Today the 8 Republican Senators in the Environment and Public Works Committee boycotted a planned vote on the nomination of extremely-qualified Gina McCarthy to serve as the new EPA Administrator...and new analysis by Oil Change International has shown what's really behind this stunt: dirty energy money.
The new analysis based off of our Dirty Energy Money database revealed that the 8 Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee who boycotted the EPA vote have received over $5.2 million in campaign contributions from fossil fuel interests.
Those $5.2 million in contributions, or an average of nearly $660,000 per boycotting Senator, represent more than 3.5 times as much dirty energy money going to the boycotting Senators compared to the remainder of the Committee members who were willing to move forward with the vote.
Here's a quote from our release today:
In response, David Turnbull, Campaigns Director of Oil Change International, said:
“Today’s stunt by these eight dirty Senators is yet another example of the fossil fuel industry’s grip on Washington politics. Americans care about clean air, water and communities, yet these Senators chose to listen to the Big Oil, Coal and Gas lobby instead.
“These Senators were elected to support the communities they represent, and today they failed in that job. It’s clear for these Senators that the voices of the people don’t matter nearly as much as the dollars raining down on them from dirty energy interests.”
As just one example, Senator Vitter (R-LA), who led the boycott, has a scary picture of dirty energy money influence. Here's a map (taken from our
Dirty Energy Money web database) of his connections to dirty energy money, which amount to over $1.2 million dollars alone.
Meanwhile,
Public Campaign reportsthat while the vote was scheduled to take place today, a few of the boycotting Senators were in fact out fundraising from fossil fuel interests. The irony is thick, but unfortunately not surprising.
Every time there's a vote or action by Congress that affects the fossil fuel industry, we see the same thing. Dirty Energy Money continues to impact our democracy every day. It's time for a separation of oil and state!