{"id":4153,"date":"2011-02-25T06:08:38","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T14:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4153"},"modified":"2011-02-25T06:08:38","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T14:08:38","slug":"more-big-bucks-for-gobp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/25\/more-big-bucks-for-gobp\/","title":{"rendered":"More Big Bucks for GOBP!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven of the ten largest big money political donors are corporate groups supporting Republicans.  Three are unions.  So it\u2019s not as if the Republicans need another corporate giant weighing in.  Since SCOTUS handed down the Citizens United<\/em> treachery, Big Oil is no longer content to grease Republican palms though lobbyists.  They have decided to allow the pigs to feed directly from the trough.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"25oilmoney\"The American Petroleum Institute, the Big Oil industry\u2019s chief lobbying organization, will start directly backing political candidates<\/strong><\/a> in the second quarter of this year. API, whose membership includes oil giants like Exxon-Mobil and Chevron<\/strong>, already spends tens of millions of dollars every year on lobbying, advertisements and Astroturf campaigns to support the the oil industry agenda. As CAP\u2019s Dan Weiss wrote, API \u201cwants to drill in fragile, sensitive places, keep government tax breaks, <\/strong>expand offshore drilling without reforms<\/strong><\/a>, and block global warming pollution reduction requirements.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is adding one more tool to our toolkit,\u201d Martin Durbin, API\u2019s executive vice president for government affairs, told Bloomberg News. \u201cAt the end of the day, our mission is trying to influence the policy debate.\u201d As Bloomberg pointed out, oil-supported political action committees like the Independent Petroleum Association of America overwhelmingly donate to Republican candidates.<\/p>\n

\"GOBP\"According to the Center for Responsive Politics, API spent $6.7 million on lobbying alone last year<\/a>, after clearing $7 million in 2009. In 2010, API was the seventh most prolific spender<\/a> in the oil and gas industry, following ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Koch Industries and BP.<\/p>\n

API\u2019s turn toward direct political donations is doubly problematic because, in addition to acting as the industry\u2019s chief lobbyists, the institute runs technical committees that set standards for the oil industry. In its official report, the commission that investigated the BP oil spill found that API was too \u201ccompromised\u201d to be setting industry standards. \u201cBecause they would make oil and gas industry operations potentially more costly, API regularly resists agency rulemakings that government regulators believe would make those operations safer, and API favors rulemaking that promotes industry autonomy from government oversight,\u201d the commission found. And this was before API established a political action committee!<\/strong>.. [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

Corporate interests have become so blatant that they are not even trying to hide their bribery anymore.  I don\u2019t know how we are going to fight all this corporate money, but we have to find a way.<\/font><\/p>\n

Corporations are NOT people!<\/font><\/h6>\n
Money is NOT speech!<\/font><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seven of the ten largest big money political donors are corporate groups supporting Republicans.  Three are unions.  So it\u2019s not as if the Republicans need another corporate giant weighing in.  Since SCOTUS handed down the Citizens United treachery, Big Oil is no longer content to grease Republican palms though lobbyists.  They have decided to allow […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}