Political Influence
AEP's political action committee, the American Electric Power Committee for Responsible Government, has increased spending since the 1998 election cycle, reaching $1.4 million in contributions in 2007-2008, 57 percent to Republicans. Also in 2008, American Electric Power significantly increased lobbying expenditures from less than $2 million a year to over $11 million, as climate legislation became a key issue in Washington. As of December 2011, lobbying expenses remained between $6 million and $10 million per year.
In 2009, AEP CEO Michael Morris contributed $100,000 to Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future, which supports increased oil drilling and opposes mandatory limits on greenhouse gas pollution. American Electric Power is also a member of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a lobbying and marketing organization which opposes President Obama's climate and clean energy legislation.
Read more about this topic: American Electric Power
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or influence:
“A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren’t still there, he’s no longer a political leader.”
—Bernard Baruch (1870–1965)
“Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)