But the reality, of course, is something wholly different. Indeed, this mythology is a perfect example of Orwellian Newspeak in which the reverse of the rhetoric is true. As recent news highlights, the government is doing exactly the opposite of what conservatives say: It is aggressively favoring the fossil fuel industry in ways that give that industry a special economic advantage over clean energy.

In 2010, Bloomberg News released a report showing that global governmental support “for fossil fuels dwarf support given to renewable energy sources.” The numbers led one financial expert to note that while “mainstream investors worry that renewable energy only works with direct government support,” the truth is that “the global direct subsidy for fossil fuels is around ten times the subsidy for renewables.”

According to data compiled by the Environmental Law Institute, the United States is a big contributor to this global subsidy imbalance, “provid(ing) substantially larger subsidies to fossil fuels than to renewables.” In practice, some of the biggest of those U.S. subsidies come in the form of special tax breaks for oil and gas development, and in direct taxpayer funding of multinational corporations’ foreign mining projects (yes, you read that right — your tax dollars go to fund fossil fuel development overseas). Notably, the latter subsidies champion some of the most environmentally hazardous practices in operation such as “fracking” — a practice that our own Environmental Protection Agency has found in two separate reports to be a major potential threat to groundwater.

The New York Times recently explained how these subsidies operate on a day-to-day basis:

In the United States, where the water-intensive drilling technique of fracking was invented, the government is taking a lead role in supporting the dissemination of the technology abroad, as well as promoting other energy projects, including building infrastructure to extract and transport liquid natural gas …

The Export-Import Bank of the United States has financed some of its biggest gas projects over the last several years, including the largest transaction in the bank’s history — $3 billion approved in 2009 for hundreds of miles of gas pipeline and a liquid natural gas plant and terminal project led by Exxon Mobil in Papua New Guinea…

In Peru, the United States Export-Import bank provided more than $400 million in loan guarantees in 2008 for a liquefied natural gas terminal to export gas from the Camisea gas fields, which are in the Amazon rainforest. The project for drilling and pipelines in the Camisea, which received separate financing from the Inter-American Development Bank, has been dogged by spills, accusations that company officials bribed lawmakers and criticisms about exporting the gas rather than using more of it to lower prices for domestic consumers.

On top of this, the Times notes that indirect financial support is also at work, with “the United States Geological Survey offer(ing) training and technology to geologists exploring shale gas in Europe” and “the State Department’s Global Shale Gas Initiative … advising many foreign countries on fracking.” This, mind you, says nothing about the federal government happily leasing public lands for such fossil fuel development. Meanwhile, that same government has deployed its considerable legal and diplomatic resources in an attempt to halt China’s growing financial support for clean energy.

On the regulatory side, it is much the same story.

At the federal level, under the direction of then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s infamous energy task force, the Bush administration passed legislation exempting fracking from the oversight that other energy development is subjected to, thus tilting the energy-development market even further toward domestic fossil fuels.

At the state level, the push to privilege fossil fuels has materialized in the form of a campaign to exempt fossil fuel companies from the local control that every other industry must submit to. In New York, for example, a nascent industry lobbying campaign is gearing up to get Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to prevent local communities from regulating fossil fuel development within their jurisdictions. In Colorado, already a major producer of fossil fuel energy, that same campaign is on the march, as the state’s Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper used his “State of the State” address to insist that state government should be able to forcibly prevent local cities and towns from regulating oil and natural gas fracking. Though one legislator has announced he will challenge Hickenlooper with a bill empowering those communities to regulate fossil fuels like everything else, the Denver Post reports that Hickenlooper’s push to exempt the fossil fuel industry from local control is supported by the top leaders of both parties in the Legislature.

Taken together, it all adds up to a government that is far more committed to toxic and finite sources of energy than to clean and renewable sources of energy. You may not hear that from either party’s presidential candidates or media defenders — but the facts are quite clear, even if they are inconvenient.

Take the Strait of Hormuz, already making headlines and shaking energy markets as 2012 begins. Connecting the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, it lacks imposing geographical features like the Rock of Gibraltar or the Golden Gate Bridge. In an energy-conscious world, however, it may possess greater strategic significance than any passageway on the planet. Every day, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, tankers carrying some 17 million barrels of oil — representing 20 percent of the world’s daily supply — pass through this vital artery.

So last month, when a senior Iranian official threatened to block the strait in response to Washington’s tough new economic sanctions, oil prices instantly soared. While the U.S. military has vowed to keep the strait open, doubts about the safety of future oil shipments and worries about a potentially unending, nerve-jangling crisis involving Washington, Tehran and Tel Aviv have energy experts predicting high oil prices for months to come, meaning further woes for a slowing global economy.

The Strait of Hormuz is, however, only one of several hot spots where energy, politics and geography are likely to mix in dangerous ways in 2012 and beyond. Keep your eye as well on the East and South China Seas, the Caspian Sea basin and an energy-rich Arctic that is losing its sea ice. In all of these places, countries are disputing control over the production and transportation of energy, and arguing about national boundaries and/or rights of passage.

In the years to come, the location of energy supplies and of energy supply routes — pipelines, oil ports and tanker routes — will be pivotal landmarks on the global strategic map. Key producing areas, like the Persian Gulf, will remain critically important, but so will oil chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca (between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea) and the “sea lines of communication,” or SLOCs (as naval strategists like to call them) connecting producing areas to overseas markets. More and more, the major powers led by the United States, Russia and China will restructure their militaries to fight in such locales.

You can already see this in the elaborate Defense Strategic Guidance document, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership,” unveiled at the Pentagon on January 5th by President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. While envisioning a smaller Army and Marine Corps, it calls for increased emphasis on air and naval capabilities, especially those geared to the protection or control of international energy and trade networks. Though it tepidly reaffirmed historic American ties to Europe and the Middle East, overwhelming emphasis was placed on bolstering U.S. power in “the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean and South Asia.”

In the new Geo-Energy Era, the control of energy and of its transport to market will lie at the heart of recurring global crises. This year, keep your eyes on three energy hot spots in particular: the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea and the Caspian Sea basin.

The Strait of Hormuz

A narrow stretch of water separating Iran from Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the strait is the sole maritime link between the oil-rich Persian Gulf region and the rest of the world. A striking percentage of the oil produced by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE is carried by tanker through this passageway on a daily basis, making it (in the words of the Department of Energy) “the world’s most important oil chokepoint.” Some analysts believe that any sustained blockage in the strait could trigger a 50 percent increase in the price of oil and trigger a full-scale global recession or depression.

American leaders have long viewed the Strait as a strategic fixture in their global plans that must be defended at any cost. It was an outlook first voiced by President Jimmy Carter in January 1980, on the heels of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan which had, he told Congress, “brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world’s oil must flow.” The American response, he insisted, must be unequivocal: any attempt by a hostile power to block the waterway would henceforth be viewed as “an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America,” and “repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

Much has changed in the Gulf region since Carter issued his famous decree, known since as the Carter Doctrine, and established the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to guard the Strait — but not Washington’s determination to ensure the unhindered flow of oil there. Indeed, President Obama has made it clear that, even if CENTCOM ground forces were to leave Afghanistan, as they have Iraq, there would be no reduction in the command’s air and naval presence in the greater Gulf area.

It is conceivable that the Iranians will put Washington’s capabilities to the test. On December 27th, Iran’s first vice president Mohammad-Reza Rahimi said, “If [the Americans] impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz.” Similar statements have since been made by other senior officials (and contradicted as well by yet others). In addition, the Iranians recently conducted elaborate naval exercises in the Arabian Sea near the eastern mouth of the strait, and more such maneuvers are said to be forthcoming. At the same time, the commanding general of Iran’s army suggested that the USS John C. Stennis, an American aircraft carrier just leaving the Gulf, should not return. “The Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added ominously, “will not repeat its warning.”

Might the Iranians actually block the strait? Many analysts believe that the statements by Rahimi and his colleagues are bluster and bluff meant to rattle Western leaders, send oil prices higher and win future concessions if negotiations ever recommence over their country’s nuclear program. Economic conditions in Iran are, however, becoming more desperate, and it is always possible that the country’s hard-pressed hardline leaders may feel the urge to take some dramatic action, even if it invites a powerful U.S. counterstrike. Whatever the case, the Strait of Hormuz will remain a focus of international attention in 2012, with global oil prices closely following the rise and fall of tensions there.

The South China Sea

The South China Sea is a semi-enclosed portion of the western Pacific bounded by China to the north, Vietnam to the west, the Philippines to the east and the island of Borneo (shared by Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia) to the south. The sea also incorporates two largely uninhabited island chains, the Paracels and the Spratlys. Long an important fishing ground, it has also been a major avenue for commercial shipping between East Asia and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. More recently, it acquired significance as a potential source of oil and natural gas, large reserves of which are now believed to lie in subsea areas surrounding the Paracels and Spratlys.

With the discovery of oil and gas deposits, the South China Sea has been transformed into a cockpit of international friction. At least some islands in this energy-rich area are claimed by every one of the surrounding countries, including China — which claims them all, and has demonstrated a willingness to use military force to assert dominance in the region. Not surprisingly, this has put it in conflict with the other claimants, including several with close military ties to the United States. As a result, what started out as a regional matter, involving China and various members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has become a prospective tussle between the world’s two leading powers.

To press their claims, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines have all sought to work collectively through ASEAN, believing a multilateral approach will give them greater negotiating clout than one-on-one dealings with China. For their part, the Chinese have insisted that all disputes must be resolved bilaterally, a situation in which they can more easily bring their economic and military power to bear. Previously preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has now entered the fray, offering full-throated support to the ASEAN countries in their efforts to negotiate en masse with Beijing.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi promptly warned the United States not to interfere. Any such move “will only make matters worse and the resolution more difficult,” he declared. The result was an instant war of words between Beijing and Washington. During a visit to the Chinese capital in July 2011, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen delivered a barely concealed threat when it came to possible future military action. “The worry, among others that I have,” he commented, “is that the ongoing incidents could spark a miscalculation, and an outbreak that no one anticipated.” To drive the point home, the United States has conducted a series of conspicuous military exercises in the South China Sea, including some joint maneuvers with ships from Vietnam and the Philippines. Not to be outdone, China responded with naval maneuvers of its own. It’s a perfect formula for future “incidents” at sea.

The South China Sea has long been on the radar screens of those who follow Asian affairs, but it only attracted global attention when, in November, President Obama traveled to Australia and announced, with remarkable bluntness, a new U.S. strategy aimed at confronting Chinese power in Asia and the Pacific. “As we plan and budget for the future,” he told members of the Australian Parliament in Canberra, “we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region.” A key feature of this effort would be to ensure “maritime security” in the South China Sea.

While in Australia, President Obama also announced the establishment of a new U.S. base at Darwin on that country’s northern coast, as well as expanded military ties with Indonesia and the Philippines. In January, the president similarly placed special emphasis on projecting U.S. power in the region when he went to the Pentagon to discuss changes in the American military posture in the world.

Beijing will undoubtedly take its own set of steps, no less belligerent, to protect its growing interests in the South China Sea. Where this will lead remains, of course, unknown. After the Strait of Hormuz, however, the South China Sea may be the global energy chokepoint where small mistakes or provocations could lead to bigger confrontations in 2012 and beyond.

The Caspian Sea Basin

The Caspian Sea is an inland body of water bordered by Russia, Iran and three former republics of the USSR: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. In the immediate area as well are the former Soviet lands of Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. All of these old SSRs are, to one degree or another, attempting to assert their autonomy from Moscow and establish independent ties with the United States, the European Union, Iran, Turkey and, increasingly, China. All are wracked by internal schisms and/or involved in border disputes with their neighbors. The region would be a hotbed of potential conflict even if the Caspian basin did not harbor some of the world’s largest undeveloped reserves of oil and natural gas, which could easily bring it to a boil.

This is not the first time that the Caspian has been viewed as a major source of oil, and so potential conflict. In the late nineteenth century, the region around the city of Baku — then part of the Russian empire, now in Azerbaijan — was a prolific source of petroleum and so a major strategic prize. Future Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin first gained notoriety there as a leader of militant oil workers, and Hitler sought to capture it during his ill-fated 1941 invasion of the USSR. After World War II, however, the region lost its importance as an oil producer when Baku’s onshore fields dried up. Now, fresh discoveries are being made in offshore areas of the Caspian itself and in previously undeveloped areas of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

According to energy giant BP, the Caspian area harbors as much as 48 billion barrels of oil (mostly buried in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan) and 449 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (with the largest supply in Turkmenistan). This puts the region ahead of North and South America in total gas reserves and Asia in oil reserves. But producing all this energy and delivering it to foreign markets will be a monumental task. The region’s energy infrastructure is woefully inadequate and the Caspian itself provides no maritime outlet to other seas, so all that oil and gas must travel by pipeline or rail.

Russia, long the dominant power in the region, is pursuing control over the transportation routes by which Caspian oil and gas will reach markets. It is upgrading Soviet-era pipelines that link the former SSRs to Russia or building new ones and, to achieve a near monopoly over the marketing of all this energy, bringing traditional diplomacy, strong-arm tactics and outright bribery to bear on regional leaders (many of whom once served in the Soviet bureaucracy) to ship their energy via Russia. As recounted in my book ”Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet,” Washington sought to thwart these efforts by sponsoring the construction of alternative pipelines that avoid Russian territory, crossing Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean (notably the BTC, or Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline), while Beijing is building its own pipelines linking the Caspian area to western China.

All of these pipelines cross through areas of ethnic unrest and pass near various contested regions like rebellious Chechnya and breakaway South Ossetia. As a result, both China and the U.S. have wedded their pipeline operations to military assistance for countries along the routes. Fearful of an American presence, military or otherwise, in the former territories of the Soviet Union, Russia has responded with military moves of its own, including its brief August 2008 war with Georgia, which took place along the BTC route.

Given the magnitude of the Caspian’s oil and gas reserves, many energy firms are planning new production operations in the region, along with the pipelines needed to bring the oil and gas to market. The European Union, for example, hopes to build a new natural gas pipeline called Nabucco from Azerbaijan through Turkey to Austria. Russia has proposed a competing conduit called South Stream. All of these efforts involve the geopolitical interests of major powers, ensuring that the Caspian region will remain a potential source of international crisis and conflict.

In the new Geo-Energy Era, the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea and the Caspian Basin hardly stand alone as potential energy flashpoints. The East China Sea, where China and Japan are contending for a contested undersea natural gas field, is another, as are the waters surrounding the Falkland Islands, where both Britain and Argentina hold claims to undersea oil reserves, as will be the globally warming Arctic whose resources are claimed by many countries. One thing is certain: wherever the sparks may fly, there’s oil in the water and danger at hand in 2012.

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With our nation’s still unquenchable (and still highly subsidized) thirst for fossil fuels, the false comfort of NIMBY-ism and the fairy-tale notions of “safety in numbers” is quickly vanishing in our cities, as controversial oil and gas exploration projects creep into metropolitan areas. Incredibly, this geographic trend is accelerating just as new drilling techniques are evoking serious concerns about excessive air pollution and about adverse effects on limited water supplies — problems that have plagued rural energy-producing regions for decades, but are sure to be even worse as they hit densely populated areas.

This year, worries have been particularly acute when it comes to hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) — the process of pumping water, sand and potentially toxic chemicals into the ground to break up rock and release natural gas.

In May, Duke University documented disturbingly high levels of methane in groundwater near fracking sites in Pennsylvania. Weeks later, the Environmental Working Group uncovered a 1987 agency report confirming that fracking contaminated well and groundwater in West Virginia. For decades, the industry had been able to deny this critical case study and insist fracking was perfectly safe because, as the New York Times notes, the case’s details “were sealed from the public when energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners.” Now, though, the oil and gas industry cannot issue such denials with impunity — especially considering an even more recent EPA finding that the aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contained “high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing,” as ProPublica reported earlier this month.

Yet, despite these findings, and despite at least some factions within the oil and gas industry finally acknowledging the validity of drilling critics’ health and safety concerns, various state governments are lately helping the oil and gas industry move fracking ever closer to major cities.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is pushing a multistate commission to accelerate fracking in the heavily populated Delaware River Basin, even though his state was hammered by a devastating fracking-fluid spill in 2009, and despite news that wastewater treatment plants might not be fully removing fracking chemicals from the two rivers that provide drinking water for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Likewise, in super-suburban New Jersey, Republican Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a permanent ban on fracking.

Christie, though, at least ended up signing a one-year moratorium, which is more than can be said for many top Democrats throughout the country. That’s no small point of distinction in understanding the shifting partisan politics of energy. As the Obama White House aggressively backs a pro-drilling agenda at the federal level (and is duly rewarded with big energy-industry campaign donations), a Democratic Party once known for championing health and the environment is, in many locales, playing just as big a role as the GOP in bringing the downsides of oil and gas exploration into the American city.

In New York, for example, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his party’s possible presidential standard-bearer in 2016, has been trying to weaken his state’s moratorium. The result of his regulatory “reform” effort, reports ProPublica, could affect not only upstate cities, but the Big Apple itself, with one recent draft proposal from the Democratic administration possibly “open(ing) the door to drilling within 1,000 feet of aging underground tunnels that carry water to New York City.”

In Colorado, the story is much the same with Gov. John Hickenlooper. Previously an oil and gas geologist, the newly elected Democrat (also being floated for president in 2016) has named a natural gas firm’s general counsel to head the state’s Public Utilities Commission. He also packed the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission with oil and gas industry allies — a move that drew pay-to-play corruption allegations when it was discovered that one appointee was a ConocoPhillips governmental affairs executive who donated to Hickenlooper’s campaign.

During his first year in office, Hickenlooper has been willfully ignoring the EPA data, telling Coloradans that “hydraulic fracturing doesn’t connect to groundwater, that it’s almost inconceivable that groundwater will be contaminated.” He has also publicly berated his Democratic predecessor, Bill Ritter, and environmentalists for supposedly going “overboard” in passing modest drilling regulations. As if this wasn’t enough, Hickenlooper followed last week’s damning EPA report by gleefully announcing his support for a huge proposed fracking site just a few miles from downtown Denver. The project, which would add to other proposed drilling sites near population centers in Commerce City and Colorado Springs, could end up bringing the same air pollution and drinking water problems seen in Colorado’s rural energy-producing Western Slope right to the state’s densely populated Front Range.

To better understand the real-world implications of all this — to comprehend how fracking, urban policy and Democratic politics can uniquely collude to create serious trouble — look no further than Fort Worth, Texas, under Mike Moncrief, the Democrat who served as mayor at exactly the time that Fort Worth encouraged a boom in gas drilling within its city limits. The Austin American-Statesman notes that Moncrief, who personally made hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from drilling, “largely supported drilling” — and the region has subsequently become a national cautionary tale.

In 2010, the Statesman reported that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality conducted an investigation into the air effects of the city’s drilling and “found that three (air quality) samples were above certain limits for benzene” — a carcinogen associated with natural gas drilling compressors. Additionally, “one sample, at a country club in town, was at levels high enough to cause nausea and headaches in some people.” In all, according to the Dallas Morning News, “the industry dumps 20,818 tons per year of organic compounds into the air” over a Fort Worth region that “already fails to meet federal air-quality standards.” The findings followed nearby Dish, Texas, discovering “high levels of 15 chemicals” associated with drilling — ultimately prompting that town’s mayor to move away for fear that fracking was adversely harming his family’s health. And this, of course, says nothing about how the metro area’s heavy drilling has both taxed its drought-stricken water supplies and raised seismologists’ fears of a link between fracking wastewater disposal and earthquakes.

Deflecting questions about their loyalties being tied to oil and gas campaign contributions, and downplaying health and environmental concerns, Republican and Democratic politicians typically cite both municipal budget crises and alleged job growth as their justification for supporting urban drilling. These are weak rationales, to say the least.

It’s certainly true that many states and cities are strapped for cash in this recession. Additionally, as Headwaters Economics shows, it’s also true that, if tax policy is calibrated properly (a big “if”), drilling is far more certain to create at least some revenue before it creates lots of jobs. However, because the impact costs of drilling are so huge — think: road repair, municipal services, etc. — the net cost-benefit effect of drilling on municipalities has been mixed (and that’s without even counting the undocumented-but-socialized costs of drilling-related health and environmental problems). As just one example, in Pennsylvania, many convincingly argue that the costs have been far higher to taxpayers in drilling areas than the revenues they are receiving in return.

A part of that imbalance is a result of the industry’s failure to create a promised economic ripple effect. But a more important factor is oil and gas companies’ overinflated estimates of revenue-producing job growth. As a thorough new study from the nonpartisan group Food and Water Watch reported last week, there remains a huge gap between the number of jobs oil and gas companies promise will come with increased drilling, and the number of jobs actually created when those drilling projects happen.

This is the standard practice of 21st century piracy: Corporate executives and their paid-for politicians make fantastical promises to get public acquiescence, but then don’t deliver in the end — except, of course, for the faraway shareholders who also double as political campaign donors. When community opposition inevitably arises, this rogues gallery of profiteers and apologists then deploy the same bromides about the need for revenues and jobs — and, for good measure, they throw in a little military-grade psyops for good measure.

Ultimately, they are banking on an urbanized citizenry still believing that the energy debate is just an esoteric and parochial dispute taking place in some distant Siberia at the end of the earth. They hope we don’t see those rigs popping up on the edge of town. They hope we only notice when they are on our once-idyllic block or right in the middle of our city’s newly renovated downtown — when it’s already too late to stop them.

Like the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf that would steal the nation’s attention (and 11 lives) just two weeks later, Upper Big Branch was the inevitable outcome of regulators turning a blind eye to a greedy corporate culture that puts profit above human lives. But this is nothing new. Coal, oil and gas companies in the U.S. have been getting away with murder for years. Sometimes it is just less obvious — the slow poisoning of our air, water and food; the deterioration of human health, the loss of homes and jobs, the obliteration of whole communities and ecosystems.

Even as the burning of fossil fuels pushes the planet toward the brink, these energy companies continue to rake in massive profits. They use this wealth to leverage elections, write legislation, scale back regulations and escape accountability. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) has found that, “Individuals and political action committees affiliated with oil and gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates and parties since the 1990 election cycle, 75 percent of which has gone to Republicans.” Although Republicans have won big from the industry, CRP found that Obama received $884,000 from the oil and gas industry during his 2008 campaign for the presidency.

In 2010 the oil and gas industry shelled out more than $145 million on lobbying and the mining industry spent nearly $30 million.

Which energy companies are the worst offenders? We’ll look at how much they spend on lobbying, how many lobbyists they hire, how many “revolving door” personnel pass between government and industry, how much they contribute to political campaigns (whether through individual donations, their political action committees, or “soft money” to support the party), and the effect of their greed on human lives and the environment.

While the list of energy companies that could be included is long, here are five whose egregious actions deserve national attention.

5. Massey Energy

As you’ll read below, there are energy companies that are far bigger than Massey, that throw around hundreds of millions more in lobbying and have more political muscle. But Massey does have something that has earned it a spot on this list: a track record of environmental abuse and safety failures that rival the big players. And it is not afraid to jump into playing politics either, including buying off a judicial election to ensure a win in court.

At the time of the Upper Big Branch disaster in 2010, Massey was the fourth largest coal company in the country and the largest operating in Appalachia. While Upper Big Branch was the most deadly mining accident in the U.S. in the last 40 years, it was not the only time Massey’s negligence has resulted in fatalities. Two miners were killed in a fire in the company’s Aracoma Alma Mine in January 2006. It was later determined the men lost their lives because of Massey’s “reckless disregard” for safety, according to a report. In fact, an investigation afterward by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) doled out more than 1,300 citations for violating safety regulations.

Upper Big Branch and Aracoma were not isolated incidents for Massey; simply business as usual. A study done by American University found that between 2000 and 2010 Massey had the worst fatality record of any U.S. coal company. During that decade 54 miners lost their lives, compared to just six miners who died between 2000 and 2009 at Peabody, the largest coal company in the country. Massey earned over 62,000 violations during that decade, 25,000 of which were deemed “significant and substantial.” The company also raked in the most fines at nearly $50 million.

An investigation ordered by then-governor Joe Manchin after the Upper Big Branch disaster found Massey’s culture of profit over people was entirely to blame for the loss of 29 lives. Investigators found that Massey’s modus operandi was the “normalization of deviance.” It was not one single thing that went wrong on April 5, 2010 resulting in fatalities of such a magnitude. A whole number of things had to fail — and did fail on that day. Here is what the investigation found:

Such total and catastrophic systemic failures can only be explained in the context of a culture in which wrongdoing became acceptable, where deviation became the norm. … The same culture allowed Massey Energy to use its resources to create a false public image to mislead the public, community leaders and investors — the perception that the company exceeded industry safety standards. And it became acceptable to cast agencies designed to protect miners as enemies and to make life difficult for miners who tried to address safety. It is only in the context of a culture bent on production at the expense of safety that these obvious deviations from decades of known safety practices make sense.

Behind every money-hungry CEO and his corporate machine are public leaders willing to be bought and regulators willing to bend. As the Upper Big Branch investigators found:

As the largest coal producer in the Appalachian region at the time of the disaster, Massey Energy used the leverage of the jobs it provided to attempt to control West Virginia’s political system. Through that control, the company challenged federal and state oversight agencies, including MSHA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training. Many politicians were afraid to challenge Massey’s supremacy because of the company’s superb ongoing public relations campaign and because CEO Don Blankenship was willing to spend vast amounts of money to influence elections.

It’s not just the people who work for Massey who’ve suffered their abuses; everyone and everything nearby has been threatened as well. In an interview for “Living on Earth” Michael Shnayerson, author of “Coal River,” explained, “Massey routinely racks up far, far more violations than any other coal companies in the region–and there are some large companies in the region, like Peabody or Consol. Massey just doesn’t seem to care about the environment, frankly.”

In 2008 Massey agreed to pay $20 million after years of Clean Water Act violations. Reporting for the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, Ken Ward Jr. wrote that the lawsuit, “alleged more than 60,000 days of violations over a six-year period, or about 10,000 days of violations per year.”

It was thought the record $20 million fine and the threat of more penalties would help Massey clean up its act, but just the opposite proved true — Massey’s pollution increased after the settlement.

Massey has drawn the ire of many Appalachian residents for its practice of mountaintop removal mining which uses explosives to blow the tops of off mountains, dumping the waste into rivers and streambeds. The sludge waste from the practice is often stored in makeshift lakes that can leak, contaminating groundwater, or worse, rupture entirely. One such containment pond sits just above the Marsh Fork Elementary School in Sundial, West Virginia.

“If that lake happens to bust through its earthen barrier, it can just roll down a hillside and there’s a distinct danger … that the 240 children of the Marsh Fork Elementary School could be drowned,” Shnayerson told “Living on Earth.” In fact Massey had the exact same thing happen in Kentucky and the spill was roughly 30 times the magnitude of the Exxon Valdez spill, says Shnayerson.

So how does Massey do it? Unlike the big oil and gas companies, Massey has actually spend little on direct lobbying at the federal level, shelling out just $20,000 on lobbying in 2004 and little since then. Although, the company does have some overlap between government and industry. According to a 2010 report in the Washington Post, former Massey CEO Stanley C. Suboleski served on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission during the George W. Bush administration only to return to Massey as a board member. In all, the Post found “nearly a dozen former MSHA district directors who recently took jobs as executives and consultants with Massey or Murray Energy” — two companies with among the worst safety records in the industry.

An analysis done by the CRP before the 2010 midterm elections found that Massey has also been shuttling money to federal politicians.

In all, people associated with Massey Energy, along with the company’s political action committee, have together contributed more than $307,000 to federal political candidates since the 1990 election cycle, the Center finds. Of that money, 91 percent went to Republican candidates.

People and PACs associated with Massey Energy have collectively donated five-figure sums to three federal-level candidates since the 1990 election cycle: failed 2008 Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jim Gilmore of Virginia ($17,600), Senate Minority Leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell ($13,550) and failed 1998 Democratic U.S. House candidate James MacCallum of West Virginia ($13,500).

In 2010 Massey gave $112,700 to federal candidates — all of which went to Republicans. In fact, beginning in 2000, CRP found that donations to federal candidates from people or PACs affiliated with Massey have gone exclusively to Republicans.

According to Follow the Money, which tracks money in state politics, Massey Energy has given $344,200 in state elections from 2003 to 2010, and employees have added another $261,450 — 99 percent of which has gone to Republicans, including climate denier Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli III.

And during the last decade CEO Don Blankenship himself has given $60,000 to Republicans and GOP-related organizations at the federal level. But the CEO is most notorious for tipping a state judicial election. After losing a $50 million lawsuit filed by Harman Mining which alleged that Massey forced the company out of business, Massey appealed. But not for four years. In the interim, Blankenship funneled $3 million to help elect Brent Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Two years later Benjamin was the deciding vote on the appeals court that ruled in Massey’s favor.

In December 2010, Blankenship grabbed his golden parachute and left Massey to a host of lawsuits, many relating to the 2010 disaster. About six months later, the company was acquired by Alpha Natural Resources for $7.1 billion. ANR has invested $174,449 so far in the 2012 election — the second highest of any coal company in the country. Over 90 percent of its money has gone to Republicans. ANR spent $600,000 in lobbying during the 2010 election and it’s shelled out nearly $400,000 so far this year.

Despite being housed under ANR, Massey is still kicking and it is unclear if the culture of greed will change. Considering its track record of environmental and human health abuses, critics are calling for the revocation of Massey’s charter. How much, really, does a company have to do wrong in order for it to be shut down?

4. Koch Industries

By now you likely already know about how the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have their fingers in just about everything, from funding union-busting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to trying to take down public education to insider dealings with Iran. The brothers run one of the largest privately held companies in the world, Koch Industries, and one of its key business targets is energy. The company’s crude refineries can process up to 800,000 barrels of oil per day; its pipelines stretch 4,000 miles, carrying oil, natural gas and chemicals; and it’s in the business of supplying and burning coal as well — all under a variety of subsidiaries.

As a privately held company, there is much we don’t know about the Kochs — like exactly how much money their empire pulls in. Estimates are somewhere around $100 billion in annual revenue and Forbes estimates the brothers’ worth at $43 billion. But what’s crystal clear is that the more we know (and we’re learning every day), the higher this company is going to move in our rankings.

Let’s start with its environmental impact. Wonk Room estimates Koch Industries belches 300 million tons of CO2 pollution annually. “The immense profitability of their carbon holdings depends on their freedom to pollute without consequence — a toxic freedom they have sold to the American public, and particularly the Tea Party faithful organized by the various Koch front groups, as inherent to the American dream,” writes Brad Johnson on ThinkProgress. “If their pollution was fairly priced in a free-market system such as the cap-and-trade markets the Koch successfully demonized in Washington (but failed in their attempt to do so in California), the Kochs would be facing costs of anywhere from $1 billion to $40 billion a year.”

In order to keep the money machine oiled, the Kochs have worked to slander the EPA and weaken environmental protections, contort public opinion on the science behind global warming and roll back regulations. All of this has been done by lining the pockets of politicians and lobbyists. From 1989-2012 CRP found that more than $12 million of Koch money went to federal candidates (90 percent to Republicans), making them the second highest in that category on our list.

Additionally, from 1998-2011 CRP reports that Koch Industries spend $59 million on lobbying (fourth highest on our list) and just this year they have hired 26 lobbyists (also fourth highest on our list). In 2008 alone they spent $20 million on lobbying. According an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, “Koch’s lobbyists are known on Capitol Hill for maintaining a low profile. There are no former U.S. Senators or House committee chairmen on the payroll.”

However, many of Koch’s registered lobbyists on its payroll “are Washington insiders with previous experience as congressional staffers or federal agency employees.” For instance, Greg Zerzan served as senior counsel for the House Financial Services Committee and later as deputy assistant secretary for financial institutions in the Department of Treasury during the Bush administration. In 2010 he became a lobbyist for Koch Industries after a stint at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

When it comes to political campaigns, CRP reports that, “Koch is also one of the Republican Party’s most reliable donors. In every election cycle since 2000, people and political action committees associated with the company have donated at least 83 percent of their cash to Republican candidates and committees.” In 2010, the number was more than 92 percent for Republicans. In that election, Koch Industries gave more than $1.6 million to federal candidates or their PACs.

Their darling that year was Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, who sits on the Energy and Commerce committee, raking in $79,500. Pompeo’s voting record on energy is in keeping with someone who’s received large donations from the energy industry. This year, he voted in favor of barring the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases as well as for opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling. And now he’s grandstanding against Solyndra. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, on the Banking and Appropriation committees received $41,050 and has also voted against enforcing limits on CO2 emission limits in 2009 and was in favor of authorizing construction of new oil refineries in 2005. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, got less money ($20,000) but put it to good use. Hatch has been vocal in his support of tax breaks for oil companies. Likewise, he generally supports legislation that would benefit the oil and gas industries, for example voting in favor of drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (2011), opposing EPA regulations (2011), and supporting the elimination of the Kyoto Accords in 2000. In December 2006, the Campaign for America’s Future rated Hatch’s support for energy independence at a mere 17 percent.

The highest paid Democrat on the roster was Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln with $17,500. Fellow Arkansas Representative Mike Ross, who sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, got the second highest amount for a Democrat at $10,000. As you’ll read later, Arkansas is key to the Kochs’ dirty business.

The brothers haven’t been sitting back in the 2012 election cycle, either. Already Koch money has tipped Mike Pompeo $27,500; Scott Brown, R-Mass., $10,000; and Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., $5,000, among others. Outlays to federal candidates for 2012 has already hit $433,750 and less than $17,000 of that has gone to Democrats. Senate Democrat Joe Manchin of coal-friendly West Virginia got $5,000.

And that’s not all. A report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund reveals more about the 2010 election:

The Kochs have contributed significantly to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In fact, they are the single-largest oil and gas donor to members of the committee, contributing $279,500 to 22 of the committee’s 31 Republicans and $32,000 to five Democrats. Tim Phillips, the head of Americans for Prosperity, even co-authored an op-ed with chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), detailing how Congress could stop the EPA from ensuring a cleaner environment.

Upton, who received $10,000 that year, made Koch proud. The Los Angeles Times reported in February 2011:

In recent months the congressman has made a point of publicly aligning himself with the Koch-backed advocacy group, calling for an end to the “EPA chokehold.” Last week the chairman released a draft of a bill that would strip the EPA of its ability to curb carbon emissions. The legislation is in line with the Kochs’ long-advocated stance that the federal government should have a minimal role in regulating business. The Kochs’ oil refineries and chemical plants stand to pay millions to reduce air pollution under currently proposed EPA regulations.

The Kochs are also active at the state level fighting environmental initiatives. Their subsidiary Flint Hills Resources spent $1 million for Prop 23, a (failed) attempt to block a clean energy law in California. And they’ve donated to gubernatorial campaigns, including funding climate denier Rick Perry to the tune of $50,000.

While ExxonMobil has come under scrutiny for its work funding the anti-science climate denying movement, the Kochs have been just as diligent. A report from Greenpeace revealed that from 1997 to 2008, the Kochs helped fuel bogus think tanks, organizations and “experts” with $48.5 million. “In 2009, they contributed over $6.4 million dollars to some 40 organizations that continue to deny the scientific consensus on global warming while attempting to slow or block policies to solve the climate crisis.”

Here is what the report also found:

Of the eleven freshman senators who publicly question settled climate science, ten received funding from Koch Industries in 2010, and eight of them signed the Americans for Prosperity “No Climate Tax Pledge” to obstruct policy solutions to climate change. Of the 38 freshman Representatives who deny climate science, 22 received Koch PAC funding in 2010, and all 38 signed the AFP pledge.

So, what has the impact of this been on communities across the U.S.? Pretty horrific. Brave New Films recently released a new video as part of its Koch Brothers Exposed project that puts a human face on the way the Kochs do business. At least 11 people from just 15 homes on Penn Road in Crossett, Arkansas have died from cancer, and others in the neighborhood are sick. The cause of their deaths and illnesses is believed to be a toxic open sewer filled with millions of gallons of wastewater that runs by their homes. The source of the wastewater is Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia Pacific. So far the EPA has done nothing to address the issue even though it is a violation of the Clean Water Act. Remember, those congress members from Arkansas the Kochs have been funneling money to?

The people of Crossett are among a long list of victims. Two 17-year-olds were killed in 1996 in Texas when a leaky pipeline caused their truck to explode as they were going to seek help. The company knew the pipeline was faulty, but didn’t bother to fix it.

Koch Industries has long been known for causing environmental harm. In 2000, over 300 spills they were responsible for in six states finally caught up with them, resulting in a $30 million penalty. But Koch Industries often manages to get away with paying chump change and getting a slap on the wrist. As Lee Fang reports:

Koch funneled large amounts of donations into electing George Bush in 2000 (even sending Koch-linked lobbyists to help disrupt the Florida recount). At the time, Koch Industries faced a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, known to cause leukemia, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. When Bush took office, his Justice Department dropped 88 of the charges and settled the case for a small amount of money.

And in Minnesota, Bloomberg Markets Magazine reported, “The company used fire hydrants to pump more than a million gallons of wastewater contaminated with ammonia out of the ground. Koch also increased its dumping of wastewater on weekends when it didn’t monitor discharges, circumventing the reporting requirement of its permit, the EPA said. Koch also admitted that it negligently released between 200,000 gallons and 600,000 gallons of aviation fuel into a nearby wetland.”

The list goes on, but you get the idea. There is a blatant disregard for human life, the health of the environment, and the air and water we all need to survive. And Koch Industries is able to get away with it because of its Yes Men in Washington, who are greasing the wheels of their greedy machine.

3. BP

No list of the worst energy companies would be complete without British Petroleum. The company catapulted into the national headlines in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and causing a months-long gusher that would dump 200 million gallons of crude. Just this fall, a comprehensive report by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement placed the blamed for the disaster clearly on the shoulders of BP, which managed the Macondo well. (Rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton received a small share of the blame.)

According to the AP:

The report concluded that BP violated federal regulations, ignored crucial warnings, was inattentive to safety and made bad decisions during the cementing of the well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico…

In the report, the primary cause of the disaster was identified — again — as the failure of the cement seal in the well. While it was Halliburton’s job to mix and test the cement, BP had the final word and made a series of decisions that saved money but increased risk and may have contributed to the cement’s failure, the panel said.

The report said BP, and in some cases its contractors, violated seven federal regulations at the time of the disaster. …

In the report’s 57 findings, only one person — BP engineer Mark Hafle — is mentioned by name. It said Hafle failed to investigate or resolve anomalies detected during the cementing and did not run a test that evaluates the quality of the cement job. Hafle still works for BP.

Not only was BP largely responsible for the largest spill in U.S. history, but its actions afterward were terrible. In the weeks and months that followed, the company was accused of stonewalling journalists, covering up evidence, providing unsafe working conditions for cleanup crews, and remarkably — in the case of the company’s CEO Tony Hayward — complaining about being inconvenienced by the disaster.

They also tried to get rid of the oil by dumping millions of gallons of toxic dispersants into the water, further damaging the ecosystem and potentially the health of cleanup workers.

While oil-soaked gulf creatures — from turtles to birds to dolphins — made the news after the spill, the ecological impacts will take years and likely decades to fully understand. Scientific American reported that, “Oil fouled 35 percent of the U.S. Gulf Coast’s 2,625 kilometers of shoreline before the spill was done.” Also affected were critical wetland habitat and fisheries crucial to the local economy.

The economic loss has been clocked at $40 billion or more. As Brad Jacobson reported for AlterNet, large numbers of health problems such as respiratory, dermatologic, ocular and neurological issues are being reported and are “consistent with exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds, chemicals in crude oil and dispersants.”

To make matters worse, after the BP spill it was revealed that drilling regulators were found to be accepting gifts from, partying with, taking drugs with, and even having sex with employees of the oil and gas companies they were suppose to be overseeing.

As is the case with Massey, the Gulf diaster was no isolated incidence. ABC reported last year that, “In two separate disasters prior to the Gulf oil rig explosion, 30 BP workers have been killed, and more than 200 seriously injured.” BP is also responsible for the Prudhoe Bay Spill in 2006, which leaked 200,000 gallons of crude onto Alaska’s North Slope. An ABC story revealed, “In the last five years, investigators found, BP has admitted to breaking U.S. environmental and safety laws and committing outright fraud. BP paid $373 million in fines to avoid prosecution.”

It gets worse. According to ABC:

BP’s safety violations far outstrip its fellow oil companies. According to the Center for Public Integrity, in the last three years, BP refineries in Ohio and Texas have accounted for 97 percent of the “egregious, willful” violations handed out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) …

Shockingly, after the comprehensive government report was released this fall nabbing BP as the spill’s culprit, the company’s stock actually went up. Yes, up. And now BP has just been given the go-ahead from federal regulators to begin deepwater drilling again in the Gulf — this time 1,000 feet deeper.

How does BP manage to not just stay in business, but to thrive? It maintains its empire, consisting of refining 2.8 billion barrels of oil each day, as well as operating 16,000 gas stations across the U.S., and increasing its share of natural gas production, with help from friends in Congress. From 1989-2012 CRP reported that BP’s contributions to federal candidates were over $6.3 million (70 percent going to Republicans), the fourth highest on our list. The company cranked up the lobbying efforts, too, spending $70 million on lobbying between 1998-2011, according to CRP, making it third highest on our list in that category. But BP stole the show with lobbyists hired. This year its total is 47, the highest of any company in the oil and gas sector. According to CRP, “Its lobbying focuses on tax incentives for oil and gas production, opposing mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and following U.S. trade relations and policy in the Middle East.”

As was revealed after the spill, BP has some serious revolving-door issues. As the AP noted last year, former Minerals Management Service senior official Jim Grant left his government position as chief of staff for the Gulf of Mexico region to become regulatory and advocacy manager at BP, one of the companies his former agency regulated. Reportedly, Sylvia Baca also moved from management positions at BP to a position in the federal government — not once, but twice (under Clinton and Obama). As Project on Government Oversight investigator Mandy Smithberger told the AP, the revolving door between the Minerals Management Service and energy companies is a chronic issue. “To say that MMS has had a revolving door problem doesn’t even begin to describe how profoundly this agency has entangled itself with industry,” she said. “The revolving door has spun so readily in this case that the lines between the regulators and the regulated are now virtually nonexistent.”

Not surprisingly, its top dogs in Congress were from oil and gas states. In 2010 here were its favorites:

• Lisa Murkowski, I-Alaska, Senate; $10,400
• Jeffrey M Landry, R-Louisiana, House; $4,800
• John Culberson, R-Texas, House; $4,400
• Blanche Lincoln, D-Arkansas, Senate; $4,000

Murkowski, a ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, got Lincoln (also a darling of Koch) to jump ship from Democrats and side with Republicans in a effort to block the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, as Politico reported in 2010. Murkowski is not known for being a friend of the environment. Mother Jones reported, “In Congress, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has emerged as the leading–and most canny–threat to the EPA.” Although Murkowski admits that global warming is a real threat — and is threatening her state, too — she’s done little to stop it. As Kate Sheppard wrote, “It’s become increasingly difficult to distinguish her actions from those of her denialist colleagues.”

2. Exxon Mobil

Oil giants Exxon and Mobil, which can trace their origins back to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, merged in 1999 and their partnership has made them one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world. Today Exxon Mobil produces 6 million barrels of oil a day, supplies 40,000 gas stations in 100 countries and is moving quickly into shale gas, as well.

All this means it has an awful lot of money to throw around (including paying CEO Rex Tillerson $21.5 million last year). According to CRP, from 1998 to 2012 the company dished out $12.3 million to federal candidates, the highest on our list, with 85 percent going to Republicans. Exxon Mobil wasn’t shy about its lobbying efforts either, spending $174 million from 1998 to 2011 — twice that of Chevron, the second highest on our list.

With 34 lobbyists hired this year, Exxon Mobil can do a lot to influence things in Washington. Exxon Mobil’s VP of Government Relations since 2001, Theresa M. Fariello, is a former Occidental Petroleum lobbyist who served as deputy assistant secretary for international affairs in the Department of Energy between her two lobbying positions. And Philip Cooney joined Exxon as a lobbyist shortly after leaving his position as a chief of staff with the Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney has also worked as a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute.

In Congress, Exxon Mobil has a few favorites. It’s kicked off the 2012 election season by giving John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, the Big Oil workhouse, $17,000. Also a favorite of Chevron, Barrasso introduced legislation earlier this year to curb what he calls “job-crushing” carbon regulations and he has also supported opening up Alaska’s Coastal Plain and the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling. This year Exxon Mobil has also given $10,000 to John Boehner, R-Ohio; John Cornyn, R-Texas; Doc Hastings, R-Washington; and Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

In the 2010 election, Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, was Exxon Mobil’s man. Blunt has earned a reputation for accepting money from the oil industry — a reputation that his opponents used against him during the 2010 campaign. Indeed, Blunt voted against enforcing CO2 limits in 2009, against incentives for renewable energy in 2008 and again in 2010, and in favor of barring greenhouse gases from the Clean Air Act rules in 2009. In December 2006, the Campaign for America’s Future rated Blunt’s support for energy independence at 0 percent.

Exxon Mobil also plays at the state level. In order to protect its gas interests, the company bought XTO Energy in 2009 to get into the Marcellus Shale game, and added Philips Resources and TWP Inc recently. Not surprisingly, Exxon Mobil gave $10,000 to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett in 2010. And in Colorado Exxon Mobil and Chevron teamed up to spend $1 million to oppose a severance tax on natural gas.

Politicians and lobbyists aren’t the only ones that Exxon Mobil has been giving money to. The company is notorious for trying to block action on an international climate treaty and fueling the anti-science rhetoric around climate change. For many years, Exxon Mobil was the largesse behind the deniers. All the big, right-wing think tanks that have been putting the hot air in the climate denial movement have gotten money from Exxon Mobil: $2 million went to the Competitive Enterprise Institute; $3 million to the American Enterprise Institute; $2.4 million to the Center for Strategic and International Studies; $1 million to the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy; $1 million to Atlas Economic Research Foundation; $1.2 million to Frontiers of Freedom; and $680,000 to the Heritage Foundation.

Exxon Mobil is also involved with American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), having given it more than $1.4 million. ALEC is quite dangerous, as Sourcewatch explains:

Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board … Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations–without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law.

ALEC is a darling of the oil and gas companies, with Chevron, BP, Koch and Exxon Mobil all taking part. Exxon Mobil’s government affairs manager Randy Smith serves on ALEC’s “private enterprise” board (and he also sits on Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission).

Along with its efforts at climate denialism, which were totalled at $16 million in 2007, Exxon Mobil also has some ugly stains on its resume.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 dumped 11 million gallons of crude into Alaska’s beautiful Prince William Sound. Environment News Service reports that the disaster affected 10,000 square miles of coastline, as well as “fouling a national forest, two national parks, two national wildlife refuges, five state parks, four state critical habitat areas, one state game sanctuary, and many ancestral lands for Alaska natives.”

But that’s not all. Reuters reported in 2009 that Exxon Mobil was found to have polluted New York City’s groundwater with methyl tertiary butyl ether (MBTE), a gasoline additive: “The city contended Exxon knew that gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether would contaminate ground water if it leaked from the underground storage tanks at its retail stations.” The tab for damages came to $105 million.

On the human rights front, ExxonMobil has faced long-standing claims that it hired members of the Indonesian military to protect the company’s facilities in the country. Indonesians accuse the company of murder, rape and destruction.

1. Chevron

The top spot on our list for the worst energy company this year goes to Chevron. The company has indeed moved quite a large amount of cash through Washington and its business practices have resulted in an incredible loss of life. Much of it just happened out of the country, so many in the U.S. may have missed Chevron’s gross abuses.

In relation to other energy companies, Chevron is big — it’s the second largest U.S. oil company and the third largest U.S. corporation overall. Its mammoth size is the result of gobbling up a lot of other companies along the way. It started off as Pacific Coast Oil Company and then became Standard Oil and then Chevron when it swallowed up Gulf Oil in 1984. In 2001 Chevron merged with Texaco, and then in 2005 acquired Unocal.

As the price of oil climbs, Chevron continues to make a killing. Antonia Juhasz, writing in “The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report,” found that the company’s 2010 profits of $19 billion were nearly double 2009 profits and its revenue shot up to $200 billion. As most Americans struggle through the economic downturn, Chevron’s CEO John Watson took home a cool $16.3 million in 2010 — even as Juhasz writes, “Chevron continued to shrink its number of employees and holdings.”

The company has tried to change its oil and gas image with aggressive ad campaigns about its investments in renewable energy, but in truth, 95 percent of its revenue still comes from oil and gas. That might explain why, according to Tyson Slocum, Chevron doled out $500,000 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “which is leading the fight to demonize pending EPA rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Chevron’s also trying to pad its profits by contributing largely to politicians. From 1989-2012 CRP reported that Chevron’s contributions to federal candidates were over $11.9 billion — the third highest on our list (although nearly tied for second with Koch), with 75 percent going to Republicans.

CRP has calculated that Chevron spent over $779,000 in 2010 (with only $152,480 going to Democrats). These were some of its top dogs:

• Carly Fiorina, R-Calif., Senate; $37,250
• Davide Vitter, R-Louisiana, Senate; $29,800
• Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Senate; $29,600
• Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, Senate; $24,400
• Blanche Lincoln, D-Arkansas, Senate; $16,000
• William Flores, R-Texas, House; $14,400
• Lisa Murkowski. I-Alaska, Senate$13,900
• Kevin Brady, R-Texas, House; $9,000
• Dan Boren, D-Oklahoma, House; $8,000

So far in 2012 it spent over $167,000, with $23,500 going to Senator John A Barrasso, R-Wyoming, and $11,000 going to Rep. William Flores, R-Texas.

“Why does Chevron bother spending this kind of money on the political system?” asks Slocum. “Because, dollar for dollar, nothing provides a better financial return than investing in politicians. With environmentalists pushing to hold oil companies accountable for their pollution, corporations like Chevron would be forced to spend millions of dollars to make their oil and natural gas drilling operations and oil refineries cleaner and safer. Sure, doing so would improve the standard of living for millions of Americans and help ensure we all have access to cleaner air and water–but Chevron’s political activities clearly show the company’s priority is profit–not saving the planet.”

When it comes to lobbying, Chevron isn’t holding back either. Since 1998, the company has spent $85 million on lobbyists, second highest on our list. Already this year it’s spent nearly $5 million on hiring 39 lobbyists — also the second highest number of lobbyist on our list. And revolving door issues abound. Lisa Barry served as a staffer for former Republican House Member Silvio Conte, deputy assistant to the U.S. Trade Representative, and deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Commerce before becoming an executive at several major corporations and, most recently, vice president of governmental affairs at Chevron Corp.

Lobbying firm Ogilvy Government Relations, which lobbies on behalf of Chevron, employs several individuals who have ties to government. For instance, John J. O’Neill worked for two years as tax and pension counsel for the Senate Finance Committee and did a brief stint in 2007 as policy director for former Republican Congressman Trent Lott. Prior to his time in the public sector, O’Neill worked for lobbying firm Davis & Harman. Current Ogilvy employee Drew Maloney worked for lobbying firm Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh before becoming legislative director for Republican Congressmen Roger Wicker and Ed Bryant and an assistant to then House Majority Whip Tom DeLay.

So, with all these lobbyists, what are Chevron’s big political priorities?

As expected it’s pushing for more of the “drill, baby drill” we’ve seen over the years — so anything having to do with opening up new oil leases and exploration, on- and off-shore, including in the Gulf and Alaska. Of course it’ll be teaming up with the Chamber and the rest of Big Oil to prevent the EPA from doing its job, especially when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

And it looks like Chevron will be relying on its man in Wyoming, John Barrasso, who’s been its largest recipient this year. Barrasso kicked off 2011 by introducing the Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act, which is designed to strip the EPA’s authority in regulating greenhouse gas pollution. He told Environment News Service, “I will do whatever it takes to ensure that Washington doesn’t impose cap-and-trade policies in any form.”

Barrasso’s willing to sacrifice the health of the country in order to make sure Chevron and its Big Oil brotherhood don’t have to clean up their acts. David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council ridiculed the bill and Environmental News Service reported that Doniger said the “bill would give the biggest polluters, such as power plants that emit 2.4 billion tons of CO2 each year, a free pass for unlimited pollution.”

In case you thought Chevron was all oil — it’s definitely not. “Chevron has acquired nearly five million net acres of shale gas assets in the United States, Canada, Poland and Romania,” according to George Kirkland, Chevron’s vice chairman. The company has been making aggressive strides to leverage its power in the Marcellus region of the eastern U.S. where oil and gas companies are hoping to have a drilling field day.

At the beginning of 2011 Chevron picked up Atlas Energy for $4.3 billion, a company with major holdings in the Marcellus. Then in May it announced that it had picked up an additional 228,000 leasehold acres in the Marcellus from Chief Oil and Gas.

You better believe that Chevron will be doing all it can to make sure that any attempts to ban or even regulate fracking in the Marcellus are quashed.

In fact, a href=”http://www.desmogblog.com/%E2%80%98energy-depth%E2%80%99-was-created-major-oil-and-gas-companies-according-industry-memo”>Desmog Blogfingered Chevron as one of several big oil companies fronting an astroturf group called Energy in Depth, which alleged to be a collection of “small, independent oil and natural gas producers” but Brendan DeMelle has found exists courtesy of Big Oil. As DeMelle writes, “EID seems to attack everyone who attempts to investigate the significant problems posed by hydraulic fracturing and other natural gas industry practices that have been shown to threaten public health and water quality across America.”

And even though Chevron hasn’t spent as much money as Exxon Mobil (although it has come close), it sealed the top spot on this list because of its corporate irresponsibility, which seems strangely out of the Exxon playbook.

Chevron’s malfeasance is long, including a spill right now off the coast of Brazil which dumped over 110,000 gallons of oil into the Atlantic. But Rainforest Action Network has more about the company:

Around the world, over and over again, Chevron’s outdated practices and policies have consistently violated human rights, damaged human health, and worsened global warming.

In Kazakhstan, Chevron has contaminated land and water resources and impaired the health of local residents. In Canada’s Alberta region, Chevron is invested in tar sands — one of the most environmentally damaging projects on the planet. In the Niger Delta, Chevron is complicit in human rights violations committed by security forces against local people. In the Philippines, regular oil leaks and spills have sickened Manila residents. Chevron’s operations in Burma are providing a financial lifeline to the Burmese military regime — known for its appalling human rights record. In Western Australia, Chevron’s liquefied natural gas facility threatens the health of local communities and fragile humpback whale and turtle populations.

But Chevron’s worst legacy may be in Ecuador, where Texaco (now part of Chevron) spent 30 years decimating the ecologically rich Amazon rainforest and the many indigenous communities there.

As one of the campaigns seeking justice for Ecuadoreans reports:

Unlike the Exxon Valdez disaster that spilled over a billion gallons of crude during a one time cataclysmic event, Texaco’s oil extraction system in Ecuador was designed, built, and operated on the cheap using substandard technology from the outset. This led to extreme, systematic pollution and exposure to toxins from multiple sources on a daily basis for almost three decades.

In a rainforest area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, Texaco carved out 350 oil wells, and upon leaving the country in 1992, left behind some 1,000 open toxic waste pits. Many of these pits leak into the water table or overflow in heavy rains, polluting rivers and streams that 30,000 people depend on for drinking, cooking, bathing and fishing. Texaco also dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic and highly saline “formation waters,” a byproduct of the drilling process, into the rivers of the Oriente. At the height of Texaco’s operations, the company was dumping an estimated 4 million gallons of formation waters per day, a practice outlawed in major US oil producing states like Louisiana, Texas, and California decades before the company began operations in Ecuador in 1967. By handling its toxic waste in Ecuador in ways that were illegal in its home country, Texaco saved an estimated $3 per barrel of oil produced.

Rainforest Action Network reports that “1,400 Ecuadoreans have already died as a result of the contamination in the Amazon, and some 30,000 more are at risk.”

In an historic trial earlier this year (“the first time indigenous people have forced a multinational corporation to stand trial in their own country for violating their human rights”), the company was found liable for over $8 billion, but Chevron is still trying to escape payment. And just for comparison, the company has already made nearly $22 billion in profits so far this year.

Chevron’s dirty business practices may not be washing up on our shores (yet), but they’re still sickening.

Profit Before People (and Everything Else)

Chevron may have captured the title of worst energy company this year, but the competition was incredibly fierce. Massey looks bent on destroying Appalachia, Koch Industries is determined to try and rework our politics and our culture (while wrecking the environment, too), the Gulf is reeling from the catastrophic BP spill, and Exxon Mobil is still throwing its considerable weight around with all the wrong players.

But it’s important to remember that these aren’t just a few rogue corporations that have boarded a runaway greed train. The problems go much deep than that — they are inherent in our economic and political systems.

Regulations have been made more lax instead of stricter, even when faced with the death and illness of workers, and the growing list of environmental catastrophes. Industry is allowed to pay candidates to do their bidding in Congress, often helping to craft pro-corporate legislation themselves. Politicians spend their time fundraising, and without campaign finance restrictions, often look to the biggest paycheck in order to stay in office. And all the while, these companies continue to make massive profits while being handsomely rewarded with subsidies that come from taxpayer pockets. Big Oil, for example is likely to get over $40 billion from taxpayers over the next decade. To make matters worse, we continue to tip these corporations day after day when we drive our cars, heat our homes and turn on the lights.

Until we unplug from a fossil fuel economy and from a political system in which corporations are given more rights than people (and nature is denied any), then the number one spot on this list may change from year to year — but the real loser will be the planet and everything and everyone living on it.

Lauren Kelley contributed to the reporting of this story.

In “The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the World,” Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Prize,” tackles both this anxiety and its root causes.  The book is an enlightening and detailed historical survey of how man has discovered and harnessed various energy sources, from oil to wind, electricity to shale gas. Although Yergin focuses on the people behind these discoveries — we learn, for example, how a 19th-century mountaineer’s obsession with understanding why the sky is blue led to the discovery of the greenhouse effect — he adeptly explains the often-complicated political and economical backdrop to these revolutionary feats.

Yergin spoke with Salon over the phone, about our overblown peak oil fears, China’s energy future and the value of energy efficiency.

You address an important question that has fazed many people: Is the world going to run out of oil? Some people say it will — and quite abruptly. This is peak oil theory. You say otherwise.

The peak oil argument is that we are already halfway through the world’s endowment of recoverable oil. The argument that I am making is that the endowment is much larger, and technology keeps enlarging what we can recover. Case study No. 1 is offshore Brazil where you have what is called presalt [oil found under a thick layer of salt lying just beneath the seabed]. It was inaccessible up until a few years ago. It is very large and will likely make Brazil one of the powerhouses of world oil production. Case study No. 2 is North Dakota. The Bakken formation [a rock formation yielding shale, or "tight" oil] was producing, a few years ago, 10,000 barrels a day. Now it is producing about 450,000 barrels a day. That came as a surprise. Five years ago, no one would have thought that North Dakota would be the fourth-largest oil-producing state in the country, but that’s because of advanced technology.

There have been recurrent periods of great fear of running out of oil and it goes back to when oil was first developed as a commercial business in western Pennsylvania in the 19th century. It was always mysterious and people were predicting it would come to an end and we’d have to go back to using whale oil or coal or so forth. But each time there is this anxiety, what happens is new technology, new innovations, new areas open up, and the supply picture suddenly looks much better. So this current peak oil discussion is really the latest manifestation of what has been a recurrent feature since people started using and developing oil. But when you look at the numbers, we see that there is an additional supply coming in. My view is that rather than facing an imminent decline we’ll see production of oil liquids continue to expand for a few more decades and then it’ll come to a plateau. It won’t necessarily fall off sharply.

But this is not to say that everything is fine because, first of all, new resources have to be developed and that requires investment and time. Secondly, it does go back to what I call the aboveground risks, which are the geopolitics: conflicts within countries, what governments want to do. There are many things to worry about but with adequate investment and progress in technology, we can meet the supply needs.

But what about China? We constantly read headlines about China’s booming consumerist class and its growing demand for cars. What about developing countries? Their energy consumption rates are also going to rise rapidly.

There is a split in the world right now—the U.S., Western Europe and Japan’s consumption of oil is actually going to go down, because we are going to be driving more efficient cars by 2025. New cars are supposed to get up to 64 miles to the gallon.

A decline in oil reserves may be seen, but now, in 2011, we don’t know whether a decline in 2040 or 2050 will be because of physical constraints on available supply, or because, in fact, the Chinese have bought all the cars they are going to buy, and they’re driving more efficient cars, and maybe some of those cars are electric cars. Maybe [the decline in oil consumption] we’ve seen in developed countries is something that will happen in a few decades in these countries that are so rapidly going up the economic ladder. For China, energy efficiency is one of their high priorities.

You write about energy efficiency. In your view it’s something grossly underestimated in discussions about energy.

I’ve always thought of energy conservation really as an energy source. I call it the fifth fuel and it’s the one that’s underestimated. But in fact the U.S. is twice as efficient as it was in the 1970s and early 1980s. It’s a big change. I think the potential is very great; it just doesn’t have the glamour of a beautiful wind turbine or wonderful solar panels. It’s much harder to illustrate. Even in looking for pictures for the book: How do you illustrate conservation? You know how to illustrate wind and you know how to illustrate solar and you know how to illustrate oil. Conservation is kind of everything. I try to show with some examples of how a company like Dow [Chemical], or an airline and airplane manufacturers, improves conservation. You have to start with an energy efficiency mentality.

OK. But just thinking of myself as one individual, it can be kind of hard to conceptualize the societal impact of my decision to, say, buy an Energy Star fridge or a more fuel-efficient car.

Exactly. You’re one person. How does one person have an influence? What will motivate you to do it? It may be the very practical thing of saving money. That will motivate people.

But there are some cultures where the idea of conservation is much more deeply imbedded. I talk about Japan. It is a country that has developed without resources. They import virtually everything.

Right. There is a Japanese term you mention …

“Mottainai”: too precious to waste. It’s really a deep-seeded cultural value.

The U.S. has been deeply blessed, since its foundation, with ample resources. That gives us a different kind of mentality. But I remember a time when energy conservation, or efficiency, was a sharply divisive question. I am struck — and I find this a hopeful sign — that across the spectrum today, energy conservation is embraced as a major component in meeting our energy needs for the future. If you look at the emphasis on sustainability and how that has become part of the value system of so many Americans, you really see a shift in thinking.

Is this shift the result of having suffered some economic crises? I’m thinking about the 2008 oil crisis.

That oil crisis really did shift the way people think. You could see it in what people thought about when they bought a vehicle. If you look at Detroit in 2007, it was still all about SUVs because that is what it seemed the public wanted. Now they are planning very different types of cars with a commitment to building efficiency into these vehicles. That is a big swing. Automobile makers can’t just turn on a dime, because it takes five years to bring a model out and there is a lot of investment in production lines. But look at what they’re advertising today. There is a big emphasis on how these are efficient cars.

I think the $147 oil barrel in 2008 actually did one of the things prices can do and that is change the way people think. Price really matters. It’s a piece of information. Depending on what the price is, it says to you: keep doing what you’re doing; or, innovate, become more efficient, find alternatives, make changes and develop new supplies.

“Energy security” is one of those ubiquitous terms people use all the time but that is hard to define. Can you explain it for us?

Our $14 trillion economy rests on an energy foundation and we basically depend upon reliable flows of energy to keep everything going. Not just the proverbial keeping your lights on, but keeping everything on, including the Internet. So the question of energy security is what are the threats and risks [to these flows], and how to manage them. Those threats and risks cover a very broad range, from disruptions in supply because there is a conflict in the Middle East, to what the CEO of Sony called the “bad new world” of cyber vulnerability, to natural disasters — we’ve had several episodes in the U.S. in the last several years when electricity has gone down in different parts of the country and life was paralyzed.

The best thing about energy security is when you don’t have to think about it because you are secure.

There are a lot of things to keep track of, though, from protecting infrastructure to having the right equipment. But the politics behind all of this is very complicated. I don’t think people think about this on a day-to-day basis.

I think it’s true that we just take the flow of energy — as we should — for granted, but it’s a very complex system that delivers our electricity. It delivers fuel that keeps our cars going, our airplanes in the sky. In terms of oil, it is a vast, global system and the scale of it is enormous.

One of the refreshing points you make in your book is that mankind underestimates its own intellectual capabilities in producing game-changing innovations in technology. Are you maybe putting too much faith in our abilities? Can we leave the security of energy up to chance?

Sure, you don’t know the innovation or breakthrough until it happens, and there can be long lead times and then suddenly it takes over the world. Look at the Internet. It was started after the Cuban Missile Crisis but it didn’t take over the world until after the Internet bubble. Innovation needs to be nurtured. It can come from left field. It could be the result of large organizations mobilizing resources. It can also be the result of a single obsessed individual who stays the course in the face of great derision, criticism and disappointment. But it’s remarkable what’s been achieved and how it shapes our every dimension. So, yes, there are risks, but there is also this capacity for human creativity and conviction.

You say that the right policies need to be in place to ensure investment and energy security. How much of a role do you think government should play in exploring and developing energy resources?

Government — federal and state — sets the regulatory environment. Another big role is supporting R&D and that’s been a role the federal government has played since WWII. As a country we have benefited enormously from it.

One of the recurring themes of these stories you write about is repeated failure and risk before a venture is successful. Reports of such failures have been in the news of late, for example, the Solyndra affair and flammable drinking water in upstate New York and Pennsylvania due to fracking. Innovation, as you state, takes time, but there are real adverse effects on real lives in the process. Is it a fair burden to place on the average person just trying to provide for himself and his family?

I headed a task force on energy efficient development during the Clinton administration. One of the things about research and development is that it does involve failure, and a willingness and ability to tolerate failure. Even with all these breakthroughs, there were a lot of things that didn’t work out and it took a long time. If we look at the renewables industry today, it started with great optimism in the ’70s and ’80s, and then crashed and went through what its survivors have called the “valley of death.” Now, it’s come back and it’s a much bigger industry. But it is hard to know who the winners are. The ground keeps shifting.