Oil companies, electric utilities and the coal industry have poured more than $250,000 this year into the coffers of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House fundraising arm that has played a lead role in attacking Democrats who supported climate legislation.
All told, political action committees for various fossil fuel industries have given at least $280,000 to NRCC through the end of June, according to quarterly finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission….
In the 2008 campaign cycle, the oil and gas industry and utilities combined to contribute more than $1.6 million to NRCC, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
So reports Greenwire (subs. req’d) today. See also “Follow the money: Global warming polluters pay to undermine Waxman-Markey clean energy bill.”
And don’t get me started how stupid the natural gas industry is for using their money to stop a climate bill that will be a boon to their industry (see Game changer 4: Tim Wirth delivers must-read “extreme words” to natural gas execs: “You don’t have the right to sit back and do nothing” about climate change. “We are in very deep trouble, the edge of catastrophe, and you can help”). I’ll blog on that shortly.
Here are more details on this dirty money, and how the GOP is spending it:
Last month alone — the same month that the House voted on a comprehensive energy bill — the industry contributed more than $54,000 to the NRCC war chest, mainly through a handful of large contributions from high-profile energy interests. Among them: $15,000 from Oklahoma-based Devon Energy Corp., $15,000 from Kansas-based Koch Industries Inc. and another $15,000 from Atlanta-based Southern Co.
Those sums reflect only donations given directly from the industry or its advocacy groups and do not include donations from industry officials.
Campaign finance records show that in June, NRCC received a handful of large contributions from individuals linked to the energy industry, including $15,000 from the chairman emeritus and director of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and $5,000 from the senior vice president of government relations at Peabody Energy Corp.
The energy industry traditionally has been a major contributor to the Republican Party, particularly to NRCC. But the recent contributions come as Congress debates climate and energy legislation that will have major ramifications for all corners of the energy sector….
Meanwhile, NRCC this cycle has launched a series of attacks focused on moderate Democrats’ votes on energy legislation.
Just days after the House narrowly approved the Waxman-Markey climate bill, NRCC launched a series of radio ads, robo-calls and a television spot criticizing moderate Democrats for voting in favor of the legislation. House Republican leaders have also said that they view the energy vote as particularly damaging to the Democratic majority and anticipate that it will help them win back a number of seats in 2010.
Money can’t buy you love. But I guess it can buy you hate — see House GOP pledge to fight all action on climate. “Why do conservatives hate your children?”
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Thank you Joe for posting this.
We should realize this is only the public, institutional contributions directly to the GOP.
What does it mean when an oil company buys TV advertising time for a non-political message? Such as energytomorrow.org It cements the dangerous myth that fossil fuels can be a solution.
Like the UN financed climate researchers didn’t get paid for scaring the crap out of people.
The coin has two sides mate.
[JR: You got the smoking, gun, mate -- if only there were any "UN financed climate researchers."]
Michael : Climate researchers are paid for researching climate, not for proagandising. If what they find scares the crap out of you that’s your problem. And since when did the UN finance climate research?
Michael…
You don’t have a clue about how science works. Are you arguing that all scientists are in cahoots? That if researchers could prove that global warming was a scam that they couldn’t find money to support their studies? Exxon and Shell would be sending a fortune to universities and research institutes if the science showed even the slightest chance of supporting their industry.
The trouble is that the climate research is all going in one direction, leaving Exxon and the likes to fund bogus PR institutes that engage in astroturfing, trying to muddy the waters.
Your comments are lame.
Michael:
Here’s a hint: If you’re going to throw pathetic denialist garbage against a wall and hope it sticks, don’t do it on sites with Teflon wallpaper.
You didn’t mention the IPCC, but in case that was what you were referring to, remember that it’s now widely known that their process was indeed politicized, as so many deniers like to claim, albeit not in a way they know or want to recognize. Several countries forced some of the groups conclusions to be watered down, and at least one graphic, the infamous “embers chart”, was removed.
The evidence keeps piling up that the most recent IPCC report was quite optimistic, and we need to move much faster than its conclusions imply.
I’m sure beating up on Michael is fun for everybody and I’m sure the $80 Billion or whatever it is now that has been spent on the global warming bonanza has set up a huge number of people for life as professional climate watchers. But to keep the money flowing , you need impending doom – Otherwise it all dries up.
Can you say “conflict of interest”?
Geoffrey Heal gave a lecture at the London School of Economics in May 2009, on the economics of climate change, but the subject of US CO2 politics came up in the question period after the lecture:
“…the fossil fuel industry is much more frightened of the EPA than it is of Congress. The EPA is likely to come up with some very stringent measures. The EPA, Obama’s EPA, is run by a bunch of environmentalists, and people who are very worried about climate change. So if its left to them, the US is going to get a very very strong environmental policy on CO2. So at this point, the fossil fuel lobby is actually trying to promote action in Congress, of a type that would preempt action by the EPA. So what the fossil fuel lobby is working for, is a weak Waxman-Markey bill…. which would both set standards lower than what the EPA would do on its own, and which would preempt action by the EPA….
…one downside of this [ if the EPA were to be allowed to regulate CO2 ] is that the EPA doesn’t have the power to do something like introduce a cap and trade system, or something like a uniform carbon tax. So anything the EPA does is liable to be inefficient from an economic perspective”
http://richmedia.lse.ac.uk/publicLecturesAndEvents/20090506_1830_controversiesInTheEconomicsOfClimateChange.mp3
During the lecture itself, Heal noted that although the US is not often thought of that way, it is a major petro-state, i.e. the US is the third largest producer of oil in the world. There is Saudi Arabia at 9 million barrels of oil per day, then the US and Russia at around 7 million each. Kuwait, number 4, is a distant fourth at three and a half million per day. When you add in the coal and natural gas production, the US is by far the greatest producer of fossil fuel in the world.
Hence the fantastic power of the fossil fuel lobby in the US.
global 2007 ozone http://www.ors.utah.gov http://faq.rutgers.edu http://www.lib.usm.edu http://www.eggheadcafe.com