A report from the Public Campaign Action Fund on 2008 spending by oil and coal industries finds that they are on track to spend about one billion dollars this year on lobbying, political contributions, and advertising. The full report amasses the following expenditures:
| 2008 SPENDING BY OIL AND COAL INTERESTS, BY CATEGORY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Amounts in millions | Coal/Electric Utilities | Oil/Gas | Total |
| Political Contributions | $16.5 | $20.9 | $37.4 |
| Lobbying Expenditures | 73.7 | 55.3 | 129.0 |
| Paid Media | 7.4 | 201.2 | 208.6 |
| Other Political Spending | 40.0 | 12.2 | 52.2 |
| Total | $137.6 | $289.6 | $427.2 |
Lobbying expenditures and political contributions come from Center for Responsive Politics data compiled from public disclosures. Paid media figures are from TNS Media Intelligence, the industry standard for tracking media spending.
The “other political spending” comes from the coal industry group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices / American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ABEC/ACCCE) and from Newt Gingrich’s 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF).