Fracking Lobby ANGA's Tax Forms: Big Bucks to Media Outlets, "Other ALECs"

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Americaโ€™s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) โ€“ the public relations arm of the oil and gas fracking industry โ€“ has released its 2012 Internal Revenue Services (IRS) 990 form, and itโ€™s rich with eye-opening revelations, some of which we report here for the first time. 

Incorporated as American Natural Gas Alliance, Inc., ANGA received $76.7 million from its dues-paying members for fiscal year 2012. Not strictly a lobbying force alone at the state-level and federal-level, ANGA has pumped millions of dollars into public relations and advertising efforts around the country and hundreds of thousands more into other influence-peddling avenues. 

The Nation Magazineโ€˜s Lee Fang revealed in a recent piece that ANGA gave $1 million in funding to โ€œTruthland,โ€ a pro-fracking film released to fend off Josh Foxโ€™s โ€œGasland: Part II.โ€

On its website, โ€œTruthlandโ€ says it is a project of both industry front group Energy in Depth and the trade association, Independent Petroleum Association of America. The โ€œTruthlandโ€ website was originally registered in Chesapeake Energyโ€™s office, Little Sis revealed.

Fang also revealed ANGA gave $25,000 to โ€œASGK Strategies, a political consulting firm founded by White House advisor David Axelrod,โ€ as well as โ€œ$864,673 to Edventures Partners, an education curriculum company that has partnered with ANGA to produce classroom materials that promote the use of natural gas.โ€


David Axelrod; Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

In his piece, Fang also points out ANGAโ€˜s 501(c)(3) has given millions of dollars to Democratic Party-affiliated PR firms, perhaps unsurprising given its new CEO is Martin โ€œMartyโ€ Durbin, nephew of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the U.S. Senateโ€™s Majority Whip.

โ€œThe 990 shows that ANGA paid the Glover Park Group over $2.9 million for โ€˜research/advertisingโ€™ and Dewey Square Group $738,957 for โ€˜grassroots communications,โ€™โ€ wrote Fang. โ€œBoth firms are run by mostly former Clinton administration officials.โ€ ANGA donated another $6,500 to Dewey Square for general operational support.

Donations to Media Outlets

ANGA also gave big to media outlets, a DeSmog review of the 990 reveals. It doled out $165,000 to The Texas Tribune, $100,000 to Bloomberg Businessweek, $50,000 to National Journal and another $25,000 to the Environmental Media Association, co-founded by Norman Lear, also the co-founder of the liberal group People for the American Way.

Departing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg โ€“ owner and namesake of Bloomberg Businessweek โ€“ is also a major financial supporter of fracking, giving $6 million to the Environmental Defense Fund in August 2012 to promote โ€œresponsible regulationโ€ in 14 states. He also gave money to EDFโ€˜s recently-published controversial fracking climate study.


Michael Bloomberg; Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons 

ANGA also recently became a founding partner of MSNBC.comโ€˜s newly launched website, on whose platform it will regularly publish โ€œnative advertisements,โ€ sometimes also referred to as โ€œbranded content.โ€ Axelrod โ€“ whose PR firm also gets money from ANGA โ€“ works as a paid senior political analyst for MSNBC and NBC.

Bipartisanship, Attacks on Renewables, Money to Green Group

One thing is crystal clear in ANGAโ€˜s 990 forms: they โ€œbuypartisan.โ€ That is, they donate money to both sides of the political aisle, although the bulk of the dollars flows to the right. 

ANGA donated $25,000 to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, while giving nine times as much to the Republican Governors Association to the tune of $225,000. It then tossed another $200,000 to the Republican State Leadership Committee, throwing $25,000 more to Third Way, a think-tank of sorts of the corporate Blue Dog Democrats.

Not content with its vast market share of the U.S. utilities market, ANGA gave $100,000 to the โ€œCare for Michigan Coalition,โ€ an industry-funded nonprofit created to defeat Michiganโ€™s Proposal 3 in the November 2012 elections. Proposal 3 would have mandated 25-percent of Michiganโ€™s energy portfolio come from renewable energy sources by 2025, known by energy policy wonks as 25ร—25.

Other major Care for Michigan Coalition donors included Warren Buffettโ€™s BNSF (whose trains carry vast amounts of frac sand and oil fracked from North Dakotaโ€™s Bakken Shale), DTE Energy, CMS Energy and the Michigan Manufacturersโ€™ Association.

Warren Buffett and President Barack Obama; Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

ANGA didnโ€™t limit its patronage to sworn enemies of renewable energy, though. It also handed $30,000 to the Texas League of Conservation Voters.  

Donations to โ€œOther ALECsโ€ 

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is by far the most powerful and famous corporate-funded nonprofit that companies and trade associations donate money to, receiving an equal voice and a vote on model legislation passed at its annual meetings. Yet, itโ€™s not the only registered nonprofit incorporated to โ€œeducateโ€ elected officials, serving as lobbying forum for corporations.

Enter the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which I categorized as one of the โ€œOther ALECsโ€ in an investigative series published for TruthOut. ANGA donated $50,000 to NCSL during fiscal year 2012, according to its 990 form, giving another $41,000 to the National Association of Counties and $10,000 to the National League of Cities.

Public Citizen explained in a November 2012 report that lobbyists are increasingly using seemingly innocent state-level and local-level trade associations for politiciansโ€™ annual meetings as lobbying venues.

โ€œThere is no doubt that corporate sponsors are getting what they pay for: the ears of decision makers whose decisions will have a direct impact on their bottom lines,โ€ Public Citizen wrote in โ€œAccess for Sale: A Report on Corporate Funding of Associations of State and Local Government Officials.โ€

Not to be outdone, ANGA will be sworn in as a dues-paying member of ALEC at its States and Nation Policy Summit set to take place December 4-6 in Washington, DC, according to a memorandum sent out to its members on October 30, 2013. 

โ€œHe Who Has the Gold Makes the Rulesโ€

If ANGAโ€˜s latest 990 forms prove anything, itโ€™s the โ€œgolden rule.โ€ Just not the one youโ€™re taught as a kid. That is, when it comes to money in politics, โ€œHe who has the gold makes the rules.โ€

Yet, another proverb also comes to mind: โ€œWhen the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.โ€

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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