On Wednesday, the House passed a bill 253-166 to limit the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency and expedite the agency’s air quality permit process.

H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011, was introduced by Republican Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado, and will alter the Clean Air Act by changing the physical location drilling vessels are required to be inspected at to determine their impact on air pollution from offshore to onshore. It also forces the EPA to make decisions regarding applications for clean air within six months.

Gardner, a freshman Rep. and the bill’s sponsor, received his second greatest amount of contributions during his campaign for the House in 2009-10 from the oil and gas industry.

The bill’s most vocal opponents, Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill, and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif, frequently referred to it as “the Shell bill,” during the debate because they believe the bill was only drafted to facilitate Shell’s permit request to begin the drilling process in the Arctic waters off Alaska. According to Shell, the company has been trying to obtain a permit from the EPA for five years. However, representatives from the EPA said in a hearing in May before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power that Shell withdrew its permit application at least once and changed the location for the permit on other occasions, thus starting the process over.

Shell has reported spending $3.8 million lobbying in the first quarter of this year alone, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Explorer. The oil company has reported lobbying on many issues related to drilling and energy policy including permitting issues.

Gardner and other supporters of the bill cite the long and arduous process Shell claims to have gone through to get a clean air permit granted to them by the EPA as a need to cap the time allotted for making decisions on such applications.

Reps. opposing the bill called it a “give away” to the oil companies and damaging to the public’s opportunity to weigh in on such measures because the limit on time allowed to complete the permit process will take away from the public comments period and possibly make the permits issued less defendable in court. Opponents also say that based on the EPA’s reported consistent history of giving Shell permits within 3-6 months of application, this legislation is not necessary.

The White House blog recently wrote about Obama's trip to India and mentioned that US-based organizations could learn from Indian organizations using technology to improve accountability and transparency. I agreed. Now is a great time for the US government to recognize that there are  transparency policies all over the world that we Americans could implement or, at a bare minimum, learn from. Here are just a few foreign governments that have policies we wish would improve what we have state-side:

You get a dataset! And you get a dataset! Everyone gets a dataset!

There is always progress to be made and the presumption to make data public and online (with teeth!) is an important cultural shift we hope to see soon. Just last week the United Kingdom took an unprecedented step to publicize all government spending over 25,0000 pounds. As governments around the world tighten their belts we think making the books fully transparent will allow citizens to be better informed about where their tax dollars go and how to move forward. Here in the US there is the Data.gov site (which could be greatly improved) and we are encouraged that the culture is shifting as we see folks like the United Nations, the World Bank, Russia, Spain, Finland, Australia and many others hopping on board.

Publicly Funded Research Papers Available to the Public

The Congressional Research Service, often referred to as 'Congress' think tank', is a well-respected non-partisan branch of the Library of Congress that regularly publishes reports exclusively for members of Congress and their staff at a budget over $100 million. The Sunlight Foundation and others have long advocated for these reports to be public (meaning online), but they remain inaccessible to the general public.

Many foreign governments have publicly-funded think tanks similar to CRS, but they make the reports free to the public and accessible online. The United Kingdom has the House of Commons Library Research Papers, Canada has a nice list with categories on the site of their Library of Parliament Research Publications, and Australia publishes their reports (going back to 1993!) on the Parliament of Australia's Parliamentary Library website. Australia even has official research reports published on the state level by the websites of Victoria and New South Wales.

Imagine that.

Creating Better Disclosure Surrounding Resource Management

The US could learn a thing or two from other resource-rich countries about disclosing online searchable production, leases, costs, audits, and safety reports. This important non-proprietary information keeps the public informed about the safety and financial status of our natural resources. We hope the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) that replaced the Minerals Management Service (MMS) will take the necessary steps that many countries have already taken to improve online reporting in this sector.

The Revenue Watch Institute and Transparency International recently rated the top 41 oil, gas and mineral producing countries countries in terms of their government disclosure record [pdf link]. The United States came in at 11th place, behind Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ecuador and others. This ranking assessed revenue transparency more than safety records, but it is an important metric to recognize how much the US government could continue to learn. Let's see less of this and more online disclosure like Angola.

Expanding and Enriching Visitor Logs

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has a portion of the official website dedicated to transparency initiatives including some substantive items that we would love to see in the US. We appreciate what the White House has done with releasing visitor logs, but a glance across the pond shows that Number 10 is posting details of meetings, hospitality, gifts and overseas travel across all departments and high level staff. Impressive stuff when you compare it to the White House offerings.

Online Disclosure Forms

The Australian equivalent of the Federal Election Commission, known down under as the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), has a great online system to research financial documents relating to the elections.  It includes a nice financial disclosure and donor search function that is quite similar to the FEC version (both obviously don't hold a candle to Sunlight's illuminative version), but after some more research I discovered that they allow those who have to file* to do so through disclosure forms online!  We didn't venture beyond the sleek registration page, but it gave us goosebumps to see other countries approaching our vision of real-time online disclosure. We would like to see this type of online filing possible for lobbying, elections or even meetings - it would certainly ease the eyes of our reporters who often have to dig through .pdf image files.

• In Australia the political system requires candidates and Senate groups, registered political parties and their associated entities, and donors and third parties to lodge disclosure returns. Swoon!

It would be impossible to ignore that each country listed in the items above has a unique political system, but these examples serve as great starting points for policies that could work here, now. The Sunlight Foundation will continue to encourage dialogue on these important issues and hope that the US government learns from non-profits and governments all over the world.

The Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling will allow corporate interests to spend unlimited amounts trying to influence voters, something they've already proven themselves adept at on the state level. Case in point: the oil and gas industry has directed the majority of its political spending not on the campaigns of lawmakers, but on its own campaigns against ballot initiatives.

From 1998 to 2008 major oil and gas companies pumped over $120 million into state level elections. The vast majority of that did not go to influencing politicians, but rather to influencing the public to vote against ballot measures that would increase taxes on oil and gas companies.

Committees organized to influence the public to support or oppose ballot measures at the state level are governed by state laws, most of which allowed unlimited corporate or union contributions prior to the Citizens United decision.

A review of state-level campaign contributions, obtained through TransparencyData.com, shows that 73 percent of all campaign contributions made by major oil and gas companies went towards the group Californians Against Higher Taxes—No on 87, a group devoted to the defeat of the 2006 ballot measure, California Proposition 87.

Prop 87 would have levied taxes—between 1.6 percent and 6 percent—on companies extracting oil in California. The receipts were intended to create a $4 billion fund to invest in alternative energy, alternative energy vehicles and energy efficiency. After the oil & gas companies had dropped nearly $88 million into their campaign to defeat it, Prop 87 failed by a popular vote of 54 percent to 45 percent.

The major oil companies paid in full to defeat the proposition. Californians Against Higher Taxes received $38 million from Chevron, $32 million from Aera Energy, a joint venture of ExxonMobil and Shell, $9.5 million from Occidental Oil & Gas and over $3 million from both ConocoPhillips and BP.

A similar ballot measure made Colorado the number two recipient of oil and gas money at the state-level over the same period of time. From 1998 to 2008 major oil and gas interests spent $7.4 million in state-level Colorado politics. The vast majority of that was spent by one organization devoted to the defeat of one ballot measure.

Coloradans for a Stable Economy was organized by large oil and gas interests to oppose Amendment 58, a ballot measure that would have repealed a tax-exemption that favored the industry and used the funds—approximately $300 million—to pay for college scholarships, infrastructure improvements and renewable energy projects.

Major oil and gas companies dropped $7.2 million into Coloradans for a Stable Economy allowing it to run countless advertisements against the ballot measure. BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Encana Oil & Gas, ExxonMobil and Noble Energy each contributed over $1 million to the organization.

Amendment 58 failed when voters went to polls with a commanding 58 percent voting against adoption.

Oil and gas companies also spent big in Alaska, the fourth biggest recipient of contributions from the industry, on defeating a threatening ballot initiative.

General Ballot Initiative 2 would have raised taxes on natural gas reserves held in Alaska’s North Slope. The effort was intended to push the companies holding the reserves to construct a pipeline to extract the natural gas.

BP, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil all contributed handsomely to the defeat of Ballot Initiative 2. The initiative fell by a nearly 2-1 margin.

Neither Colorado nor Alaska saw much of the oil and gas contributions go to their politicians. In those states, the industry largesse was mostly focused on influencing voter opinions. Politicians in California, along with Texas and Louisiana, the two states rounding out the top five recipients of oil and gas money, however, reaped a good amount of industry money for their campaigns.

Chief among them is California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the recipient of $1.72 million in contributions from the oil and gas industry. The majority of that money came from the San Ramon, California-based Chevron.

A 2004 Associated Press article detailed Schwarzenegger’s adoption of many of Chevron’s desired policy agenda items. These included streamlining the refinery approval process and the processes of the agency that oversees mining and dredging in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Schwarzenegger also endorsed other oil industry priorities including offshore drilling (after the BP oil spill the governor dropped his support) and opposing Proposition 87.

Lawmakers throughout the legislature were targets for oil and gas money in Texas. Perhaps the state most closely link with the industry, oil and gas companies spread their money far and wide in Texas. The industry contributed to over 400 candidates.

The biggest recipients were current Gov. Rick Perry ($129,890) and former House Speaker Tom Craddick ($104,250). The industry also contributed heavily across the board to legislative and judicial campaigns. Most of these contributions went to Republicans candidates.

In Louisiana the largest contributions went to governors—Bobby Jindal, Kathleen Blanco, Mike Foster--and lawmakers—Max Malone and Heulette Fontenot--close to the industry. Other top recipients included leading members of the state Senate. Frontpage feature graphic courtesey of richardmasoner

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted on a bill that ought to offend Americans of all stripes.  The culmination of a compromise with the demands made during August's pro-drilling, Republican sit-in, the bill would end a 27-year ban on offshore drilling and revoke $18 billion in tax incentives and subsidies to the oil industry. Now it may be remarkable to some because it repeals a near three-decade long congressional policy, or because the Republicans clamoring for a vote all punched their electronic tally machine, "Nay," but neither of those reasons make it offensive. The bill's offensiveness is underlined by its being unremarkable.

Unremarkable because it, like too many bills, was nearly impossible to read or study prior to a final vote. The bill, H.R. 6899, clocking in at 290 pages long was introduced at 9:24 pm on September 15, 2008 and was voted out of the House Rules Committee at midnight. The final vote was held at 10:05 on September 16, 2008. That left 24.5 hours for lawmakers, staff, watchdogs, and concerned citizens to read the bill, or if one counts from the time the bill reported out of Rules, 22 hours.

That's 290 pages of crucially important legislation to read, digest, and understand in one day. If a reader can plow through text at one-page-per-minute the bill would take approximately 4.8 hours to read, which makes it conceivable that someone could have read the bill. (Legislation doesn't exactly fly by as fast as a novel, like Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which clocks in at 287 pages.) Parsing and understanding legislation must take a longer amount of time. Additionally, calculations should factor in the basic human need for sleep.

Lawmakers and citizens should not accept that bills will be introduced that no one can or will read. This Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act goes down in the pantheon of bills released with not enough time to read them. Lawmakers should require that all bills be available online for public consumption for 72 hours prior to a vote.

It is as though congressional leaders do not expect the individual offices of our representatives to consult their own gray matter before casting a vote. Instead, lawmakers are positioned in a way that predetermines the passage of a particular bill prior to its introduction.

The bill's sponsor Rep. Nick Rahall defended the bill's rushed passage by explaining that there had been "extensive, wide-ranging negotiations that have helped produce this bill." None of these negotiations were held in public and the bill went from introduction to a vote as if one of its sections contained a faster-than-light drive. So forgive me if I don't take Rahall's word on this.

This is a simple element of transparency: bills should not be pushed through without proper time to examine and consult. Citizens should be given time to provide their opinions to their representatives prior to a vote.

Yesterday, the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior released multiple reports revealing widespread corruption in the Mineral Management Services agency, which handles mineral extraction, leases, and royalties for the Department of the Interior. The allegations show employees receiving illegal gifts, graft, filing false statements on ethics forms, using illegal drugs, and having sex with both subordinates in the agency and with agents of oil and gas companies with business before the agency.

Here are some of the allegations:

Lucy Denett, former associate director of minerals revenue management: accused of steering a contract to one of her aides after he retired.

Gregory Smith, former director of the royalty-in-kind program: accused of doing outside consulting work that included using his position to help the company paying him gain access to clients doing work with the royalty-in-kind program; billing Mineral Management Services for trips made in conjunction with his outside consulting work; accepting over $1,000 in gifts from oil and gas companies; using cocaine with a subordinate; having sex with two subordinates, where one episode is clearly a sexual assault.

Eight other employees: Socialized with and received gifts from companies with business before the royalty-in-kind program. Two of these employees are also alleged to have used drugs and had sexual relations with various agents of oil and gas companies with business before the program.

Here's CNN reporting on the report:

The IG reports are available at ProPublica where Paul Kiel is providing running coverage.

Since 2001, when President Bush took office, the Department of the Interior was beset by problems arising from the appointment of officials who previously worked in or with the industries that the Department is intended to oversee.

Both the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, and the Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Steven J. Griles, came from the extraction industries. Norton worked for a law firm that lobbied for a variety of companies, including oil, gas, and metal companies. Griles previously worked for a natural resources company and later provided public relations advice to a variety of extraction companies doing business with the government. Both Norton and Griles wound up caught in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Norton resigned her post as the scandal encroached into the Department of the Interior, while Griles wound up pleading guilty.

Ethical standards trickle from the top on down. Some of the officials involved in this current scandal expressed the opinion that they "didn't think ethics rules applied to them because of their 'unique' role in the agency and that they needed to socialize with industry representatives for 'market intelligence.'" The Mineral Management Services scandal has been brewing for a long time and highlights a lack of oversight that occurs when a Department is staffed with individuals who are used to making money from the business they are charged with regulating.

From Teapot Dome to Ted Stevens, the oil and gas industry holds a special place in imagination of Americans. This industry is one that is deeply connected to numerous corruption scandals throughout American history. In the 1920s, the Ohio Gang bought the election for Warren Harding, installed their own Interior Secretary and Attorney General, and went about stealing public lands to drill for resources. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Enron rigged the electricity market in California, helped elect a president, and funneled huge amounts of money into Republican coffers. And in 2008, Alaska's senior senator, Ted Stevens, was indicted on charges related to his accepting gifts in exchange for seeking favors for the Alaskan oil company VECO.

Today, campaign contributions from the oil industry are ubiquitous in presidential and congressional races and oil lobbyists are paid millions in Washington. But in many ways, this is an old story. Instead of looking at oil and gas influence, why not look at the influence coming from new energy sources. If you've been watching television or reading the news, you've probably noticed the growth of stories surrounding alternative energy, from the explosion of wind turbine farms, Al Gore's WE campaign, and T. Boone Picken's plan. How does this nascent, yet exploding, industry measure up to the influence giants in Washington?

Alternative energy barely registers as a major player in Washington right now, but their stock is going up. Here's a look at their lobbying expenses over the past decade:

These numbers go from $1.9 million in 1998 to $14.9 million, so far, in 2008. By comparison, the oil and gas industry has spent $55 million in 2008. Considering the proposed location of many alternative energy production sites, a Democratic win in November would certainly increase both lobbying and campaign contribution spending from this industry. The Wall Street Journal reported today on the proposed sale of offshore wind turbine leases, most of which will be situated in the Northeast, a solid Democratic stronghold. Just as the extraction industries that populate Republican states seek influence from and contribute to Republican candidates, the new alternative energy industry is already hitching its wagon to the Democrats.

This is already evident in campaign finance data. Democrats currently receive 73% of all alternative energy contributions. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is the largest recipient of campaign funds from alternative energy companies. Other major recipients include committee chairs like Charles Rangel and Chris Dodd, and Democratic candidate for the House Michael Skelly, a former employee of Horizon Wind Energy.

MAPLight.org shows alternative energy companies supporting 14 bills in the 110th Congress, with one becoming law. That bill, H.R. 6, was universally opposed by oil and gas interests. MAPLight's time line of contributions chart shows the intense spending by those in support and opposition to the bill as it moved through Congress. Green represents supporters, red represents opposition, and the hash marks at the bottom mark legislative actions:

Overall, the alternative energy sector is rapidly rising in the Washington influence game, probably faster than the Internet industry did back in the 1990s (it was only a few years ago when Google hired its first lobbyist). If you need to keep an eye on alternative energy or any other industry influence remember that transparency has a posse. You can search industry influence at OpenSecrets.org and MAPLight.org.

Public Campaign Action Fund just released a report on total influence spending by the big oil, coal, and electricity interests for the first half of this year. The report shows that from January 1 to June 30 these companies have put down nearly half a billion dollars on trying to influence members of Congress, officials in Washington, and, through advertising, you. The total amount, viewed above, consists of campaign contributions, lobbying expenses, paid advertising and media, and contributions to 527s and other organizations doing political work.

Check out the report. It's an excellent examination of how industries use various channels to gain trust and influence.

Despite protestations from our favorite tweeting and qiking member of Congress, there does appear to be a relationship between supporting the policies of an industry and that industry supporting your campaign. TPM Muckraker, using data from Campaign Money Watch, points out the near immediate contributions from executives of an oil giant, the Hess Corporation, to a joint Republican National Committee-John McCain committee after Sen. McCain switched his position on offshore drilling. (Since Sen. Barack Obama switched his position after the second quarter filings, we'll have to wait to see if there's a similar effect.)

Ten senior Hess Corporation executives and/or members of the Hess family each gave $28,500 to the joint RNC-McCain fundraising committee, just days after McCain reversed himself to favor offshore drilling, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Nine of these contributions, seven from Hess executives and two from members of the Hess family, came on the same day, June 24th, the records show. The total collected in the wake of McCain's reversal for the fund, called McCain Victory 2008, from Hess execs and family is $285,000.