Oil and Gas Interests Funnel Huge Money to Republicans

It's no surprise that the fossil fuel industry gives large amounts of money to Republicans, but the percentages are rather staggering. Of all the money flowing into the Super PACs of Republican presidential candidates, one-third is from oil and gas — and more than half of the money in Ted Cruz' Super PACs.

Fossil fuel interests have funneled more than $100 million into the Republican presidential campaign, according to analysis of Federal Election Committee data compiled by Greenpeace. That total means that about one in every three dollars given to Republican candidates came from someone with financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, and, according to the Guardian, represents "an unprecedented investment by the oil and gas industry in the party's future."

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Republican perhaps most poised to steal the nomination away from current front-runner Donald Trump, received more than $25 million from fossil fuel interests. The majority of the funds in his super PACs — 57 percent — came from backers attached to the oil and gas industry.

Cruz is one of the Senate's most vocal climate deniers, frequently holding hearings in his role as the chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness that question the mainstream consensus on climate change. He has called climate change "not science" but "religion," and frequently cites the misleading claim that satellite data hasn't shown warming for the last 18 years (the long-term, gradual trend in temperature has gone distinctly upwards, and recent satellite data just confirmed that February was the hottest month on record).

"Ted Cruz's complete denial of climate change science is perfectly in line with the business interests of his biggest funders," Jesse Coleman, a Greenpeace oil and gas campaigner, told the Guardian. "These fossil funders have made denying climate change and ignoring scientists a prerequisite for being a Republican candidate."

Cruz also derives a significant portion of his personal wealth from the fossil fuel industry, with fossil fuel investments making up anywhere from 15.8 to 22.7 percent of Cruz's total assets. Research conducted by Christian R. Grose, an associate professor of political science at the University of Southern California, has found that a legislator's personal financial interests likely have an impact on that legislator's decision making.

This certainly explains the denial of global warming. It's nearly impossible for someone to believe something when it's in their financial best interest not to believe it, no matter what the evidence says.

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Source: Oil and Gas Interests Funnel Huge Money to Republicans