I was wondering why we were chumming up to Libya all of a sudden…

WASHINGTON — American oil companies stand to gain in competing for access to oil reserves in Libya by the restoration of normal diplomatic relations and the removal of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime from a U.S. list of terrorism sponsors.

Oh…ya think?  Right…they’ve got some of that black stuff under their territory too, don’t they…

On May 6, 2002 United States Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton (now U.N. Ambassador) gave a speech entitled "Beyond the Axis of Evil." In it he added three more nations to be grouped with the already mentioned "rogue states": Libya, Syria, and Cuba. The criteria for membership in this group were: "state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or who have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or have the capability to do so in violation of their treaty obligations." The speech was widely reported as an expansion of the original Axis of Evil.

–Axis of evil – Wikipedia

From Rogue State to valued trading partner in four years.  If only the cold war had been so short…

Assuming Congress does not disapprove of Libya’s removal from the State Department’s terror list in the 45 days allowed for review, "the oil companies will send whatever they want to send for their operations," Lichtenbaum, an international lawyer with Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, said in an interview.

Another control being lifted, he said, was one imposed by energy legislation enacted last summer. It barred shipment abroad of devices that could be part of a nuclear program that companies like Halliburton normally use to explore for oil.

"That potentially was going to shut down U.S. companies’ ability to explore for oil," he said.

So Halliburton couldn’t get their equipment in, eh?  Good thing Libya’s going to be taken off the terror list.  We wouldn’t want our big defense contractors to be sending devices that could be part of a nuclear program over to terrorist states now would we?  What’s the price of gasoline again…?