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Outside Front Groups Spend Over $300,000 In Colorado
On Anti-Energy Reform Television Ads
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Special interest front groups have spent over $300,000 in Colorado on misleading and fictitious television ads aimed to advance their anti-clean energy agenda and shape the midterm elections, according to a new analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has received funding from multinational oil corporations and foreign oil companies, and Americans for Prosperity, the front group founded and financed by David Koch of Koch Industries, have spent $330,190 since August 2010 to attack Colorado congressional candidate Betsy Markey for supporting action on clean energy and climate reform.
According to the analysis, big polluters and their special interest allies have spent $69.5 million on anti-energy reform television ads since the beginning of 2010. Additionally, of the combined television ad spending, the 13 special interest groups examined spent more than $18.3 million starting in August 2010 in targeted states across the country, as this interactive map shows, along with a full state-by-state breakdown.
Not surprisingly, some of the biggest spenders include: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute. Other shadowy front groups like American Crossroads GPS, an offshoot of Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie’s American Crossroads, and the Americans for Job Security have also jumped into the anti-clean energy fray. According to a recent independent study, “conservative groups have outspent their Democratic counterparts by a margin of over 10 to one” on overall political advertising in the weeks leading up to the November elections. This news comes on the heels of the release of oil companies third quarter profit earnings which are seeing increases: Exxon Mobil quarterly profits rose by 55 percent, Shell’s profits rose by 7 percent, and ConocoPhillips profits doubled.
This latest ad spending analysis only offers a glimpse into how much corporate polluters and their special interest allies are willing to spend to block progress on clean energy and climate reform. As an early CAPAF analysis showed, the 20 biggest-spending oil, mining, and electric utility companies on lobbying from January 2009 to June 2010, and trade associations generally opposed to clean energy policies spent another $290 million.
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The Center for American Progress Action Fund is the sister advocacy organization of the Center for American Progress. The Action Fund transforms progressive ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, grassroots organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other progressive leaders throughout the country and the world. The Action Fund is also the home of the Progress Report.
Sadly, you are lying. First, the Center for American Progress Action Fund is a front group for the radical environmental movement intent on shutting down jobs in Colorado. Americans for Prosperity, which takes no foreign contributions (and neither you nor President Obama have put forth any evidence that it does) ran ads informing citizens of Colorado that Betsy Markey voted for cap and trade. It wasn't an attack – simply a statement of fact that she voted for the bill. Just because she has now decided that it isn't popular to have voted for job-killing cap and trade, the failed economic stimulus bill and the hostile government takeover of healthcare doesn't mean that she didn't cast those votes. You should be ashamed of yourself for attacking AFP with accusations for which you have no proof – yet acting as though AFP is attacking Betsy Markey by pointing out that she voted for issues which she now probably wishes she hadn't. Jeff Crank, Colorado Director of Americans for Prosperity
An August 2010 article in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer tied New York philanthropist and Koch Industries co-owner, David Koch, to the creation and funding of the Americans for Prosperith (AFP). Media Transparency says that Americans for Prosperity Foundation has received seven grants totaling $1,181,000 between 2004 to 2006 with $1 million coming from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations. On February 27, 2009, in collaboration with others, the organization sponsored a Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas and Washington, D.C. Tea party protest. (Ref: Wikipedia)
Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is an astroturf front group started by oil billioniare David Koch and Richard Fink (a member of the board of directors of Koch Industries). AFP works together with the Koch family’s other conservative foundations and think tanks to disrupt Barack Obama's presidency. Accordingly, AFP has opposed health care reform, stimulus spending, and cap-and-trade legislation, which is aimed at making industries pay for the air pollution that they create. AFP was also involved in the attacks on Obama’s "green jobs" czar, Van Jones, and has crusaded against international climate talks. According to an article in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, the Kochs are known for "creating slippery organizations with generic-sounding names," that "make it difficult to ascertain the extent of their influence in Washington." (Ref: Sourcewatch.org)
Sadly, it appears you have trouble with reading comprehension because nowhere in this article does it say that Americans for Prosperity takes foreign contributions. It says the Chamber of Commerce does, but the only mention of AFP is that it is funded by David Koch.