A new series of oil and gas industry “issue ads” running in seven states claim “Americans oppose” Democratic efforts to eliminate subsidies for the petroleum companies. But a ThinkProgress Green analysis finds the industry claims do not add up.

The radio ads, run in seven key states by the American Petroleum Institute this week, say:

It’s another bad idea from Washington. In speech after speech, President Obama is calling for higher taxes on the energy producers who power America, to raise money to pay for more government spending. But Americans oppose President Obama’s new taxes. We know what those taxes will do. Independent analysts say Obama’s tax plan could actually raise gas prices, making families pay more and hurting our economy.

In a press release on the trade association’s website, API explains the group’s rationale for the claim that the public opposes the “new taxes” — really elimination of tax incentives for the industry — claiming:

“Opposition to higher energy taxes is rising among the public. A recent “What is America Thinking on Energy Issues” poll showed that 76 percent of voters think that higher energy taxes could equal higher gas prices.”

The release quotes the group’s president and CEO Jack Gerard arguing:

Raising taxes will not lower energy prices for American families and businesses—in fact, the Congressional Research Service says this plan could cause gasoline prices to go higher. Our new campaign in key states will explain that more domestic production is critical to putting downward pressure on gasoline prices—supply matters.

The poll, conducted by Harris Interactive for API, does not include the question of whether Americans support or oppose ending the industry’s tax credits. As Climate Progress previously reported, polling shows strong national support for the idea.

Rather, the API poll asked the 1009 participants whether they agreed with the statement “Increasing energy taxes could increase consumer costs on a wide variety of products and services, including higher gasoline prices.” The polling memo did indeed show 76 percent agreed with that statement. Given that the industry sets its own prices, of course they could raise gas prices to preserve profits if the tax breaks were eliminated.

But fascinatingly, the polling company then read a statement to back up the argument, referencing the Congressional Research study to which the API’s Gerard referred in his quote:

The Congressional Research Service, an agency within the Library of Congress that provides bipartisan analysis to Congress, conducted an in-depth study that concluded that the Administration’s efforts to increase taxes on the U.S. oil and natural gas industry may have the effect of decreasing exploration, development and production here in America, while increasing consumer prices and increasing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

After being read that, the voters were again asked whether they agreed with the statement “Increasing energy taxes could increase consumer costs on a wide variety of products and services, including higher gasoline prices.” This time, only 70 percent said yes. The argument actually disuaded voters.

Perhaps the more voters hear from API, the less they support the industry’s positions.

A spokeswoman for API did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade association for the oil and gas industry, has launched a new radio and print ad campaign in seven states opposing Democratic efforts to eliminate subsidies for the petroleum companies and then urge voters to call key home-state senators.

The Washington Post reported that API spokesman Reid Porter said the ad campaign was “based on public policy currently being debated before the U.S. Senate” and “not related to campaign activities.”

The ads are running in Missouri, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Maine and Nevada from March 24-27. Six of those states will see fiercely-contested Senate races this November. The seventh, North Carolina, will likely see a close Senate race in 2014. The 2012 races are:

– MA: Sen. Scott Brown (R) won a 2010 special election and is seeking a full term
– ME: Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) is retiring, leaving an open seat
– MO: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) is seeking re-election
– NE: Sen. Dean Heller (R) is seeking a full term
– VA: Sen. Jim Webb (D) is retiring, leaving an open seat
– WV: Sen. Joe Manchin (D) won a 2010 special election and is seeking a full term

Some of the ads mention both of the state’s senators, but others mention only one senator.

In the four states that have an incumbent running for re-election — Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, and West Virginia — the API ads mention that senator alone. And the North Carolina ads mention only Sen. Kay Hagan (D), the incumbent up for re-election in two years. In the two states with an open-seat election — Maine and Virginia — the ads mention both senators.

Sen. Brown’s campaign conceded the ads have an effect on the Massachusetts senate campaign, in his favor. The Massachusetts Republican will make a donation to a charity of his opponent’s choosing, in accordance with an agreement between their two campaigns.

The oil lobby group American Petroleum Institute launched ads in Massachusetts late last week on behalf of Koch-funded candidate Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), as part of its $2 million national campaign to protect oil subsidies.

Unfortunately for Brown, the ads violate the “People’s Pledge” he made with Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren earlier this year, banning outside group spending in the race. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign manager Mindy Myers noted the oil-subsidy ads “are funded by big oil and clearly support Brown’s position”:

It has come to our attention that the American Petroleum Institute has been running radio and print ads to support Senator Scott Brown’s position on tax breaks for big oil companies. Given Senator Brown’s past vote in support of these tax breaks, and the fact that these ads are funded by big oil and clearly support Brown’s position on this issue, this is a violation of the People’s Pledge.

According to the agreement, when an ad runs the candidate who benefits must donate the sum to charity. This is already the second time Brown has cut a check because of outside groups supporting his campaign.

In addition to Massachusetts, API has run similar ads in six states to protect the industry’s billions in tax loopholes. In the ad, API falsely claims that raising taxes leads to higher prices at the pump, though a Congressional Research Service memo determines that eliminating tax breaks for big oil companies would have negligible impact.

The API ad ostensibly urged Brown to oppose a Senate bill repealing Big Oil’s tax breaks — a position he’s already taken. Brown already voted against repealing these subsidies last year.

The Warren-Brown deal may minimize dirty Super PAC tactics in their own race, but it doesn’t prevent outside group interests from dictating Brown’s voting record. Koch Industries has donated $15,250 to Brown’s campaign this cycle, and he’s taken in close to $200,000 from oil and gas during his career. Before he voted against the oil subsidy repeal last year, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Exxon contributed to Brown’s campaign.

American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard wants you to know: “We get no subsidies in the oil and gas business.” Of course, the industry receives a total $40 billion in tax breaks over 10 years. Speaking today at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on gas prices, Gerard defended the political favoritism citing an out-of-context finding from a Congressional Research Service study.

Gerard claimed gas prices would increase as a result of ending big oil tax breaks. His testimony echoed API’s previous statements that Obama’s call to end oil subsidies is “discriminatory“:

It calls for “all-of-the-above” then threatens the companies that could lead an energy renaissance with $85 billion in discriminatory tax increases.

The likely report Gerard seized on is the same House Speaker John Boehner has used from the Congressional Research Institute finding “On what would likely be a small scale, the proposals also would make oil and natural gas more expensive for U.S. consumers and likely increase foreign dependence.” The key point is the negligible impact, considering the $137 billion the big five oil companies made last year. Yet another CRS report, dated May 2011, debunked the oil industry’s defense of subsidies, finding gas prices won’t go up:

It is widely accepted that a proportional change in taxes on profit affects neither the firm’s incremental costs or revenues, and therefore does not change its its behavior with respect to output. Since output does not change, there is little reason to believe that the price of oil, or gasoline, consumers face will increase.

The oil industry is one of the most heavily subsidized industries, with “tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process,” the New York Times writes. The industry is also one of the most politically influential, spending over $146 million on lobbying in 2011 alone. API itself has lobbied with over $25 million since 2008 and spent $30,500 on House candidates last year.

It’s unsurprising Republicans in the same room as Gerard today — taking $5.6 million in career contributions from oil and gas — sat idly by while the oil lobby defended subsidies.

Gasoline companies — driven by oil speculation and profits — continue to charge more and more for their product every day. How is the industry spending the money it’s taking from customer’s wallets?

In recent weeks, they have flooded television programs with television ads promoting the causes of the industry. The American Petroleum Institute (API) calls itself “the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry.” With money from its more than 400 corporate members, the group has been running spots like “Vote 4 Energy,” trying to convert angry consumers into civic allies.

In the 30-second spot, a series of unidentified people claim that they vote and support key oil industry priorities.

I vote. I vote. I vote for American jobs. I vote. I vote for more domestic energy — energy from all sources, to get America working again. I vote. I vote. I vote for energy security that will come from developing our own energy resources. Like oil and natural gas. Right here. Right now. I vote. To re-energize America with American energy. Learn more at VoteforEnergy.org.

Watch the ad:

Other spots in the series take aim at “new energy taxes” and cheer oil imports from Canada.

As Greenpeace reported in December, the “voters” were fed lines by the media production company and the carefully scripted spots were far more astroturf than grassroots.

Companies like Chevron are also running ads on their own. It is running a series of similar feel-good sports highlighting the company’s support for small business and its work helping the economy of the oil-exporting nation of Angola.”

The ads of course, make no mention of the myriad environmental and safety risks of deregulated offshore drilling, hydrofracking, and tar sands pipelines.

But, in putting the industry on the side of voter participation, if nothing else Big Oil has created American jobs — for television ad-makers.

The oil lobby American Petroleum Institute weighed in on President Obama’s corporate tax reform that closes an array of tax loopholes, including $4 billion in subsidies for the oil industry. Not surprisingly, API is unhappy. API President Jack Gerard played victim, calling the plan “discriminatory” against an industry that “receives not one subsidy”:

One day after the Obama administration unveiled a sweeping corporate tax reform plan, the oil and gas industry’s top lobbyist went on the attack against the president’s proposal.

Calling it “discriminatory,” Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, said the administration’s outline was more of a “Swiss cheese approach that we’re trying to get rid of in this country.”

“The industry receives not one subsidy,” Gerard claimed. “It takes tax deductions the same or similar to what all other American companies get to recover their costs of doing business.”

Here’s a fact for Gerard: tax deductions are subsidies, as API has previously admitted. In one API document, the organization discussed “subsidies for alternative fuels” including “preferential tax treatment.”

Here’s another fact: the industry receives a whopping $7 billion in tax breaks each year.

Gerard also claimed big oil pays one of the highest effective tax rates, and yet Exxon Mobil – the most profitable oil company – paid a 17.6 percent federal effective tax, lower than the average American. The company paid zero taxes to the federal government in 2009. The oil industry is fighting to keep its handouts, despite posting record-breaking profits of $137 billion in 2011.

So far, it seems like it’s American families who are being discriminated against, in favor of Big Oil.

The American Petroleum Institute rolled out it’s latest multi-media assault this week to convince voters and politicians to continue supporting the fossil-fueled status quo. The campaign comes just as the primary election season reaches a fever pitch, and is designed to keep political hopefuls focused on “brown jobs.”

API’s newest television ad, which supposedly portrays grassroots supporters expressing their love of oil and gas, was recently shown by undercover activists to be nothing more than a scripted job. Not much of a surprise, perhaps.

It’s tough to hit back with the same amount of money deployed for a campaign like this (the cost of which API won’t disclose.) So why not hit back with humor? Here’s an ad mocking the “I Vote 4 Energy” television spots, produced by PolluterWatch: