David Wilkins, who was George Bush’s ambassador to Canada from 2005 to 2009, is one of the many people who think this is the case.

“It’s become a big political issue. Huge. You’ll see a lot more of it as the campaign for president unfolds,” he said earlier this week. It’s not hard to see which side of the political fence Wilkins is on, as his US-based law firm represents the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in Washington.

“If President Obama gets re-elected, he may approve the pipeline. If President Obama is not re-elected, the pipeline will absolutely get approved because all of the Republican candidates have indicated they are very much in favour of it,” Wilkins added.

All the leading Republican candidates have become vocal on the issue, pushing what one pundit calls “petro-populism”.

In his “State of the Union response,” a speech given in Tampa under a giant “Obama isn’t working” banner, Mitt Romney called Keystone, “a real ‘shovel-ready’ project that would put 20,000 Americans back to work.”

The only problem with this is that figure, as any regular reader of this blog will know is wildly inaccurate, and Greenpeace recently asked the US authorities to investigate such claims.

But the candidate who is really supercharging the petro-populism garbage is Newt Gingrich, who is now daily whipping up hysteria on the issue.

Speaking in a Florida retirement village this week he told the assembled audience that Obama had “recently vetoed the Keystone pipeline ..  to appease left-wing environmental extremists in San Francisco.”

Gingrich added, repeating a script straight out of the oil industry’s mouth, that: “Here was an opportunity to have oil come from Canada through the United States, to the largest petrochemical complex in the world, in Houston. It would have provided jobs for the next 50 years, processing the oil, sending some of it to the ports overseas, so you’d got jobs for the ports, jobs for the refineries, jobs from building the pipeline. He cancelled all that. Right now the Canadians are looking seriously at a partnership with China.”

Gingrich says that approving Keystone would be one of the first executive orders he would sign on the first day of his presidency.

“My message to the people of Canada is don’t cut a deal with the Chinese, help is on the way”.

But after yesterday’s heavy defeat in Florida, Gingrich’s dream of becoming the Republican candidate looks to be in real trouble.

A new report undertaken for the Commission by the Belgian law firm Philippe & Partners, argues that there is no need for more environmental legislation concerning fracking until it reaches commercial scale.

“Neither on the European level nor on the national level have we noticed significant gaps in the current legislative framework, when it comes to regulating the current level of shale gas activities,” the study says.

However in words that are meant to reassure people the report added that: “However, this is no reason for complacency, since this assessment explicitly refers to the current level of experience and scale of operations as can be expected during the exploration phase. “

Although the study was finished last November, it has only just been released by the Commission. It also just covered four countries: Sweden, Poland, France and Germany.

But the report argues that activities relating to exploration of shale gas are already subject to EU and national laws and regulations, such as the Water Framework Directive, the Groundwater Directive and the Mining Waste Directive. The use of chemicals is covered by the REACH regulation.

“It is a new technology and we do not have a specific legislation on shale gas, because it is so new,” said Marlene Holzner, European commission spokesperson on energy. “So the study only says that the existing regulations are applicable for shale gas, that the tool is there and has only to be applied.”

Ironically this report is at odds with another report submitted last summer to the Commission, which was written for the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

That report called for “consideration to be given to developing a new directive at European level regulating all issues in this area comprehensively”. The report, entitled Impacts of shale gas and shale oil extraction on the environment and human health also recommended that for fracking, “all chemicals to be used should be disclosed publicly, the number of allowed chemicals should be restricted and its use should be monitored.”

But of course by the time fracking gets to a commercial scale it could well be too late to monitor all the chemicals being used and to rush in EU-wide legislation, especially given the time it takes to draft legislation and then get it past the EU’s various respective bodies.

Meanwhile, there would be huge financial and other pressure from the oil industry to carry on drilling without having to wait for further regulations. It is a scenario that many communities in America are finding to their cost.

The new report will be used by the oil industry as a green light to carry on fracking. Poland, where the fracking revolution is occurring full steam ahead, is planning to begin commercial shale gas production in two years’ time. So if laws are to be implemented at the EU level to cover commercial drilling, that needs to happen now.

Not every country in the EU though is fracking mad, though.

A couple of weeks ago, thousands of Bulgarians protested against fracking over fears it could poison underground water, trigger earthquakes and pose serious public health hazards. Protestors rallied in more than six Bulgarian cities calling for a fracking moratorium.

“I am opposed because we do not know what chemicals they will put in the ground. Once they poison the water, what shall we drink?” said Olga Petrova, 24, a student who attended a protest in Sofia.

Days later Bulgaria’s National Assembly voted to impose an indefinite fracking ban in the country. France also banned fracking last July, while in Britain fracking has caused minor earthquakes.

Whose going to draft a law to stop that happening again?

Our colleagues at Public Campaign and 350.org revealed that those Senators who co-sponsored the bill have received $22.3 million in oil and gas money since 1989.

We also ran the numbers through our Dirty Energy Money database and found two additional notable facts:

• Those Senators who co-sponsored this bill have taken more than three times as much oil and gas money on average in this current Congress than those who did not co-sponsor;
• Seantor Joe Manchin (W.Va), the only Democrat to sponsor, has received more money from the oil industry so far in the 112th Congress than any other Democrat – $42,250.  That is more than 5 times the average amount of oil industry donations than his fellow Democrats in the Senate.

Download our analysis here.  It’s worth noting that our database only goes back to 1999, while the earlier analysis went to 1989.

It’s also worth noting that TransCanada has spent more than $1.3 million in lobbying in Washington over the last year.

Hoeven’s bill, that would seek to take control of the Keystone decision, looks like a political non-starter.  To become law it would have to be approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

And for some crazy reason this did happen, the President himself would have still have to approve it.

But still Hoeven is pushing ahead. “We’ve been working with (the Republican) leadership in the Senate and all our colleagues, and we believe Senator Hoeven’s bill has support from a lot of people in the Senate,” said Ryan Bernstein, an energy advisor to Hoeven.

One of the main reasons the pipeline is rapidly becoming a key election issue is over jobs. The oil industry and its friends in the GOP maintain that the pipeline is a huge job creator, but the pipeline’s critics have always maintained that those figures are highly inflated and misleading.

And now Greenpeace has upped the game in this department and written to the Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that TransCanada “is using false or misleading statements about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project”, especially in relation to the numbers of jobs the pipeline would create.

The letter argues that TransCanada has “has consistently used public statements and information it knows are false in a concerted effort to secure permitting approval of Keystone XL from the U.S. government. In the process, it has misled investors, U.S. and Canadian officials, the media, and the public at large in order to bolster its balance sheets and share price.”

Greenpeace is arguing that TransCanada’s statements violate U.S. securities disclosure laws. The environmental group maintains that TransCanada has asserted that the each mile of the pipeline constructed in the U.S. would create American jobs at a rate that is 67 times higher than job creation totals given by the company to Canadian officials for the Canadian portion of the pipeline.

“These false and misleading job creation numbers are part of TransCanada’s lobbying and public relations campaign designed to create congressional pressure on the U.S. government to issue a Presidential Permit approving construction of Keystone XL”, argues Greenpeace, which has asked the SEC to make TransCanada correct its figures.

At the heart of the jobs propaganda is a report commissioned by TransCanada from economist Ray Perryman, entitled The Impact of Developing the Keystone XL Pipeline Project on Business Activity in the U.S. Based on Perryman’s report, TransCanada has claimed that the pipeline would create more than 20,000 high-wage manufacturing jobs and construction jobs in 2011-2012 and more than 118,000 “spin-off” jobs.

But Greenpeace argues these “claims are false and in conflict” with TransCanada’s own filings to Canadian and U.S. regulators and is exaggerated by possibly over 350 per cent.

The Greenpeace letter concludes that it is “clear that TransCanada has consistently used public statements and information it knows are false in a concerted effort to secure permitting approval of KXL from the U.S. government. In the process, it has misled a large number of people – investors, U.S. and Canadian officials, state officials, the media, and the public at large – in order to bolster its balance sheets and share price. This is a direct violation of SEC public disclosure regulations and must be addressed.”

Greenpeace and many others will be watching closely to see how the SEC responds.

What if you were in Vegas, and a friend told you there was a slot machine in the corner that was giving out $59 for every $1 that was put in?  You’d think the machine was broken, and that it was rigged.

What if an investment advisor told you that he could get you $59 back for every $1 you gave him?  That’s a 5800% rate of return.  Even Bernie Madoff only promised 10.5%.  Obviously a scam, right?

Clearly this is a scam, but if you’re the oil, gas and coal industry, it’s legal and business as usual in Washington. For every $1 the industry spends on campaign contributions and lobbying in DC, it gets back $59 in subsidies.

Here’s how it works:

Amount the fossil fuel industry spent during the 111th Congress (2009 & 2010) on contributions to Congress’ campaigns: $25,794,747

Oil and Gas lobbying total 2009:  $175,454,820

Oil and Gas lobbying total 2010 : $146,032,543

TOTAL amount spent by Big Fossil in 111th Congress: $347,282,110

2009 amount given to fossils in federal subsidies: $8,910,440,000

2010 amount given to fossils in federal subsidies: $11,578,900,000

TOTAL amount given to fossils during 111th Congress: $20,489,340,000

(Original OECD source for subsidies here and broken out by US Federal totals here)

Divide total subsidies by total money spent by the industry and you get 59.

$1 in.  $59 out.  That’s a 5800% return on political investment.  Not bad.

(Note that an earlier post touched on this topic of return on political investment but did not include the lobbying figures and included conservative estimates of subsidies).

During Obama’s State of the Union speech, Democracy Corps ran a dial-test focus group. Fifty swing voters were given devices that let them register approval or disapproval continuously throughout the speech. Two results in particular are worth highlighting.

In doing so Obama reminded Americans that there is a clear choice when it comes to the next election.

There is also a choice with energy. Before we look at what the President said we have to remember that very little of policies that he proposed last night will ever see the light of day before the election.  That is due to the gridlock in Congress, with the House of Representatives under Republican control.

In many ways his speech, under the theme of “An America built to last,” was all about the long term vision of where America is going, a battle for America’s heart and soul. The real measure of how successful the speech was will not be known until the election in November, and whether Obama’s powerful rhetoric still resonates with voters, or whether they vote for the Republican challenger, whoever that may be.

One of the battle lines Obama drew was over energy. Republicans are already furious about the President’s recent rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.

But Obama also tackled the thorny issue of oil subsidies. “We have subsidized oil companies for a century”, said the President. “That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.”

Despite the standing ovation that this part of the speech received, and the support of the vast majority of the American people there is virtually no chance that these subsidies will be revoked before November.

In reality this is at least Obama’s third run at stripping subsidies from the oil industry. Even when fellow Democrats formed the House and Senate majorities, he sought $4 billion by ending subsidies on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but his request was largely ignored by Congress.

Last year he called again to end subsidies in his State of the Union speech. And he’s now doing it again, despite the predictable wall of opposition from Republicans.  So the chances of a subsidy removal look remote.

Controversially, Obama backed the current fracking frenzy currently happening across America, but argued that the US authorities will compel companies producing gas and oil on federal lands to disclose the chemicals they use for fracking.

“America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk,” said Obama.

That is a commitment that will be difficult to keep, if the Administration truly intends to support expanded oil and gas drilling throughout the U.S.

1. The American people believe (rightly) that Members of Congress are more responsive to their campaign donors than to their own constituents.

2. Americans of all affiliations clearly favor ending fossil fuel industry handouts.

Americans are sick of watching Congress receive bribes from the fossil fuel industry to vote for scams like the Keystone XL pipeline and fossil fuel subsidies.  We see what’s happening, and we’re declaring it out of bounds and unsportsmanlike from this point forward.

The five biggest oil companies alone have made more than $1 trillion in profits over the last decade.  It’s absurd that these companies still demand, and still receive, handouts from Congress paid for by taxpayers.  This isn’t about energy or jobs – it’s about greed and corruption.

Listed below is some useful information about the cycle of dirty energy money corruption going on in Congress.

Money In – Campaign Finance
(All data is from Oil Change International’s Dirty Energy Money campaign which uses public data made available by the Center for Responsive Politics.)

Since 1999, the coal, oil and gas industries have shelled out more than $93 million to current members of Congress.

The trend is increasing with each election cycle, and current members of Congress took over $25 million in campaign contributions from the oil, coal and gas industries in 2009-2010.

Through October of 2011, dirty energy interests had given this Congress $7.8 million in this cycle alone.
Speaker Boehner has received the most money from the fossil fuel industry during this term, with more than $287,000 received from the oil, gas and coal industries.

It is worth noting that direct contributions to candidates are only one way that the fossil fuel industry exerts influence.  Substantially larger sums of money are mobilized by SuperPacs and other entities.

Money Out: Subsidies

Each year that the President has submitted a budget, it has included eliminating $4 billion in annual subsidies to the dirty energy industry.  Each year Congress has been unable to eliminate the subsidies.

In a vote in May of 2011, the reason was clear.  Senators who voted to preserve subsidies took an average of five times more dirty energy money than those who voted to stop handouts to the oil industry.

In October of 2011 a large coalition called on the Super Committee to eliminate $12 billion annually in fossil fuel subsidies.

Our tax dollars also fund billions in fossil fuel projects around the world, via institutions like the World Bank and the US Export-Import Bank.

Dirty Energy Money and the Keystone XL Pipeline

Earlier this month American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard threatened President Obama with “huge political consequences” if he rejected the Keystone XL pipeline.  This threat was unusual only because it was public, but the industry clearly continues to implicitly threaten all of our elected Representatives.

In July, the House of Representatives voted on the Keystone XL pipeline.  Those Representatives who voted for the pipeline received 513% more from the oil and gas industry than those who voted against it.

In total, those who voted for the pipeline have received $10,922,161 from the oil and gas industry while those who voted against the pipeline have received only $717,552.  In other words, those that voted for the pipeline have received 15 times more money from the oil and gas industry.

In December, the House held another vote with similar results.  Members of Congress who supported the measure have received $41 million from the fossil fuel industry, while those who voted against the bill have received only about $8 million from oil, gas and coal interests.

An analysis by ThinkProgress of lobbying disclosure records for the first, second, and third quarters of 2011 suggests that the lobbying expenses of the 20 or more business and labor interests who backed the project was $60 million compared to $1 million by the seven organizations that actively opposed the measure. TransCanada’s lobbying efforts alone over the first three quarters of 2011 totalled $920,000, just under the total amount spent by its opponents..

Political Return on Investment

Buying Congress is a great investment for the oil, gas and coal industries.  During the last two year cycle, they put in $25 million, and they got out at least $4 billion annually – $8 billion.  In other words, for every $1 that the fossil fuel industry invests in Congress, they get at least $320 back. (Note that as of January 26th, OCI has updated this estimate to be 59:1)

Activists will be gathering at the Capitol dressed in referee uniforms and then heading to our old friends at the American Petroleum Institute. They will also be targeting lawmakers who have received campaign contributions from Big Oil.

The rally is intended to keep up the pressure after last week’s announcement by the Obama Administration to reject TransCanada’s highly controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, said “is it okay that congressmen take huge sums from companies and then vote on their interests?”

But Big Oil and its Republican stooges have not given up on Keystone just yet.

Yesterday, House and Senate Republican staff held a conference call with TransCanada lawyers to plot out how to push the Obama administration on the Keystone XL pipeline.

Among those at the meeting were staff for Rep. Lee Terry; Senator John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Dick Lugar, Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Lisa Murkowski and House GOP leadership. If anyone wants to know how much this lot get from Big Oil go to DirtyEnergyMoney to look.

What you also know is that the pro-Keystone backers will be increasing their lobbying efforts to try and get the pipeline through and undermine Obama.

And it comes as no surprise to find out that despite their defeat last week, the pro-pipeline lobby spent far more money lobbying for the pipeline than those against.

An analysis by ThinkProgress of lobbying disclosure records for the first, second, and third quarters of 2011 suggests that the lobbying expenses of the 20 or more business and labor interests who backed the project was $60 million compared to $1 million by the seven organizations that actively opposed the measure. TransCanada’s lobbying efforts alone over the first three quarters of 2011 totalled $920,000, just under the total amount spent by its opponents.

So we know that Big Oil will hit back on this one. We know the Republicans  are looking at ways to get around last week’s Keystone decision. And we know there will be lots of DirtyEnergy Money floating around to make sure that it happens.

In many ways the real fight for Keystone XL could just be beginning.  Prepare for the long haul.

The commitment to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists was made in the Coalition agreement in May 2010 between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Nearly two years ago, British Prime Minister, David Cameron warned that lobbying had got ‘out of control’.

Over the next three months, the British public has the chance to have their say on what kind of information should be included in the register.

Already the signs are not good. The draft consultation document published by the Government last week “have lobbyists’ fingerprints all over them”, according to Tamasin Cave from the Alliance and Lobbying Transparency.

Cave added: “The proposals lack both breadth and depth: they would reveal on only a tiny proportion of the industry, and then no meaningful information. The lobbying industry has triumphed here. This is what they want; a partial system of minimal disclosure.”

But there are many covert ways that people can lobby government that will not covered in even the most robust register of lobbyists.

One of these is through the funding of think tanks. Many leading think tanks in Britain, which have an undue influence on the public and political debate, do not disclose who funds them. There is now a growing momentum that if we are going to have political transparency in politics that think tanks need to disclose who is behind them. In a modern healthy democracy that would make perfect sense.

Take the case of leading climate sceptic, Lord Lawson and the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Since its inception Lawson, riding on the back of so-called controversies such as Climategate, has been “particularly successful ” at courting media attention, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Lawson has always argued for the utmost transparency from climate scientists, especially in relation to data and Freedom of Information requests, saying in the past: “Proper scientists, scientists of integrity, they reveal, and voluntarily they wish to reveal, all their data and all their methods; they do not need a Freedom of Information Act request to force it out of them.”
He has also said: “Integrity means you show everything, absolutely.”

However many people have accused Lawson of being a hypocrite for refusing to reveal who funds the GWPF. In its accounts, Lawson admits that the GWPF has a budget of £503,000, but maintains that the GWPF does not accept donations from the energy industry, or anyone with a “significant interest” in the energy industry.

Now however, Lawson may be forced to reveal the identity of at least one of his backers at an Information Rights Tribunal on Friday being brought by Brendan Montague, the director of an organisation called the Request Initiative, a “community interest company that makes Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of charities, NGOs and non-profits”.

Montague is arguing that the public interest will be served by ending the secrecy around the financing of Lawson’s charity and the secretive backer who gave £50,000 in seed funding to the GWPF. So far all attempts by Montague have been rejected by the UK Information Commissioner who argues that the release of the donor’s identity would “bring significant media scrutiny of the donor’s private affairs”.

But it is a very deliberate and public act to donate £50,000 to a leading climate sceptic think tank, and in doing so to manipulate the debate on climate. Therefore the public should have a right to know.

“Lord Lawson’s thinktank, which has been bankrolled by shadowy funders, is lobbying government for a change in climate policy that would affect the lives of millions of people,” Montague tells today’s Guardian.

He adds: “The privacy of wealth has so far been valued above public accountability, even by our own civic institutions. The democratic principle of transparency is breached when a former chancellor can sit in the House of Lords influencing government policy on matters as important as climate change while accepting funding for his thinktank from secret supporters.”

Montague is drawing support from leading climate scientists, including one of the world’s most famous climate scientists James Hansen, the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Hansen tells the Guardian: “Our children and grandchildren will judge those who have misled the public, allowing fossil fuel emissions to continue almost unfettered, as guilty of crimes against humanity and nature.”

The public has a right to know who is “guilty of crime against humanity”. Mr Lawson, it is time to come clean on who funds you.