American Petroleum Institute spent $1.3M lobbying in 1Q

The American Petroleum Institute, the trade group for major oil and natural gas companies, spent nearly $1.3 million in the first quarter to lobby on fuel economy standards, appropriations bills and other issues, according to a disclosure form.

The API also lobbied on various pieces of legislation dealing with oil taxes and fees, renewable fuel standards, climate change, offshore drilling and more, according to the form posted online April 21 by the House clerk’s office.


API spent $4 million to lobby the federal government in 2007.

Senate Democrats in early May called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies and a rollback of $17 billion in oil industry tax breaks. The proposal, which also would impose penalties on price gouging and calls for stopping deliveries into the government’s emergency oil reserve, is strongly opposed by Republicans and would almost certainly prompt a veto by President Bush.

AP