They don’t call the Republican congressman “Smokey Joe” for nothing. Barton, who worked as a consultant for a natural-gas company before jumping into politics, helped orchestrate $14.6 billion in tax breaks for energy companies during President Bush’s second term. His coziness with the oil industry moved front and center when Barton took the chance to question BP executive Tony Hayward and turned it into the opportunity to apologize to the oil giant for President Obama’s “$20 billion shakedown.”
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One activist group drilled home its distaste for Nelson’s stance on the environment by cutting an ad depicting the Nebraska senator as an oil-drenched pelican. “Senator Nelson is a little oily,” the ad proclaimed. Nelson’s grabbed nearly quarter of a million dollars in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies during his career. Nelson has pushed green policies, but as can be expected from the senator who brought you the "Cornhusker Kickback," they are usually meant to benefit his home state’s economy.
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The former New Mexico representative, who is running once again for his seat in Congress in New Mexico’s 2nd District, has made a name for himself as a friend of Big Oil. His haul from the industry has equaled nearly $1 million during his career. Pearce has said that the one reason that pushed him into his campaign was Democrat Harry Teague’s vote for cap-and-trade energy legislation. “I was absolutely stunned over his vote,” Pearce said.
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Quick, you’re running for Senate in California with an electorate that has been in the vanguard of environmental issues for decades: Do you attend fundraising meetings with BP and Exxon Mobil? If you’re Carly Fiorina, the former H-P exec who is challenging Democrat Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat, the answer is yes. In June, Fiorina flew into D.C. to meet with the oil lobbyists. Fiorina has attacked her opponent and President Obama for turning the tragedy in the Gulf into political gain. “President Obama and Barbara Boxer are using this tragedy to push their agenda on cap and trade,” Fiorina said recently. “And I think that is the crassest form of political calculation on the backs of a region that is suffering.”
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Environmental groups picked North Carolina's Richard Burr as a target of a series of campaign ads that attacked his lack of support for climate-change legislation. The ads target Burr for supporting Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) bid to limit the EPA’s role in climate-change legislation and allege that “Big Oil” has donated generous amounts of money to his campaign. Burr is co-sponsoring a bill aimed at taking down the Kerry-Lieberman legislation and relies on major tax incentives for energy companies to create energy alternatives. Needless to say, the competitor bill is not being very well-received by environmental groups.
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Since being elected to the Senate in 2002, Chambliss has reportedly received $250,000 from energy companies. He voted against a bill that would give tax incentives to companies that participate in energy conservation and also voted against a national energy tax. He and Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) have created a Republican alternative to the Kerry-Lieberman bill. For the last five years, only one group—the anti-tax Club for Growth—has given more money to Chambliss than Southern Co., the Atlanta-based energy giant.
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When news reports leaked out that the nation’s top scientists were teaming up with spies to find out more about climate change, Barrasso attacked the idea and said he wanted to hold hearings. Climate-change scientists called the programs “ really useful,” but the Wyoming Republican said the CIA should be hunting terrorists, not “spying on sea lions.” Besides questioning the validity of climate change, Barrasso has become one of the most outspoken critics of the EPA, writing about the agency’s efforts to enforce the Clean Air Act, “If this is help, Americans don’t want it.”
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James Inhofe’s major campaign contributors are oil and gas companies, and he has led the charge to discredit climate change. In 2003, he said on the Senate floor that “much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science.” He’s also called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” Instead of using the phrase “climate change,” Inhofe says “ climate hoax,” and called Al Gore a “global-warming alarmist.”
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Mary Landrieu had the dubious honor of being added to the League of Conservation Voters’ “ Dirty Dozen” list in 2008, as she is one of the biggest supporters of offshore drilling. The Louisiana senator has remained a steadfast supporter of the practice, despite the damage the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has done to her state. Landrieu is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, meaning her support for offshore drilling could be extremely damaging. Landrieu has worked with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) to limit the EPA’s role in creating-climate change legislation.
Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo
Mary Landrieu’s partner in crime, Lisa Murkowski calls herself a friend to the environment, but she hasn’t exactly been treating her friend so well. She plans to put forward a resolution to bar the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, making it more difficult to move away from fossil fuels. Despite the effect deepwater drilling has had on her home state, Murkowski has also blocked a bill that would raise the liability cap on such drilling, saying she would rather each project be handled on its own. Mother Jones called Murkowski one of the biggest “double agents” on climate change, especially after she supported a bill to reopen the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve to oil drilling.
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Although David Vitter told President Obama he should treat the oil spill “ like war,” Vitter has long been buddy-buddy with the oil industry. Last summer, he boasted that the GOP can “ kill any major climate change on the Senate floor.” Vitter said he had “real doubts” about the “so-called science” behind climate change. Vitter’s home state of Louisiana has been hard-hit by the oil spill, but Vitter has been starkly opposed to the moratorium on deepwater drilling. Vitter has received almost $800,000 from the oil and gas industry since entering politics. He has forwarded a proposal after the oil spill to block a study by NOAA of the effects of oil on fish farming.
Alex Brandon / AP Photo
As the senator from West Virginia, Jay Rockefeller’s support of Big Coal should not come as a huge surprise. Rockefeller’s fifth-largest campaign contributor is Peabody Energy, a major coal producer/a>. Rockefeller continues to insist coal will play a role in the energy future, despite its link to climate change. He urged the Senate in June to abandon its efforts to fight climate change, claiming suspending EPA action on greenhouse-gas emissions is more important than a sweeping overhaul of climate-change policy.
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In the effort to gut the Clean Air Act, Blanche Lincoln has worked with Lisa Murkowski to prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse- gas emissions. Ads were launched against Lincoln in her primary battle attacking her stance on climate change. The League of Conservation Voters dubbed her “ Big Oil Blanche.” Oil and gas companies are her fifth-largest campaign contributor in 2010.
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