The largest U.S. energy companies increased lobbyist spending by 30% in 2008 to influence energy and climate change legislation. Some of those funds are now going towards the creation of the American Energy Alliance, a new off-shoot of Institute for Energy Research.
The American Energy Alliance is headed by an oil industry lobbyist named Thomas J. Pyle. Before joining AEA, Pyle was a policy adviser to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). Pyle’s former employer was among the top recipients of oil industry campaign contributions from 1998 to 2004, raking in $498,375 according to the Center for Public Integrity. Pyle then went to work for the oil-giant, Koch Industries.
The American Energy Alliance is airing radio ads in the home districts of moderate Democrats in order to press legislators to vote against the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill. Here’s a list of the Democrats being targeted by the ads:
– John Barrow (D-GA)
– G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
– Mike Doyle (D-PA)
– Charlie Gonzalez (D-TX)
– Baron Hill (D-IN)
– Jim Matheson (D-UT)
– Charlie Melancon (D-LA)
– Tim Murphy (R-PA)
– Mike Ross (D-AR)
– Betty Sutton (D-OH)
The ad repeats the debunked $3,100 lie that energy companies and their conservative allies have been pushing for weeks. Listen to the AEA anti-clean energy ad:
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