$199.5 Million Spent On Energy Ads Since Obama’s Inauguration
$199.5 Million Spent On Energy Ads Since Obama’s Inauguration
Politico reports that interest groups and corporations have spent nearly $200 million dollars on TV ads since President Obama’s inauguration to manipulate American energy policy reform. According to an analysis by the Campaign Media Analysis Group, $199.5 million was directed from January 20th to March 31st to television issue ads on energy, the environment, and climate. $54.5 million of the ads were about oil and gas alone:
According to CMAG’s analysis, between Obama’s January 20 Inauguration and the end of March, most TV ad spending was directed toward energy and the environment, which saw $115.1 million worth of ads. The next biggest targets were gas and oil issues, which were the subject of $54.5 million in ad buys, followed by labor, stimulus and budget-related issues ($41.9 million), climate change ($29.9 million) and health care ($27.5 million).
Why is corporate America on track to spend one billion dollars this year on a television barrage about energy policy?
President Obama’s clean energy agenda, like his proposals for health care and labor reform, threatens the corrupt business model of the corporate right. Closing the carbon loophole with a cap and trade system will create a strong, healthy foundation for our national recovery — but pollution will no longer be free for Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, and Peabody Coal. So they are trying to either block reform entirely, or — for those corporations that recognize the necessity of action — to ensure that their pollution is subsidized by the American taxpayer, through pollution permit giveaways or other handouts.
3 Responses to “$199.5 Million Spent On Energy Ads Since Obama’s Inauguration”
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Brad,
Aren’t you forgetting about the good guys? GE for smart grid, thisisreality.org, boon pickens, etc.
Although their contribution to the dollars spent on relevant television ads may not be as large as that of the conspiracy-theory-esq “corrupt…corporate right”, their (albeit good) intent to “manipulate American energy policy reform” must be brought to the forefront as well – especially if they have contradictory viewpoints of what constitutes the change we need in energy policy.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:18 amAnders: I’m hoping to get a breakdown on who did the spending from CMAG. Unfortunately, the author is traveling this week. It’s safe to assume that the gas & oil breakout is entirely API/oil company advertising.
The “good guys” are helping shift the political climate but they’re also working for massive subsidies to support their interests — on top of the benefits they would rightly gain from being leaders in a clean energy economy.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:09 pmIt was during the inauguration that I first saw ads by Exxon which are designed to program the public to believe that natural gas is a clean alternative fuel. Natural gas may burn cleaner, but the extraction process is ten times more toxic than oil drilling and is a danger to public health and safety.
Halliburton has designed a technology called horizontal hydraulic fracturing. It uses 3-9 million gallons of fresh water per well, depleting our most precious resource: water, and increasing the cost of it to the public. Injected into these wells is a toxic mix of 245 chemicals shown by epidemiologists to cause rare cancers, infertility, brain damage, autism, and other neurological disorders.
Millions of gallons of fluid waste and radioactive tailings must be disposed of from each well, overtaxing waste treatment facilities not designed to handle this highly toxic detritus.
Energy companies have already started to use this process to drill in deep shale deposits in Colorado and New Mexico with devastating results to communities. They are now poised to do the same in the Marcellus Shale, primarily in New York,Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. This will affect the aquifers, rivers, lakes, streams, and watersheds in the Delaware River basin and the Susquehanna River Basin, contaminating water not only in rural communities but in cities such as New York, Trenton, and Philadelphia.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is preparing to begin permitting for drilling by June, 2009. It is imperative that the public becomes informed and take action.
Testimony given to the Committee on Environmental Protection, Council of New York City on September 10, 2008, which you can find on-line, will give you an idea of what we are facing.
The Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP)is another good resource, as is propublica: http://www.propublica.org/site/author/Abrahm_Lustgarten/
A petition to the Delaware River Basin Commission is available to sign on-line at:
April 24th, 2009 at 9:43 amhttp://www.damascuscitizens.org/petitionUD/