(Photo of Finance Committee from Flickr and Talk Radio News Service)
Max Baucus and his Flying Finance Circus, which sat on Health Reform for a long time, is now doing the same for Climate Change. So it isn’t surprising to hear that Finance Committee members have received some pretty big campaign donations from energy interests (as with the health industry.)
Over the past two decades, members of that powerful committee got at least $5.6 million from oil and gas and $2.4 million from electric utilities. They’ve built up quite a relationship over the years – especially in non-populous states, where it’s harder to raise enough campaign money from voters.
In the current election cycle, industries likely to be impacted by climate and energy legislation contributed $390,000 to Democrats on the committee and $251,000 to Republicans, according to an analysis by E&E News. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who is about to run for re-election, got the most, at $195,796 so far from 72 different energy interests. Lincoln is a key swing vote on climate change and will have additional sway as the new chair of the Agriculture Committee. She’s a two-fer.
Ranking Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) received the most among GOP members – $128,500 from 52 sources.
Now remember, we’re not talking about money spent on lobbying here – paid lobbyists plying their trade on Capitol Hill or running advertisements. That’s above and beyond the campaign contributions. This is cash going into Finance Committee members’ campaign coffers.
Special interests insist they aren’t buying votes. Rather they’re gaining “access,” to plead their case.
In light of that, it’s interesting to see that industry officials outnumbered those from any other sector (such as government, think tanks or consumer groups) in testifying before the relevant committees in the Senate on climate legislation. And that’s before Finance even got involved.
But getting back to Finance. They plan to re-write a cap-and-trade proposal and determine how free allowances will be doled out (the Kerry-Boxer bill pretty much went along with the allocations in the House-passed bill). They also may look at whether industry can bank allowances from one year to the next or bundle and sell them like mortgages, according to the American Enterprise Industry. Don’t even think about that.
I’m so sick of the big-money corporate interests determining our fate. And in this matter they’re also determining the fate of the planet. In large part because the Senate hasn’t passed a climate change bill, leaders of the world have determined they won’t be able to reach a legally binding climate treaty in Copenhagen next month. Obama was supposed to have made that possible, but the Senate is not cooperating. I wonder why.
(Sources: E&E Daily, Greenwire)
No comments:
Post a Comment