Maine may be trying to follow Massachusetts’ lead in obtaining low-cost oil from Venezuela for the winter home-heating season.

Through the work of some members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation, two nonprofit organizations in the state signed a deal Nov. 22 for Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Citgo, to provide 12 million gallons of discounted heating oil for the next four months. The agreement will shave about 40 percent from the market price of heating oil for low-income residents.

Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, has a running feud with the Bush administration. After Congress failed to account for the rapid increase in heating oil prices when allocating aid through the LIHEAP program, Chavez saw an opportunity to stick it to Bush and score international public relations points.

Chavez took office in 1999 and since then has tried to expand his influence in Latin America and around the world. Though democratically elected, he has become allied with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and advocates a quasi-socialist agenda that pushes back against globalization and free trade.

His country’s greatest resource is oil. It’s estimated to produce 2.6 million barrels a day and is the world’s fifth-largest petroleum exporter.

Certainly, Maine’s low-income residents who are struggling to fill their oil tanks don’t care where help comes from. Venezuela has plenty of oil and they need it.

Congress has made a choice – despite the objections of Maine’s congressional delegation – not to meet the need for heating assistance this winter. That’s a policy position that could change if the political will existed. The federal government should not put states in a position to depend on charity from Venezuela.

That said, the deal raises ethical concerns.

The per capita income in Venezuela is just $5,800 a year. Unemployment checks in at 17.1 percent. Forty-seven percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Inflation is estimated at more than 22 percent.

The per capita income in the United States, meanwhile, is about $40,000. In Massachusetts, it’s almost $38,000. In Maine, which has the lowest per capita income in the Northeast, it’s still about $27,000 a year and improving. Nationally, unemployment is about 5.5 percent, lower here and in Massachusetts, and inflation is estimated at about 2.2 percent.

Before joining Venezuela’s oil line, Maine should consider what it means for the richest country in the world to accept discounted oil from one considerably poorer.

And while Chavez may have scored international points with this gambit, we hope his domestic audience will ask why he’s being so generous to Massachusetts, and perhaps Maine, while many of his own citizens are suffering in poverty.