Liberal, green groups create site tracking oil, coal political donations

A slew of liberal groups launched a website Tuesday that provides detailed data on petroleum and coal industry contributions to Congress over the last decade — money that the activists tied to the death of climate change legislation on Capitol Hill.

The site — www.dirtyenergymoney.com — is run by the group Oil Change International and backed by a dozen partners, including Greenpeace, MoveOn.org, Friends of the Earth and the Center for Responsive Politics.

“If you’re wondering why Congress can’t do anything meaningful to end our oil addiction or stop climate change, the enormous amounts of money revealed on DirtyEnergyMoney.com provide some of the answer,” said Steve Kretzmann of Oil Change International in a prepared statement.

The site provides data on political funds using a variety of filters. Visitors can get data for each Congress or aggregate data for the last decade, and also track data based on specific companies and members.

The oil, gas and coal industries have steered more than $14.8 million to lawmakers during the current Congress, according to the website, although the groups note the number is expected to rise with the onset of the election season. The tally for the 110th Congress (2007-2008) was $22.7 million, according to the groups’ analysis.

It lists Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) as the top aggregate recipient of money from the industries (more than 80 percent from oil and gas, in his case) over all the years tracked, with nearly $1.9 million in contributions. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who faces a tough reelection fight, is the top recipient thus far in the current Congress, with more than $510,000.

In the 111th Congress thus far, the industries have favored Republicans over Democrats, 54-46 percent.

But the groups say the coal sector specifically has given more to Democrats in this Congress, with the power and mining companies providing more than $3.7 million to Democrats compared to roughly $2.8 million to Republicans. The oil-and-gas industry, meanwhile, has provided more than $5.1 million to Republicans compared to $3.1 million given to Democrats.

The Center for Responsive Politics already tracks some of the same data, but Kretzmann said the new site provides more targeted information.

He noted, for instance, that rather than looking at electric utilities as a group, the new site is able to focus on coal specifically by counting only those power companies that are at least 70 percent reliant on coal.