Anti-Obama nonprofit tells IRS it's not 'political'

By Michael Beckel

Swing state voters in Virginia and Ohio last fall were bombarded with television advertisements encouraging them to "stand with coal" and "vote no on Obama's failing energy policy."

But the sponsor of these ads — a pro-business nonprofit advocacy group called the American Energy Alliance — says the messages weren’t designed to aid Republican Mitt Romney in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

In a new tax return filed Friday and first obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, the American Energy Alliance, led by former Koch Industries lobbyist Thomas Pyle, told the Internal Revenue Service that it did not "engage in direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office" last year.

The group made an even more explicit pledge to be nonpartisan when it applied for tax-exempt status in 2008, telling the IRS that it had "no interest in supporting the agenda or any particular political party or political candidate."



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http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/11/18/13785/anti-obama-nonprofit-tells-irs-its-not-political