Earth Equity News

Oil Companies Lubricate Access to Senate Finance Committee Members. By Anne C. Mulkern, Greenwire, November 10, 2009. "Oil and gas companies and electric utilities over the past two decades have poured $8 million into the campaign coffers of lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee who could now look to shape climate legislation... The Finance Committee has jurisdiction over much of the structure of a cap-and-trade program including how much companies will be able to bank emissions permits in one year and use in another, and whether free permits given to companies could be turned into a kind of security that could be bundled and sold like mortgages, said Kenneth Green, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute... Of all those on the Finance Committee, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) has received the most money from companies and trade groups with an interest in climate legislation in this campaign cycle. A third-term senator who this summer became chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, Lincoln is one of five committee members up for re-election. A moderate Democrat, she is also considered a key swing vote on the climate bill. For the 2010 campaign, Lincoln has taken in $195,796 from 72 different energy interests. In comparison, she has received $242,250 from companies and groups with stakes in health care legislation -- another major issue that goes through the Finance panel."