Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumSaudi-Led Oil Lobby Group Financed 2012 Dark Money Attack Ads
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Saudi-Led-Oil-Lobby-Group-by-Lee-Fang-121130-548.htmlSaudi-Led Oil Lobby Group Financed 2012 Dark Money Attack Ads
By Lee Fang
OpEdNews Op Eds 11/30/2012 at 15:19:20
The "American" in American Petroleum Institute, the country's largest oil lobby group, is a misnomer. As I reported for The Nation in August, the group has changed over the years, and is now led by men like Tofiq Al-Gabsani, a Saudi Arabian national who heads a Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) subsidiary, the state-run oil company that also helps finance the American Petroleum Institute. Al-Gabsani is also a registered foreign agent for the Saudi government.
New disclosures retrieved today, showing some of API's spending over the course of last year, reveal that API used its membership dues (from the world's largest oil companies like Chevron and Aramco) to finance several dark money groups airing attack ads in the most recent election cycle.
~snip~
The disclosures also show that in 2011, API spent over $68 million for public relations/advertising with the firm Edelman, $5.4 million on "coalition building" with the firm Advocates Inc, and $4 million with DDC Advocacy for "advocacy." DDC is the firm led by Sara Fagen, the former Bush White House aide ensnared in the DOJ purges scandal. DDC now works with corporations to help them communicate with workers on how to vote.
API's Saudi leadership is perhaps one of the most salient examples of how the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has opened the door to foreign influence.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)obxhead
(8,434 posts)louis-t
(23,297 posts)but they won't be.
Historic NY
(37,453 posts)that interfere in our elections....its time to overturn the law and turn out the SCOTUS majority in the next 4 yrs.
loudsue
(14,087 posts)to get Citizens United back before the supreme court, and we need to impeach the supreme court justices that let this shit happen.
socialindependocrat
(1,372 posts)I've been making a stink about them.
Half vote left and half vote right and we have one guy in the middle
who makes all the decisions. (Thank god he's on our side)
But this Citizens United thing is totally stupid.
And we have to force them to rescind the law!
How stupid...
DFW
(54,436 posts)What with Rolls-Ryan going on so publicly about how much support they were supposedly getting from Netanyahu and Israel.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)heard and contribute to our pre-election campaigns than a foreign citizen who hates America.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)I have a computer library that goes back to the 90's on one, greedy Dick Cheney, and his quest for oil.
There are so many internet links available, I'll limit it to a few for reference.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4458.htm
THE BUSH/CHENEY ENERGY STRATEGY:
IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FOREIGN AND MILITARY POLICY
A Paper Prepared for the Second Annual Meeting of the Association for Study of Peak Oil Paris, France, 26-27 May 2003
By Michael T. Klare Professor of Peace and World Security Studies
Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002 USA (mklare@hampshire.edu)
When first assuming office as President in early 2001, George W. Bushs top foreign policy priority was not to prevent terrorism or to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction (or any of the other goals he has espoused since 9/11); rather, it was to increase the flow of petroleum from foreign suppliers to markets in the United States. In the year preceding his assumption of office, the United States had experienced severe oil and natural gas shortages in many parts of the country, along with periodic electric-power blackouts in California. In addition, U.S. oil imports had just risen over 50 percent of total U.S. consumption for the first time in American history, provoking great anxiety about the security of Americas long-term energy supply. For these and other reasons, Bush asserted that addressing the nations "energy crisis" was his most important task as President.
[link:http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/10/timeline-how-dick-cheney-caused-the-bp-oil-spill/|http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/10/timeline-how-dick-cheney-caused-the-bp-oil-spill/
]
Posted by Devona Walker at 12:47 pm
June 10, 2010
Timeline: How Dick Cheney Helped Cause the BP oil spill
Why Dick Cheney and the GOP are to blame for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.