Major report finds 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…

This total includes the $12.2 million dollars spent in six months by Newt Gingrich's… American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF)… the $40 million that the coal-industry front group, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (now part of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity), pledged to spend, [and]… John McCain's million-dollar haul from the oil and gas industry. [However, it]… 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.

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