ThinkProgress and the Des Moines Register have reported on the Iowa Energy Forum, a new oil industry front group designed to manipulate the GOP presidential primary. The group, financed by some of the world’s largest oil companies, sends activists to GOP primary events in Iowa to ask candidates about oil industry priorities, like building the Keystone XL pipeline, opening new land to drilling/fracking, and protecting subsidies to big oil.

ThinkProgress witnessed the Iowa Energy Forum in action on a recent reporting trip. At a local Republican event at the Pizza Ranch buffet, a man affiliated with the group pressed Rick Santorum to commit to supporting the Keystone XL pipeline as another person with the group videotaped the exchange. The same dynamic happened again later that week at a Tea Party event with Herman Cain.

We came across a Youtube account affiliated with the Iowa Energy Forum. In addition to hosting an infomercial from the American Petroleum Institue, the trade association sponsoring the Forum, the channel features videos of astroturfed questions planted with GOP presidential candidates like Cain, Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich. Many of the exchanges appear as authentic dialogue between a candidate and a regular Iowan. However, the questions are part of a well-crafted effort by oil lobbyists steer, and to some extent control, the GOP primary. Watch a compilation of planted questions at town hall events:

Although he is not featured in the video, Iowa Energy Forum staffers have touted the fact that they have spoken with Mitt Romney as well.

Of course, Republican candidates are more than willing participants in the oil industry’s outreach efforts. Some of the oil industry’s lobbyists behind the Iowa Energy Forum effort double as consultants to the Pawlenty campaign. Cain has said that he would literally appoint the CEO of Shell Oil to set oil industry regulations at the EPA. And as ThinkProgress discovered, the American Petroleum Institute maintains an official partnership with Gingrich’s 527 attack group, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF).

A profile of American Petroleum Institute head Jack Gerard sheds light on the purpose of groups like the Iowa Energy Forum. Gerard’s lobbying strategy has focused on boosting the public perception of big oil. Gerard has dedicated millions of dollars worth of ads promoting his industry, but he has also organized fly-ins of African American and Hispanic oil workers, bused in workers to hold large public rallies in pivotal states, and recruited unlikely allies to press his case, including labor unions. He even hired one of the Nature Conservancy’s top officials to help build his pro-oil army.

Gerard’s current strategy in Iowa mimics the coal industry. In 2008, the coal lobby planted questions about “clean coal” in town halls with major candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain.

In June, ThinkProgress blew the lid off the “Iowa Energy Forum,” a recently formed organization designed to appear as a bona fide citizens’ group. In fact, the Forum is part of the oil lobby’s new effort to shape the Republican primary with phony grassroots events and planted questions among caucus-goers about oil industry priorities.

Now, Des Moines Register reporter Jennifer Jacobs reports that the Iowa Energy Forum is planning to co-opt a series of Republican primary events in Iowa. The Forum — funded by the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group representing Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Saudi Refining Inc (a subsidiary of the Saudi state oil company), Chevron, and other oil giants — is sponsoring a large presence at the Iowa Straw Poll, as well as conservative religious events like the Iowa Faith and Freedom conference later this year.

Complicating the oil industry’s astroturf effort, many of the industry lobbyists guiding the Iowa Energy Forum are simultaneously paid consultants for the Tim Pawlenty for president campaign:

The American Petroleum Institute hired political consultants Chuck Larson and Karen Slifka to promote the Iowa Energy Forum message. Larson and Slifka have been paid consultants for Pawlenty and remain volunteer advisers. Contacted separately about how they avoid the appearance that they’re working both sides of the street, Larson and Slifka answered the Register’s questions via email, with similar responses: They consult with legal counsel and comply with federal elections rules. [...]

Slifka negotiated the purchase of tent space for Pawlenty at the straw poll “land auction” last month. She and Larson were paid more than $47,000 last quarter for their work for Pawlenty, campaign disclosure reports show. Pawlenty’s state political action committee, Freedom First, paid their limited liability company, Midwest Political Professionals, about $22,000 in fees and expenses. And his presidential campaign paid them about $25,000.

While working on Pawlenty’s straw poll push, the same lobbyists are setting up an oil industry booth at the straw poll, complete with an air conditioned “igloo” with free rides and oil industry messages. Kent Sorenson, a spokesman for the Rep. Michele Bachmann presidential campaign, blasted the conflict of interest and said Pawlenty has “sunk to desperate and unethical attempts to win the Ames straw poll.” But its not just Pawlenty who is reliant on the oil industry and its political network. The Iowa Republican Party has accepted at least $100,000 from the American Petroleum Institute.

The Ames poll is infamous for being little more than an opportunity for candidates to buy as many tickets as possible, and rig the vote by busing in supporters. But this time around, it’s not just political candidates buying support; the oil industry will have its own caucus of “grassroots” supporters at the event.

As the Republican presidential candidates tour Iowa hoping to lock up the 2012 nomination, they will hear an assortment of questions on energy policy. Some of them, ThinkProgress has learned, will be planted by the oil and natural gas lobby to steer the candidates toward pro-Big Oil policies.

A recent campaign stop by Rick Santorum reveals at least part of the strategy. During the question and answer period of an event last Monday at the Pizza Ranch in Ames, Iowa, Santorum was asked by a man if he would pledge to support the Keystone XL, an oil pipeline currently under construction to bring crude oil from Canada through several states to refineries in Texas. Santorum disregarded the question, and spoke for a few minutes about problems encountered by the fracking industry in his home state of Pennsylvania. The man interjected and again asked whether Santorum would say definitively if he supports the pipeline. Santorum, looking slightly annoyed, relented and said yes.

During the event, two young people in the back of the room handed out cards and pamphlets from a new organization called the Iowa Energy Forum. “We’re a grassroots group,” said Connor Reed, one of people sporting Iowa Energy Forum t-shirts. The website for the forum says it is simply “a growing community of concerned citizens committed to two goals – achieving energy security for our country and holding our elected officials accountable for shaping energy policies.” The website highlights Canadian tar sands and the importance of the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as the need for more domestic drilling.

Rather than being a grassroots organization, the Iowa Energy Forum is a slick, new creation of the oil and gas industry. The group is financed by the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association representing Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Transcanada, Shell Oil, and other oil industry heavyweights.

After witnessing the spectacle at the Santorum event, ThinkProgress observed Iowa Energy Forum staffers attending various Iowa Tea Party events and Herman Cain campaign stops. Iowa Energy Forum trackers have pressed their issue to Mitt Romney and other 2012 candidates.

Daniel Weiser, a partner at the Iowa lobbying firm Capitol Strategies, told ThinkProgress that his company helped set up the Iowa Energy Forum. “We’re lobbying for them down in the capitol, got the legislative task forced signed up,” Weiser said. Weiser’s firm helped recruit about 40 people so “theoretically when a presidential candidate comes, we have people to speak to them.” The goal, Weiser said, was to press the candidates on supporting domestic energy production, including renewables. However, Weiser admitted that fossil fuels are the priority. “Drilling for oil and natural gas, those are the biggies.”

However, the main drivers of the front group appear to be linked to LS2g, a corporate public relations and lobbying firm based in Des Moines. Chuck Larson and Karen Slifka, former Republican Party operatives, manage the Iowa Energy Forum and the LS2g office serves as the group’s headquarters.

In addition to astroturfing candidate events, the Iowa Energy Forum has pushed to defend billions in targeted subsidies to the oil and gas industry. The group recently hosted American Petroleum Institute economist John Felmy, who blasted attempts by Congress to repeal such giveaways. The group has managed to snag notable politicians, including Gov. Terry Branstad (R-IA), to appear at their press conferences.

A new profile of American Petroleum Institute head Jack Gerard sheds light on the purpose of groups like the Iowa Energy Forum. Gerard’s lobbying strategy has focused on boosting the public perception of big oil. Gerard has dedicated millions of dollars worth of ads promoting his industry, but he has also organized fly-ins of African American and Hispanic oil workers, bused in workers to hold large public rallies in pivotal states, and recruited unlikely allies to press his case, including labor unions. He even hired one of the Nature Conservancy’s top officials to help build his pro-oil army.

The oil industry’s brazen attempt to manipulate the Republican primary isn’t necessarily a new strategy, however. In 2008, the coal industry sent staffers posing as grassroots activists to campaign events for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to hawk “clean coal.” The fake activists would press the candidates to support coal industry priorities, and then once they went on record, the video would be used in coal industry advertisements.

Taking a lesson from coal, the natural gas industry, under increasing scrutiny for its boom of unregulated fracking across the United States, is now bringing its own propaganda to children. Talisman Energy, a Canadian driller with extensive operations in Pennsylvania, has developed the coloring book “Talisman Terry’s Energy Adventure,” starring the “friendly fracosaurus,” a smiling dinosaur wearing drilling garb named Talisman Terry. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explains that the coloring book is part of the company’s outreach strategy to Pennsylvania locals:

The coloring book’s overt message — drilling is smart, safe and American — is delivered in kid-friendly fashion, glossing over the environmental and economic controversies that have surrounded drillers tapping the Marcellus Shale rock formation for lucrative pockets of gas. [...] Talisman Terry was developed at Talisman Energy’s Calgary headquarters and has been distributed at community picnics in northeastern Pennsylvania counties. It’s available free as a PDF on the company’s website.

The content of “Talisman Terry” is beyond parody, with smiling rocks, flowers, balloons, fish, and puppies, as well as American flags, the Statue of Liberty, and bald eagles. According to the coloring book’s before-and-after pages, the impacts of natural gas drilling evidently include the creation of rainbows:

“If you’re talking age 9 or younger, you can’t get into the questions like, ‘What is in fracking fluid?’” Natalie Cox, Talisman’s head of U.S. communications, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In fact, Talisman doesn’t have to tell anyone, even adults, what is in fracking fluid. Pennsylvania’s disclosure laws are riddled with loopholes, and federal regulation is prevented by the “Cheney loophole.”

The natural gas industry is following on the heels of the coal industry, which has produced its own coloring books, a pro-coal curriculum, and even coal carols.

Yesterday, CNN/Fortune profiled American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard, who took the reins in October 2008 and “has pretty much been in crisis mode since.” In his time in his position, he pared back over two dozen priorities to just six – axing alternative energy research to focus on protecting Big Oil’s tax breaks and expanding drilling in America’s oceans and public lands. And in an effort to “change the perception that Big Oil and Republican politics are inextricably bound,” he also hired Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) nephew Marty Durbin and “organized fly-in lobbying visits by African-American, Hispanic, and female oil workers.”

The profile also details API’s influence after the BP disaster in the Gulf – the largest and most devastating oil spill in American history. API launched ultimately successful rallies to help “derail the ‘spill bill’ Democrats aimed to enact in the wake of the BP disaster.” To maximize their efforts, the oil industry giant went about building an astroturf movement complete with “a slick corporate production”:

Last summer, after the House passed a tough bill to boost safety standards for offshore drilling and remove a liability cap for oil spills, Gerard mounted a round of rallies in regions far from the oilfields. At one, in suburban Chicago, more than 500 union workers assembled for a slick corporate production stage-managed to look like a working-class event.

And while API lobbied hard against safety measures for oil drilling, they’ve been supportive of recent bills to speed up the permitting process. And Gerard also kicked off the 2011 congressional session by calling for opening additional areas to expanded drilling, flying in the face of recommendations from the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Operations that rules for prevention and containment of spills need to be improved before drilling operations are expanded.

This isn’t the first time the American Petroleum Institute has been involved in artificial organizing. Back in 2009, Think Progress reported on a leaked memo from Gerard calling on oil company leadership to urge employees to take part in “Energy Citizen” rallies in opposition to cap and trade legislation. And the New York Times reported that “many of the people attending the demonstration were employees of oil companies who work in Houston and were bused from their workplaces.”

The American Petroleum Institute already has a wide-reaching influence in the public policy debate. In 2010 and 2009, API spent $7.3 million on lobbying each year. So far in 2011, API has spent $2.07 million on lobbying activities. And earlier this year, the group announced it would begin making direct contributions to political candidates.