Recount means fundraising gold for Franken, Coleman

Most of Colemans money has come from the energy companies.

Coleman and Bachman are the best backers of their clean coal dream.

” The Public Campaign Action Fund has released a major report finding that King Coal and Big Oil have united in an attempt to buy the future:

We estimate that the coal and oil industries spent an astounding $427.2 million over the first six months of 2008 to influence public opinion and public policy.

These industries are on track to spend about a billion dollars influencing energy policy this year, with their “clean coal” and “drill drill drill” messaging. They are supporting pollution-friendly candidates and spreading false doubt about the seriousness of global warming.

This total includes the $12.2 million dollars spent in six months by Newt Gingrich’s billionaire-and-coal-funded 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), on its “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign, and the $40 million that coal industry front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (now part of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity) pledged to spend influencing the public. It also includes John McCain’s million-dollar haul from the oil and gas industry.

The Public Campaign Action Fund’s estimate of $427.2 million fails to include the expenditures of pollution-agenda front groups that are “organized under sections of the Internal Revenue Code that do not require the public disclosure of their spending.” These groups include the likes of:

Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth
American Council for Capital Formation
American Energy Alliance
American Enterprise Institute
Americans for Prosperity
American Future Fund
Business & Media Institute
Coalition for Affordable American Energy
Competitive Enterprise Institute
FreedomWorks
Heartland Institute
Institute for Energy Research
National Association of Manufacturers
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Therefore the Public Campaign’s estimate is rather conservative.”

Thanks to all Minnesotans who reelected Norm Coal Man to fight for the right to pollute.

Where did the energy companies get all this money, you say. From you. Thanks American Taxpayers, we couldn’t have done it without the 8 billion dollars you gave us for research.

“You have to hand it to the folks at R&R Partners. They’re the clever advertising agency that made its name luring legions of suckers to Las Vegas with an ad campaign built on the slogan “What happens here, stays here.” But R&R has now topped itself with its current ad campaign pairing two of the least compatible words in the English language: “Clean Coal.”–environment360

“Allen and Smith are major Republican donors and Coleman has a history of switching his votes when pressured by corporate lobbyists. You may recall that he stated that his vote for ANWR was for sale … the price was a coal gasification plant.

Hoyt Lakes, Minn. — The 1,000-megawatt Mesabi Energy Project would be the largest power plant of its kind, using what’s called coal gasification technology. The process doesn’t burn coal — it turns it into a gas that fires the power plant’s boilers.
Sen. Coleman has indicated he will vote for an energy bill that allows oil exploration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, if the bill also includes hundreds of millions of dollars for the new Mesabi Energy power plant.

When he campaigned for Senate last year, Coleman said he would not support oil drilling in the refuge.”
(MPR)

read it all at MNblue

They don’t mention Norms brother is running the gassification plant.

Where does Norm get all this cash?

“Johnson, who has been registered as a state lobbyist for Excelsior Energy since February 2005, is one of 18 lobbyists for the company registered in Minnesota. It didn’t take long for Johnson to hit the revolving door and start cashing in on his 32-year legislative career after he left the state Senate in 2002. He registered as a lobbyist for several entities less than a year later in August 2003, and currently represents 10 clients at the state level.

“I want to thank Senator Coleman for all he has done to make the Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Energy Project a reality,” Johnson gushed in a May 2005 press release from Coleman’s office, just three months after he went on Excelsior Energy’s lobbying payroll. “Norm was decisive in including this provision in the last Energy Bill which was unfortunately filibustered, he was key to getting Excelsior $36 million in Clean Coal Power Initiative funding last year, and today’s action of the Senate would not have happened without Norm’s leadership.”–mnindependent

It’s unfair to call it fundraising gold. They’re likely to need the money. Maybe if they end up with a pot of cash for the next election it can be called that, so wait until then.