Direct versus Indirect Cash

American Petroleum Institute To Begin Direct Political Donations

One of the biggest oil lobbying organizations now plans to directly back political candidates.


The American Petroleum Institute (API) -- the main U.S. trade association for the oil and gas industry -- recently announced that beginning in the second quarter of this year, it will take a turn towards direct political donations. API, who has companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron among its 400 members, spent about $7 million last year on lobbying efforts alone.

But their impact was there even before. Cash flowed into pockets and it is not only the oil boys...

Pesticide Industry Ramps Up Lobbying in Bid to Pare EPA Rules

The pesticide industry is applying extra doses of lobbying in an effort to eradicate federal requirements it considers harmful.


CropLife America -- the trade group for Dow Chemical Co., DuPont, Monsanto Co. and other pesticide makers -- aims to influence dozens of measures, from safe food and drinking water rules to toxic chemical regulations and antiterrorism laws.


The organization in the last three months of 2010 significantly ramped up persuasion efforts. CropLife America in that period spent nearly $751,000 on lobbying, a 58 percent increase from a year earlier.


The spending came as the industry saw signals that regulation could increase, analysts said.


"In the first two years of the Obama administration, you had a lot of saber rattling by political appointees" who appeared to favor the European approach to broader regulation, said Jon Entine, editor of the book "Crop Chemophobia: Will Precaution Kill the Green Revolution?" That, he said, "seemed to signal to chemical industry, agricultural and otherwise, that they were going to push for more precautionary oversight of chemicals."


The trade group's efforts continue this year with what many now see as a friendlier Congress and a U.S. EPA likely to feel new pressure from Capitol Hill. While pesticide makers have had bipartisan support, the Republican-led Congress last week showed its distaste for regulations, passing a spending bill with hundreds of amendments that would strip away existing rules.

Do we the people have to "pay" our elected officials to protect our lives and interest? Aren't we, the voters, the bosses? Aren't our lives more important than "cash in the pocket?"