This says a lot about how well the U.S. is doing.

The Alaska Governor blames the citizens of course.

Oil rich Alaskans depend on Venezuela for Oil

About 150 native villages in Alaska have accepted money for heating oil from Citgo. The oil company does not operate in Alaska, so instead of sending oil, it is donating about $5.3 million to native nonprofit organizations to buy 100 gallons this winter for each of more than 12,000 households.

“When you have a dire need and it is a matter of survival for your people, it doesn’t matter where, what country, the gift or donation comes from,” said Virginia Commack, an elder in the arctic village of Ambler, an impoverished Eskimo community of 280 where residents are paying $7.25 a gallon for fuel.

“It’s embarrassing that residents in a state with so much oil wealth should be looking to a foreign nation for help,” the newspaper said. “It’s hard to blame villagers for accepting the gift.”

A spokesman for Gov. Frank Murkowski, John Manly, said the governor believes Chavez’s donation is a ploy to undermine Americans’ faith in their government. But he said it is up to each village to make its own decision.

“It seems like a very strange irony that we produce the oil and yet every year there seems to be a chronic problem in getting the fuel to people that need it,” Manly said.

Joan Eddy, principal and teacher at Nelson Lagoon’s school, said most buildings in town were erected 30 to 40 years ago, which makes them pretty old, considering how they get battered by the constant 20-25 mph wind coming off the ocean. Their heating systems are aging, too.

She noted the fuel barge is late arriving this year, and said residents are turning on their furnaces for only a few hours in the morning and at night.

“We’re conserving as much as we can because we are concerned. It looks like it’s going to be a snowy winter and cold,” she said.

Maine Gov. John Baldacci, who approved an agreement last winter to buy discounted oil, said he had no plans this year to seek a similar arrangement. In Boston, a City Council member wants a landmark Citgo sign near Fenway Park taken down and replaced with an American flag. In Florida, a lawmaker asked the state to cancel Citgo’s exclusive contract to sell fuel at turnpike service stations.

============================================================================ There is obviously a big problem there in Alaska I wasn’t aware of.

Since there is such an infrastructure problem the area should be declared unsafe and unfit for human habitation.