The objective of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at those states’ U.S. Senators to avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill and the Obama Administration’s tax increases on our industry. Senate Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid reportedly has pushed back consideration of climate legislation to late September to allow Senators time to get their constituents’ views during the August recess. It’s important that our views be heard.

API’s membership, which includes ExxonMobil, GE, and Halliburton, will join “allies from a broad range of interests: the Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturing, the trucking industry, the agricultural sector, small business, and many others” to create these Astroturf rallies to protect their dirty energy profits at the expense of the planet.

Snowe recalls that when she proposed fiscally conservative “triggers” to limit Bush’s tax cuts in case of deficits, she was attacked by fellow Republicans. “I don’t know when willy-nilly tax cuts became the essence of who we are,” she says. “To the average American who’s struggling, we’re in some other stratosphere. We’re the party of Big Business and Big Oil and the rich.”

Of course, Americans are right to view the GOP as the party of Big Oil, which gave nearly $20 million to the Republican party apparatus during the last election cycle. The securities and investments industry — big banks — donated more than $54 million to the GOP.

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:

The rest of the money is going to pay for “staff” and “other overhead.” Amy Barton, Barton’s daughter-in-law, is the “unpaid” executive director of the foundation. She said the foundation fulfilled a $900,000 pledge to help build a local Boys and Girls Club and fund a Meals on Wheels program by directing the funds from “other donors who were made aware of the project by the foundation.” Many of these “other donors” were companies with a stake in Barton’s committee:

– Future Energy Holdings, formerly known as TXU Energy, donated $25,000 for a Meals-on-Wheels project.

– Exelon Corp. donated $25,000 to the foundation with Barton as the “payee.” At the time, Exelon was seeking federal loan guarantees to back financing for a proposed nuclear power station that the firm wants to build in Victoria County, Texas.

– TXI Energy and XTO Energy sponsored a fundraising dinner for one of the charities to which Barton pledged money. Barton was honored at the event.

– BNSF, which delivers coal to 60 power plants nationwide, donated $10,000 to Meals on Wheels, but credited the donation in Barton’s name.

By directing donations and claiming credit, Barton essentially bypassed “a 2007 congressional requirement that donations from lobbying interests to lawmakers’ charities be disclosed.” Barton was honored as a “special guest” at a Meals on Wheels reception in Texas to thank him for the donations supplied by these corporate sponsors. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the oil and natural resources industry has donated $2,897,050 to Barton’s reelection efforts.

Barton has been referred to as “Smokey Joe” for his willingness to stick up for big polluters. In response to the financial crisis, Barton sponsored legislation that would “open up” the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and Outer Continental Shelf to new oil drilling. Last month, Barton denied the scientific consensus on man-made climate change, saying that dramatic changes in climate are “natural” and that Americans should respond to such changes by merely seeking some “shade.”

Last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) selected Barton to help lead the party’s energy task force in advocating “alternatives” to green energy legislation. With leaders like Barton, can we expect new policies? Or, further calls to simply “Drill Here, Drill Now?”

McCain must have forgotten about his multi-billion-dollar corporate tax cut, which would give $4 billion in tax breaks to the five biggest oil companies — including more than $1.2 billion to ExxonMobil alone:

[Oil companies] should have been competing to invest in a new means of delivering their product to market. They should have been competing for the right to tap into the hungry markets, flowing our resources into those hungry markets, and instead they wanted a higher and higher price than any fair competition would yield. So they wouldn’t build the line. [...]

So we introduced, when I got elected, we introduced the big oil companies and their lobbyists to a concept of something that evidently they had forgotten, and that’s free-market competition. They had a monopoly previously on power and resources, and we broke it.

Watch it:

Hardly using a free market approach, Palin’s “flawed bidding process” actually “narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration,” according to an AP investigation:

Despite Palin’s boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the AP found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp. [...]

– Instead of creating a process that would attract many potential builders, Palin slanted the terms away from an important group — the global energy giants that own the rights to the gas. [...]

– Under a different set of rules four years earlier, TransCanada had offered to build the pipeline without a state subsidy; under Palin, the company could receive a maximum $500 million.

“Most definitely TransCanada got a sweetheart deal this time,” Republican state senator Bert Stedman said.

Throughout the campaign, Palin and McCain have boasted that Palin “was responsible for…a pipeline, the $40 billion pipeline bringing natural gas from Alaska down to the lower 48.” Neither seems to care that the pipeline “exists only on paper;” construction on the first section has not even begun. In fact, despite the $500 million award, TransCanada is not even obligated to build the pipeline.

Transcript:

Ever since I grew up I remember hearing about this dream for a natural gas pipeline. But all it was was talk.
And one of the main obstacles was big oil itself that wanted a pipeline, a gas pipeline even, to be built only on their terms. ExxonMobil was one of the participants in that, and other companies also.

They should have been competing to invest in a new means of delivering their product to market. They should have been competing for the right to tap into the hungry markets flowing our resources into those hungry markets, and instead they wanted a higher and higher price than any fair competition would yield. So they wouldn’t build the line. They were holding out for more billions of dollars in public money. No one in good conscience could pay them what they wanted to build that gas line. And that’s how things were left, that’s how we found them, when I decided to run for governor. There was no progress, no pipeline, no gas revenue for Alaska, no added energy security for America because previously it had been all talk.

So we introduced, when I got elected, we introduced the big oil companies and their lobbyists to a concept of something that evidently they had forgotten, and that’s free-market competition. They had a monopoly previously on power and resources, and we broke it. And the result finally is progress on the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North America’s history — a nearly forty billion dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.

Thanks for your patience there. It’s a sad day for Alaska, and a sad day for Senator Stevens and his family. The verdict shines a light though on the corrupting influence of the big oil service company up there in Alaska that was allowed to control too much of our state. And that control was part of the culture of corruption that I was elected to fight. And that fight must always move forward regardless of party affiliation or seniority or even past service. And as governor of the state of Alaska, I’ll carefully monitor now the situation, and I’ll take any appropriate action as needed. In the meantime, I do ask that the people of Alaska join me in respecting the workings of our judicial system, and I’m confident that Senator Stevens, from this point on, will do the right thing for the state of Alaska.

CNN reports, “Palin did not respond when asked if she will vote for Sen. Stevens and promptly boarded the campaign plane.”

SUNUNU: I cosponsored legislation this past year with Tom Carper, bipartisan legislation, that would set restrictions not just on pollutants like mercury or sulfur or NOx, which causes ozone, but also limits on CO2 emissions. … I voted to move the climate change legislation forward on the Senate floor, because I think this is an important issue. [...]

QUESTION: Would you consider it a priority for you, global warming?

SUNUNU: Well a priority enough that I was the lead Republican on the piece of legislation that I cosponsored with Tom Carper.

Watch it:

As the moderator noted, just last year Sununu denied that a link between global warming and human activity even exists, so his new-found concern about the climate might have left viewers skeptical. That skepticism was validated today, when Sununu — appearing on notorious global warming denier Glenn Beck’s radio show — made his true feelings about global warming clear:

GLENN: All right. Talk to me a little bit about oil. Are you a global warming guy?

SENATOR SUNUNU: Drill here, drill now.

GLENN: Okay.

Listen here:

Considering Sununu’s long record of voting for Big Oil’s interests, it’s no wonder he’s latched on to their favorite cheer when asked if he’s “a global warming guy.”

Q: you told the New York Times last month that you’d never vote for a Democrat. Are you finding that difficult in reaching out to Democrats then with your plan? [...]

PICKENS: So I am having no problem working with the Democrats. Having a little problem working with the Republicans. They don’t like it because I want to do more than just drill. And they, somehow have gotten it, a lot of them have, that you can drill your way out of this. But you can’t do it. There’s not enough oil there to do it.

Watch it:

Pickens made it clear that, despite five straight weeks of calls for an “all of the above” energy strategy, congressional conservatives are interested in little besides drilling. In fact, last week, when the House passed an energy bill that included conservatives’ demand for offshore drilling, House Republicans opposed it because it would have repealed Big Oil tax breaks to invest in renewable energy. Apparently to Republican ears, “all of the above” sounds just like “Drill Baby drill.”

As the law stands now, expanded domestic drilling would have no impact on U.S. gas prices precisely because “oil is a global commodity whose price is set by global supply and demand.” Is Palin calling for a total export ban?

Transcript:

“Oil and coal? Of course, it’s a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, you know, the molecules, where it’s going and where it’s not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first,” Palin said. “So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it’s Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It’s got to flow into our domestic markets first.”

ALLEN: I love that statement, America is addicted to oil. What an elitist point of view. Americans are not addicted to oil. Americans are addicted to freedom — the freedom and liberty to move where and when we want.

Listen here:

Allen stands alone in his defiance. Alongside energy experts and progressive politicians, prominent members of Allen’s own party have long since admitted the truth. In 2006, President Bush declared, “America is addicted to oil,” and just this past June, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) said, “America is so addicted to oil it will take us years to wean ourselves from it.” Does Allen think Bush and Schwarzenegger are elitists?

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After listening all the problems currently facing the country, Whitehouse asked the experts whether anyone thought drilling was the “number one issue” right now. Almost nine seconds went by with complete silence:

WHITEHOUSE: Gentlemen, we’re in the middle of a near total mortgage system meltdown in this country. We have a health care system that burns 16 percent of our GDP, in which the Medicare liability alone has been estimated at $34 trillion. We’re burning $10 billion a month in Iraq.

This administration has run up $7.7 trillion in national debt, by our calculation. And there is worsening evidence every day of global warming, with worsening environmental and national security ramifications. In light of those conditions, do any of you seriously contend that drilling for more oil is the number one issue facing the American people today?

[NINE-SECOND SILENCE]

WHITEHOUSE: No, it doesn’t seem so.

Watch it:

House Republicans have spent the past month claiming that their political stunt was “America’s greatest hour” and the “2008 version of the Boston Tea Party.” Not only are they out of step with energy experts, but according to recent polls, the majority of the American public believes that the economy — not drilling — is the most important issue facing the nation. More here and here on why drilling isn’t the answer to lowering gas prices. (HT: Get Energy Smart)

RIK officials often bragged about the “RIK way of doing business,” which aimed to “be a part of industry.” In the summer of 2006, RIK employees wrote up a document titled, “Initiative to Clarify Guidance for RIK Interaction with Industry,” which would codify their “uniqueness.” In short, RIK officials wanted to rewrite the ethics rules to cover up their misdoings. From the Initiative document:

As further evidence that employees were aware their socializing with industry officials was unethical, at one point, RIK oil marketing specialist Crystel Edler had her industry friends hide the fact that she had gone to a Shell party and stayed in a hotel at their expense. Edler told her friends that they were “sooo wonderful” for helping her out:

In a statement today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) criticized “how cozy the relationship between Big Oil and the Administration’s regulators have been,” which has “cheated the American taxpayer out of billions of dollars owed them by the oil companies.”

One of Smith’s subordinates also revealed that in late 2004, Smith repeatedly called her looking for cocaine — even though she had already given some to him earlier in the day. Eventually, he showed up to her house where he “obtained crystal methamphetamine” and the two “engaged in oral sex.”

THINKPROGRESS: McCain spokesman Taylor Griffin recently told Fox Business – Fox Business Network – that they would repeal the tax breaks for oil companies in the 2005 energy bill. Would your organization consider that a tax increase?

GROVER NORQUIST: Uh, if it, first of all, that’s a tax increase. If it’s done in conjunction with other tax changes that are net cuts, or net revenue neutral, then its not a violation of the pledge. But that stand-alone is.

Watch it:

Transcript:

THINKPROGRESS: McCain spokesman Taylor Griffin recently told Fox Business – Fox Business Network – that they would repeal the tax breaks for oil companies in the 2005 energy bill. Would your organization consider that a tax increase?

GROVER NORQUIST: Uh, if it, first of all, that’s a tax increase. If it’s done in conjunction with other tax changes that are net cuts, or net revenue neutral, then its not a violation of the pledge. But that stand-alone is. But he knows that. He knows, he knows, look, the pledge does not say you can’t cut some taxes and raise others, as long as it’s in the same bill and the cuts are bigger than the spending.

BUSH: One thing that’s for certain, when Congress comes back they got to understand that we need more domestic energy, not less. And one place to find it is offshore America, lands that have been, have been, uh, taken off the book, so to speak, by congressional law. And now they need to give us a chance to find more oil and natural gas here at home.

Reacting to Bush’s statement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman (D) called Bush’s statement “the worst pivot ever,” questioning “how you go from hurricane to offshore drilling.” Scarborough agreed. “Just stop!” he said. Watch it:

Making sure to note that the drilling platform McCain will visit is owned and run by Chevron, Jindal oddly suggested that the photo-op will “emphasize that drilling alone is not enough” to address America’s energy needs. Watch it:

It should come as no surprise that the McCain chose to visit a Chevron-owned drilling platform, considering that lobbyists for Chevron both fundraise and work for his campaign:

Wayne Berman: Berman, the managing director of lobbying firm Ogilvy Government Relations, is McCain’s national finance co-chairman and has bundled over $500,000 dollars for his campaign. Berman has lobbied for Chevron since 2004.

John Green: Green, who also works for Ogilvy, has been the McCain campaign’s chief Congressional liaison since March. Green has lobbied for Chevron since 2005.

Richard Hohlt: Hohlt, who is the leader of a group of Washington, DC insiders called the “Off the Record Club” that includes top McCain strategist Charlie Black, is a fundraiser for the McCain campaign. Holht has lobbied for Chevron since 2005.

In June, McCain went before oil executives in Texas to reverse his position on offshore drilling and lay out a set of policy proposals that add up to a big fat kiss to Big Oil. Since then, the oil industry has flooded McCain with money and McCain has begun promoting the advice of “the oil executives.”

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Seeming to outdo his previous false attacks on this issue, Gingrich claimed that Obama’s idea is actually encouraging Americans to “enrich Big Oil” because selling air has “a higher profit margin than selling gasoline”:

GINGRICH: Well, I got a very funny e-mail from a retired military officer in Tampa who pointed out that most tire inflation is done at service stations and you pay for it. And it’s actually a higher profit margin than selling gasoline. So Sen. Obama was urging you to go out and enrich Big Oil by inflating your tires instead of buying gas.

Watch it:

This claim is absurd for a number of reasons. First, gas station owners, not Big Oil, receive the profits from selling air — if they sell air at all (presumably from mechanized air machines). Second, air is free. So of course the profit margin for selling air is going be higher than a gallon of gas. By contrast, the cost of oil accounts for a significant portion of the price of gasoline. So any profits from gasoline sales (which are actually quite small) also go to the gas station owners, after Big Oil has already been paid.

But beyond Gingrich’s ridiculous assertion, the Auto Alliance has noted that maintaining proper tire pressure is “more important than you may think” because it saves fuel and reduces costs and greenhouse gases.

Indeed, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) — whom Gingrich once praised as one of the “great winners” — agrees. Today he endorsed the thrust of Obama’s idea, saying “you can reduce your fuel costs by more than 15%. And I am talking about simple things, like proper tire pressure, avoiding rapid starts and stops, and keeping your engine tuned.”

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