Washington (Platts)--20Aug2007

A US liberal lobbying organization Monday released analysis that showed
that House members who had received sizable campaign contributions from the
fossil fuels industry tended to vote against a recently passed measure that
would ratchet up its taxes.

     The Center for American Progress Action Fund used data provided by the
Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan government transparency group,
to compare representatives' votes on HR 2776, a bill the House passed earlier
in August that would strip more than $15.3 billion in tax breaks and
incentives from the fossil fuels industry, and apply the funds to renewable
energy and energy efficiency.  

     CAPAF found that the 221 Democrats and 9 Republicans who voted for the
measure received an average of $26,274 each from 1989 to 2006, compared with
an average of $109,000 for the 11 Democrats and 178 Republicans who opposed
it.  

     Some of the largest oil and natural gas industry beneficiaries in
Congress did not vote on the measure at all, including former Speaker of the
House Dennis Hastert of Illinois ($408,638), and fellow Republican
Representatives Sam Johnson of Texas ($342,600) and Don Young of Alaska
($940,513). Their contributions inflated the "not voting" average to $122,507
each.  

     Johnson also did not vote on HR 6, a measure the House passed in January
that contained a number of provisions the industry viewed as hostile,
including language disqualifying companies that held 1998 and 1999 Gulf of
Mexico leases that did not include royalty provisions from signing future
leases unless they renegotiated or paid fees.

     A second piece of analysis showed that "no" votes who won tight races in
fall 2006 elections received an average of $101,270 over the past 17 years,
nearly twice the average. 

		--Jean Chemnick, jean_chemnick@platts.com