Nothing Newt under the sun

Gingrich's 'grassroots' drilling campaign is funded by Big Oil, report says

Posted by Kate Sheppard at 3:30 PM on 15 Jul 2008

*Several corrections have been made to the original post to fix inaccuracies in the report from Alaska Wilderness League.

"Green conservative" Newt Gingrich is scheduled to deliver his "Drill here, drill now, pay less" petition to Congress today. According to his American Solutions website, more than 1.3 million people have signed the petition. But who's funding the campaign that Gingrich is touting as a grassroots, bipartisan effort?

Turns out a large portion of the money behind his organization comes from Big Oil, according to a new report [PDF] from the Alaska Wilderness League. The group analyzed the donors to Gingrich's group "American Solutions for Winning the Future," the 527 that's heading up a campaign to increase domestic drilling. Among the top donors, according to its report:

Donald M. Wilkinson, chair and CIO of Wilkinson O'Grady & Co., which invests in companies like National Oilwell Varco, Imperial Oil, Suncor Energy, EOG Resources, Schlumberger, Transocean, BHP Billiton, Apache Corporation, and XTO Energy. He donated $25,000.

Dan W. Evins, who worked for Shell before starting the Cracker Barrel chain of restaurants. He gave $100,000.

Dave K. Rensin, a software engineer for Pentagon contractor Reality Mobile, LLC. He gave $50,000.

Robert W. Johnson IV, ~~who serves as chair of the Oil & Gas Committee Chair and the assistant chief attorney for the Exxon Mobil Production Company. He gave $50,000.~~ [Ed. note: Apparently a different Robert W. Johnson -- the one that gave to American Solutions owns the New York Jets]

The list of big donors is rounded off with several dozen other folks who work in the oil and gas industries or related businesses, or consultants and investors who have put a good deal of cash toward those fields. There's another $70,000 from Michael G. Berolzheimer, whose company makes those Duraflame logs by mixing saw dust with petroleum byproducts. There are also a good number of folks who work for big conservative organizations -- like $200,000 from Heritage Foundation trustee Thomas A. Saunders III, and $914,622 from Freedom's Watch founder Sheldon Adelson (who was profiled in today's Wall Street Journal).

Gingrich himself is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, which has received at least $1.6 million from ExxonMobil since 1998. The AEI board of trustees includes for former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, who retired in 2005 with a $400 million compensation package.

This is the same Newt Gingrich who's being used as a posterboy for climate action as part of the We Campaign.

For story: Nothing Newt under the sun
8 Comments | Post a Comment

Correction

Wilkinson in fact donated $25,000, not $250,000.

See here.

The Wonk Room

by Brad Johnson at 5:24 PM on 15 Jul 2008

Cashing in on a Crisis

That's all the Gingrich plan is. Its beneficiaries will be limited to investors in oil company stocks, who will see their capital gains rise a little. The rest of us won't see any change in gasoline prices for years, if ever.

I'm not even saying that all offshore drilling is always wrong. But this notion that we need to "do it now" without due consideration of the very real risks that offshore drilling poses to the other real benefits that our coastal waters provide us - fish, for example - really sounds like a baaaaad deal.

I think Gingrich wants us to accept his deal with as little forethought as possible. This explains his great hurry.

Even if his petition fails to have much influence in Congress - and let's hope it doesn't - it should still provide the Republican Party with a handy list of useful, gung-ho dupes to target with future propaganda and campaign literature.

by JakobFabian01 at 5:34 PM on 15 Jul 2008

Another correction

Robert W. "Woody" Johnson IV, who donated $50K, is not the Robert W. Johnson who was an Exxon attorney. Instead he is the owner of NY Jets and a top Bush pioneer.

The Wonk Room

by Brad Johnson at 5:49 PM on 15 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

Another correction

Also, it's Reality Mobile, not Mobil. It's not exactly an oil industry company, but is part of the military-industrial complex.

The Wonk Room

by Brad Johnson at 5:51 PM on 15 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

Piss Poor Journalism

Fact check. Fact check. Fact check.

If you are concerned about the environment, you can't fall into the same sloppy journalism as the institutional main stream media. Those who are resistant to change will use such sloppiness to discredit scientific evidence and legitimate argumentation.

Grist, platitudes for fixing this post once you saw that it was in error. (You really shouldn't have posted it in the first place.)

by JeffB at 12:16 AM on 16 Jul 2008

Duraflame is a part of the oil industry?

OK, they add petroleum products, but by that logic, every business that produces a product that includes plastics, carbon black or other embedded petroleum is part of Big Oil. Seems a stretch.

That said, where's Philpott coming down on this one. Cracker Barrel?

by Sean Casten at 6:43 AM on 16 Jul 2008

1.3 million signatories? That's nothing

How does one respond to the petition of the people? Well, for starters, I hear from Defenders of Wildlife that they've got 6 coastal governors strongly opposed to offshore drilling. In total they represent almost 64 million constituents. Gingrich's petition is a gimmick.

http://www.sierraclub.org/wildlegacy/blog/

by MattKirby at 10:06 AM on 16 Jul 2008

It's time to nationalize the energy industry

The oil and gas industry spent great gobs of money working us toward the two biggest challenges of the 21st century - the end of oil and advent of global warming. Now they are spending even more money to exploit for their own purposes the fears people have in the hard times the industry itself created.

I'm tired of big oil pushing us around with bought politicians, bogus "science", and disinformation campaigns. I'm tired too of the industry deciding the ground on which debate takes place. Isn't it time to call for the nationalization of oil and gas production? I certainly think so.

If the oil and gas industry is nationalized, we could finally have a energy policy driven by current and future needs, with profits poured into finding ways to transition away from petroleum and implementation of policies to mitigate global warming.

by glanders at 11:36 AM on 16 Jul 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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