Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader front-page [pdf] story (jump [pdf]), which contains Kuhl's reaction to a DCCC press release about energy.
The DCCC claims that Kuhl is a friend of big oil, and uses two facts to back that up. First, it claims that Kuhl has received $29,600 from oil companies. Second, it claims that Kuhl voted against a bill that would end taxpayer subsidies for big oil.
Kuhl questioned the accuracy of the first charge, but according to OpenSecrets, he received $29K from energy and natural resource companies in the 2006 cycle. In the current cycle, he's received a tenth of that, but the real arm-twisting hasn't started yet.
The vote that the DCCC is talking about happened this Spring, on the Energy Bill. The summary from non-partisan Project Vote Smart, includes this:
-Prevents tax deductions to major integrated oil companies for income resulting from the domestic production of oil and gas (Sec. 301).
Kuhl also supports a cut in the gas tax and drilling in ANWR, both of which aren't solutions, as I've discussed earlier.
Comments
According to OpenSecrets, Kuhl had 11 other segments that donated more money. The $29,000 from the energy sector is a very, very small part of his total contributions. The web site also doesn't make it very clear where the $29,000 actually came from. He received $94K from labor unions but I don't see the DCCC calling him a friend of labor.
As far as ANWR goes, something that would take care of 2% of our energy needs while we attempt to bridge to new technologies doesn't strike me as a bad idea, even if a few caribou die.
This is slightly off-topic, but check out the Rothenberg House Ratings and search for Kuhl. :o)
http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/2008/05/2008-house-ratings...
I agree that there are larger segments, but he could have just said, "Yep, I got 29K from the oil companies last time" and then made the argument that it didn't matter. Instead, we get this kind of non-denial denial. And he also knew darn well that he voted against the energy bill -- it wasn't a minor vote -- yet he pretends not to know what the DCCC is talking about.
On ANWR, remember that the 2% is at least a decade off even if we said full speed ahead today. That said, I don't have a major issue with drilling in ANWR. But Republicans like Kuhl constantly bring up ANWR as if drilling there would have solved all of our energy problems. It's a drop in the bucket that's used as a political tactic to distract from the real issue: we've had 7 years of lousy energy policy.
SMS - I think Rothenberg has had the 29th race as "toss-up/tilt R" for a while. IIRC, that is better than last cycle, though.
This link:
http://opensecrets.org/politicians/pacs.php?cycle=2006&cid=N00026087&sec...
shows that at the minimum, $9,450 of the $29K came from non oil/gas PACS. $3K is classified under Energy/Natural Resources and came from the Safari Club International.
My mistake, the entire category is Energy/National Resources. The $3K was classified "Fisheries/Wildlife"
Kuhl must have been under sniper fire when he voted against the energy bill :)
It's sure possible that OpenSecrets might have mis-classified something.
I'm sure some kind of stress caused his memory lapse -- there's no way that a politician would want to mislead a reporter. :)
Kuhl must have been under sniper fire when he voted against the energy bill :)
It took me a minute to understand that, but when I did I laughed.
I guess we'll have to talk to Sinbad to find out what really happened.