A Pipeline of Oil Dollars Flowing to Members of Congress Pushing Keystone XL Decision

I thought a memory jog would be good; apologies if this was posted recently...

A Pipeline of Oil Dollars Flowing to Members of Congress Pushing Keystone XL Decision

By Stephen Lacey on Jan 11, 2012 at 1:59 pm

by Stephen Lacey and Zachary Rybarczyk


The House of Representatives under the 112th Congress has been dubbed “the most anti-environmental House in history.” From a refusal to give up on styrofoam in the congressional cafeteria to the push for more uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, this House has an astonishingly deep resume of bad decisions on climate, energy and conservation issues.

Rounding out 2011 was a bill forcing President Obama to approve or deny the Keystone XL pipeline in 60 days — taking further federal environmental reviews off the table, even while a former Keystone pipeline inspector called the project a potential “disaster.”

A new analysis of two years of campaign contributions to House members conducted by the non-partisan research group MapLight shows a strong correlation between money flowing to Congress and House votes in favor of pushing a decision on Keystone XL.

In total, American oil and gas industry lobbyists have spent nearly $12 million in campaign contributions to both Republicans and Democrats since 2009, when the Keystone XL building permit was originally filed.

Of the 195 representatives who list oil and gas lobbyists in their top-20 campaign contributions, 185 voted for a bill in July that would have expedited the approval and construction of Keystone XL. That bill eventually died in the Senate. However, in December, the House passed an extension of the payroll tax cut that included a mandatory executive decision on the pipeline by February.

Here are the top 10:



more...

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/11/402533/oil-dollars-members-of-congress-pushing-keystone-xl-decision/?mobile=nc