THE CONTRACT HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED—BUT WHERE IS THE LEGAL AUTHORITY? On Venezuela’s Oil, Public Power, and the Documents Behind Sixty-Five Billion Barrels

 THE CONTRACT HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED—BUT WHERE IS THE LEGAL AUTHORITY? On Venezuela’s Oil, Public Power, and the Documents Behind Sixty-Five Billion Barrels

An agreement involving seventeen oilfields, approximately sixty-five billion barrels of petroleum, billions of dollars in investment, and rights potentially extending across generations deserves an examination equal to its magnitude.

The fundamental question is not simply whether the agreement promises economic benefit.

It is:
By what authority was it made?

A government may announce an agreement. It may publish a fact sheet, identify percentages, project revenues, promise investment, and describe a new strategic relationship.

But an announcement is not a contract.
And a contract is not legitimate merely
because powerful parties have signed it.

Power must be able to show its papers.

If the United States holds a 35 percent economic interest, the public should be able to understand precisely what that interest is.

If it consists of warrants rather than presently owned shares,
the distinction matters.

If the United States has the right to purchase 20 percent of production at cost, then “cost” must be defined.

If 35 percent equity and 20 percent petroleum access are being described together as 55 percent effective control, the public should know whether that number represents ownership, purchasing rights, economic benefit, corporate influence—or some combination of them.

Equity is not oil.
Access is not ownership.
Influence is not sovereignty.
And arithmetic cannot substitute for law.
The same scrutiny must apply to time.

If Venezuelan officials describe a 25-year framework while Washington describes rights extending for 100 years, the difference cannot remain indefinitely inside unpublished documents.

Twenty-five years is a generation.
One hundred years is four generations.

The longer an agreement reaches into the future, the greater the responsibility to explain what today's government has committed tomorrow's citizens to inherit.

This is why transparency is not merely administrative housekeeping.

It is part of sovereignty.
Venezuelans deserve to know what rights have been granted over their national petroleum inheritance. Americans deserve to know what authority permits their government—and particularly an office within the Department of Defense—to acquire an economic position in a private petroleum enterprise.

Congress should know.
Courts should be able to examine it where appropriate.

Investors should understand it.
Journalists should be able to scrutinize it.

And future governments should know precisely what their predecessors obligated them to honor.

None of this establishes that the agreement is unlawful.
Nor does the absence of publicly available documents by itself establish wrongdoing.

But extraordinary claims require extraordinary clarity.
If the arrangement will generate enormous investment,
disclose the assumptions.

If Venezuela will receive hundreds of billions in taxes and royalties, explain the fiscal structure.
If seventeen fields are covered, identify the governing instruments.
If the rights extend for a century, explain how the century is legally constructed.

And if sixty-five billion barrels are implicated, distinguish clearly between ownership of petroleum beneath Venezuelan soil and contractual rights concerning its development, production, purchase, and revenue.

The central issue is therefore larger than petroleum.
It concerns the relationship between power and law.

A powerful government can act.
A lawful government must also explain why it has the authority to act.

That distinction is essential precisely when national security, enormous economic interests, military institutions, and natural resources converge.

Urgency must not become authority.
Strategic necessity must not become authority.
Economic opportunity must not become authority.
Military power must not become authority.

Authority must come from law.
And law must establish limits.

There is also an intergenerational responsibility.

The people who negotiated this agreement
will eventually leave office.
Corporate executives will change.
Oil prices will rise and fall.
Governments will come and go.

Some of the children who may live under these arrangements
have not yet been born.

They cannot enter today's negotiating room.
They cannot examine today's documents.
They cannot object to today's provisions.
Yet they may inherit their consequences.

That makes transparency an obligation
not only to the present public but also to the future.

Before asking how many barrels can be extracted,
therefore, we should ask:

Who authorized the extraction?
Before celebrating the investment:

Under what law?
Before accepting the percentages:

What exactly do they measure?
Before accepting the century:
Who granted the right to bind that much time?

And before calling the arrangement a partnership:
What rights remain with each party—
including the right to reconsider, renegotiate, or refuse?

The oil may lie beneath the earth.
The machinery may already be moving toward the fields.
The capital may already be assembling.

But between the resource and those who seek to develop it stands something more important than the drilling rig:

the rule of law.
So let the documents speak.

Show the contract.
Show the authority.
Show the ownership.
Show the obligations.
Show the limits.
Show the duration.
Show who receives the revenue.
Show who bears the risk.
Show who can say no.
Sixty-five billion barrels may represent extraordinary wealth.

But no quantity of petroleum should become so valuable that the public's right to understand the authority governing it becomes less valuable.

The contract has been announced.
Now let the law be seen.

Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
September 23, 2026

https://www.justsecurity.org/158262/questions-for-congress-on-venezuelas-assets/ ___Questions for Congress on Venezuela’s Assets, By Kate Brannen and Tess Bridgeman
Published on September 22, 2026

> BIBLICAL REFERENCES: By What Authority?
Scripture, Power, Inheritance, and the Demand That What Is Hidden Be Brought to Light

*Micah 2:1–2
“They covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.”
*Matthew 21:23
“By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?”
*Deuteronomy 19:14
“Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance.”
*Isaiah 10:1–2
“Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed.” etc.

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