WHEN THE PEDDLE HITS THE METAL, WHICH SIDE DO THE BLUE DOGS COME DOWN ON? IN OTHER WORDS, WHERE ARE THE BRIBES THE BIGGEST & JUICIEST?

Big Oil is wasting no time in doing whatever it has to do to derail any House energy package that includes Nick Rahall's Natural Resources Committee legislation that seeks to slow oil and gas exploitation on public lands. The American Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association also want to kill a $16 billion Ways and Means energy tax package that they claim would increase their taxes by about $15 billion over 10 years. They may have worried when the GOP lost control of Congress-- but their fears, unfortunately for the American public, were overblown.

Instead of just depending on their bought and paid for Republican whores to kill this type of legislation for them, they know they have to work with Democrats now, many of whom are just as easily corruptible as the Republicans. The top 20 recipients of legal bribes from the Oil and Gas industry in 2006 were all Republicans, many of whom-- like Santorum, Dirty Dick Pombo, Conrad Burns, George Allen, Jim Talent, Tom DeLay, Henry Bonilla and Mike DeWine (as well as Republican candidates Denise Bode and Rick O'Donnell)-- were defeated last November. The only Democrats among the Top 20 House members last year receiving these Gas and Oil bribes were Dan Boren (D-OK) and Charlie Melancon (D-LA), both of whom always vote with the Republicans. They gave Boren $94,450 and Melancon $79,300 in return for their consistent support and willingness to always sell out the interests of their constituents.

Of the 20 Senate members, Big Oil was a bit more bipartisan and although there were no Democrats getting the mega six-figure contributions like Kay Bailey Hutchison and Santorum, some pay-to-play insurance was spread around to a few Democrats if the "worst" should happen-- as it did-- and the Democrats took over Congress. The biggest Democratic recipient, of course, was Ben Nelson, who actually votes more frequently with the Republicans on substantive matters than with the Democrats. Other Democrats who got nice chunks of change were "business friendly" shills like Jeff Bingaman (NM), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and two wheeler dealers: Hillary ($64,,670) and her pal Holy Joe ($64,500), although he is no longer a Democrat.
     
Texas Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) didn't do badly last year either. They schmeered him with $53,750 and he heads an informal group of congressional Democrats who shill for Big Oil. He opposes Rahall's bill, which is backed by environmental groups. Big Oil-- with their big wallets-- are targeting dozens of oil patch Democrats and reactionary Blue Dogs. Rahall, a fairly conservative Democrat himself is framing his bill as a way of making sure taxpayers get their fair share of revenues. Big Oil's big bucks are expected to go a lot further than Nick Rahall's clever framing.