The Canadian oil sands, one of the most carbon-intensive fuel sources in the world, is spurring a flurry of global lobbying activity, from encouraging President Obama to approve an extension to a transnational pipeline pressuring Europe to ease its tax on the sands-produced oil.
TransCanada Lobbying in Keystone XL States
In 2008, the State Department sanctioned an environmental review to extend the Keystone pipeline, which runs from Alberta, Canada, through the Dakotas and south to Oklahoma, with a spur reaching Illinois. The extension, termed Keystone XL, would cut across Montana and reach Houston and Port Arthur, Texas, from where the ...
Continue readingNew Super PAC inspired by Stephen Colbert
Comedian Stephen Colbert, who started his own ironic-sounding and controversial Super PAC earlier this year, has also inspired at least one other man to form his own Super PAC.
Ken Davis, a former state House candidate in Arizona, this week launched perhaps one of the loftiest-named Super PACs yet: A Promise to Our Children.
Davis said he did not know that forming a Super PAC, or independent expenditure-only committee, would be so easy until Colbert explained the process. Earlier this year, the comedian demonstrated how to fill out a form to start such a committee. Later, he went to the ...
Continue readingSunlight Live: GOP candidates debate foreign policy, national security
The Republican presidential candidates will again be behind podiums on Saturday for a debate in the key early-primary state of South Carolina, just three days after a showdown in Michigan. As usual, the Sunlight Live team will be behind computer screens checking the candidates' facts and inserting data on money and influence in politics into the conversation at sunlightlive.com.
Whereas Wednesday's debate dealt with the stalled economy, Saturday's meeting will focus on national security and foreign policy, an area some have said is a weak spot for most candidates.
Wednesday's debate was relatively calm with the ...
Serial PAC Filer Floods FEC
From the man who brought Florida the Billionaire Josue Larose's Dating Women Committee, Josue Larose has filed the forms with the FEC to create 20 new super PACs. Clearly, there are few hurdles to creating a super PAC or multiple super PACs, that can then accept unlimited contributions.
The PACs of Larose have broad-ranging themes: one is named the Hillary Clinton For A Better America Super PAC, while another is called George W Bush For A Better America Super PAC. George W. Bush cannot constitutionally seek another term in office, so it is unclear what the political motive of ...
Continue readingEuropean Central Bank borrowing from Federal Reserve on the rise
The European Central Bank (ECB) today announced more than $2 billion in borrowing from the Federal Reserve's currency swap line, the highest amount since the U.S. central bank reopened this facility in May 2010.
The increased borrowing comes amidst reports that the private foreign currency market is chilling, with the cost of European banks obtaining dollars on the rise. While the conditions are not nearly as bad as they became during the 2008 financial crisis, when foreign exchange markets froze and Fed currency swaps with foreign central banks rose to $586 billion, the increasing amounts are another indicator ...
Continue readingSunlight Live: Debating the economy, take two
The eight leading Republican presidential candidates are headed to Rochester, Mich., on Wednesday for the latest in a long season of GOP debates. This one will be the first since decades-old allegations of sexual harassment shook Herman Cain's campaign. Naturally, the Sunlight Live team is ready to follow the action.
Despite the allegations, the Georgia businessman continues to lead the polls along with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, though no polls have been conducted since one of the alleged sexual harassment victims held a press conference Monday afternoon. At that event, she said Cain touched her inappropriately as she ...
Music, movie industries giving to Rep. pushing for copyright enforcement
The House Judiciary Committee chairman backing a bill that would allow the Justice department to force internet service providers to take down websites committing copyright infringement has leading communications companies bankrolling his campaign.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, has seen nearly $393,000 from the TV/music/movies industry during his Congressional career and it ranks fifth among the top industries supporting him. It's legacy companies in that industry — along with other broadcasting and recording industry groups — that would benefit from stricter enforcement of pirated content that could come from Smith's H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act ...
Continue readingSenators on super committee collecting less campaign cash this quarter
All but one Senate member on the super committee collected less campaign funds this quarter compared the previous quarter. Only Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, had a modest increase collecting a total of $85,532.
So far in this election cycle, Portman has raised $53,000 from individuals and $106,000 from PACs. Here's a compilation of all of recent PAC donations to Portman’s election committee.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, raised $30,654 in the third quarter of the year; that is 85% less than she raised in the second quarter. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass raised $16,135 this ...
Continue readingMF Global pushed regulators to use client funds
Late last year MF Global—the failed investment firm headed by Democratic heavyweight Jon S. Corzine that can't account for as much as $900 million of its clients' money--urged a federal agency to allow futures firms to invest funds from their customer segregated accounts in foreign sovereign debt.
In a December 2010 comment letter to the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC), MF Global, along with another firm, Newedge, argued that the agency’s proposal to disallow such investments “is unnecessary, and will eliminate a liquid, secure, profitable and necessary category of investment....no foreign country that actually defaulted on ...
Continue readingNonprofit groups target super committee with billboard ads, don’t disclose donors
With so many vying for the attention of the 12 lawmakers charged with cutting up to $1.5 trillion from the nation's deficit, some groups have turned to plastering their messages to the "super committee" on billboards.
In New York City's Times Square and in Washington, D.C., the billboards tell the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that “Congress should cut spending like a Thanksgiving turkey” and “Before we cut turkeys, Congress must cut $1.5 trillion in spending,” referring to the deadline set for the super committee. The ads are part of a campaign called Bankrupting ...
Continue reading
59063
