October 30, 2018 01:04 PM UTC

The Oil and Gas Industry is Trying to Buy the Election...Like, Literally All of It

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Westword reports today, the oil and gas industry is spending a positively obscene amount of money on the 2018 election in Colorado:

More than one in five dollars donated to all campaigns and political groups in state races in 2018 has been a direct contribution from a fossil fuel corporation. [Pols emphasis] And that sum does not include the industry’s additional undisclosed corporate spending.

The vast majority of the disclosed expenditures — almost $40 million — flowed into a PAC called Protecting Colorado’s Environment, Economy, and Energy Independence, better known as Protect Colorado. [Pols emphasis] The group is a state issue committee that is registered to oppose “safer setbacks” measure Proposition 112. Protect Colorado has also provided most of the money for the Committee for Colorado’s Shared Heritage, the group advocating for Amendment 74.

While ads have derided Amendment 74 opponents for receiving money from outside Colorado, Protect Colorado has received a combined $13.7 million from Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy. Colorado’s PDC Energy has kicked in more than $5 million and Extraction Oil & Gas has given $3.3 million. More than half of Protect Colorado’s money comes from these four corporations.

Noble has also taken the unprecedented step of directly funding TV spots that explicitly urge voters to reject Proposition 112, but which the company claims are not political ads — and therefore not subject to state campaign finance disclosure requirements. The ads have aired on at least twelve Colorado TV stations in October, FCC records show.

It’s important to note here that the $40 million figure is a conservative estimate of the industry’s total election spending in 2018. The $40 million figure includes contributions of $750,000 to “Better Colorado Now,” the Super PAC created to back Republican Walker Stapleton for Governor, as well as $1.5 million in contributions to the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA). This figure does not include individual contributions from fossil fuel industry donors to Republican candidates for office in Colorado; needless to say, you can probably tack on a few more dollars there.

The majority of the oil and gas money seems to be funneled toward opposing Proposition 112 and supporting Amendment 74 (Westword also has a meticulously-detailed story on Amendment 74 and its connections to the O&G industry). Election spending from the oil and gas industry should be a much bigger story than it is, though we suspect it will get lots more attention in the weeks and months to come.

The ridiculous amount of money being spent by the O&G industry also says a lot about the short-sightedness of Amendment 75, the flawed ballot measure that supporters claim is about leveling the playing field for candidates competing against millionaire opponents. As Mitt Romney famously said about the Citizens United campaign finance ruling, “Corporations are people, too.” If that’s true, perhaps we should start treating them as such.