, Wasserman Schultz said “rescinding these special licenses … are critical to meaningfully rejecting Maduro’s election theft. We cannot afford to cave to fossil fuel companies’ investors at the expense of democracy, dignity and justice.”

Said Salazar: “Oil exports are the lifeline of the socialist Maduro regime. They are what fuels the repressive apparatus being used to deny the democratic voice of the Venezuelan people.”

Joining Wasserman Schultz at a press conference Friday morning in Sunrise: Venezuelan-American community leaders, including Adelys Ferro, co-founder and executive director of the Venezuelan-American Caucus and Helene Villalonga, founder of AMAVEX.

The National Assembly, which like all institutions in Venezuela is controlled by the ruling socialist party, is scheduled to swear in Maduro. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with government loyalists, declared Maduro the winner of the election. But unlike in previous contests, authorities did not provide any access to voting records or precinct-level results.

The opposition collected tally sheets from 85% of electronic voting machines and posted them online, showing that González thrashed Maduro by a more than two-to-one margin.

Experts from the United Nations and the Atlanta-based Carter Center, both invited by Maduro’s government to observe the election, have said the tally sheets published by the opposition are legitimate.

The U.S. and other governments have also recognized González as Venezuela’s president-elect. Even many of Maduro’s former leftist allies in Latin America plan to skip Friday’s swearing-in ceremony.

Outgoing President Joe Biden, meeting González at the White House this week, praised the previously unknown retired diplomat for having “inspired millions.”

“The people of Venezuela deserve a peaceful transfer of power to the true winner of their presidential election,” Biden said following the meeting.

Since last summer’s elections, the government has arrested more than 2,000 people — including as many as 10 Americans and other foreigners — who it claims have been plotting to oust Maduro and sow chaos in the oil rich South American nation. This week alone, masked gunmen arrested a former presidential candidate, a prominent free speech activist and even González’s son-in-law as he was taking his young children to school.

“It’s an impressive show of force but it’s also a sign of weakness,” said Corrales, who co-authored this month an article, “How Maduro Stole Venezuela’s Vote,” in the Journal of Democracy.

“Maduro is safe in office,” said Corrales, “but he and his allies recognize they are moving forward with a big lie and have no other way to justify what they are doing except by relying on the military.”

González, who has been crisscrossing the Americas this week after fleeing to Spain in September, appeared to walk back a pledge to return to Venezuela to take office himself on Jan. 10, saying instead he’d be back “very soon.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.