Big Oil’s Big Year

Photo by Steve Wampler, via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgw/2892058635/">Flickr</a>.

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In case you were feeling sorry for Big Oil now that the Obama administration has proposed cutting their tax breaks, the 2009 lobbying figures for the industry are available. And the industry spent big: $154 million on lobbying last year alone. That’s more than any previous year, and more than any other energy interest looking to shape the debate on Capitol Hill.

Lobbying disclosures analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics found that oil interests spent 16 percent more on lobbying in 2009 than in 2008. ExxonMobil alone spent $27.4 million on lobbying, the second biggest business spender in 2009, while Chevron spent $20.8 million, ranking seventh. Electric utilities followed close behind, spending $134.7 million last year.

By comparison, energy interests categorized as “miscellaneous” spent just $29 million on lobbying. This category includes groups like the American Wind Energy Association, local water districts, ethanol companies, smart grid promoters, and various others. Environmental organizations spent approximately $21.3 million last year on lobbying—which, if you’re counting, is just 7 percent of what fossil fuel interests spent.

And this isn’t all of it; CRP has only tallied 80 percent of the lobbying disclosure forms, and a more detailed report is expected later this month. It’s important to note that not all energy companies are lobbying against climate change legislation. A number of electric utilities have been supportive of measure to cap and reduce carbon dioxide pollution. But the lobbying totals show just how much these industries are spending to influence what that legislation might look like.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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