Lobbying
API has spent more than $3 million annually for each the last five years (2005 to 2009) on lobbying, and $3.6 million in 2009. In API’s latest quarterly “Lobbying Report” submitted to the US Senate, the organization reported that it had 16 lobbyists supporting it to lobby on various Congressional activities.
API conducts lobbying and organizes its member employees' attendance at public events to communicate the industry's position on various issues. A leaked summer 2009 memo from API President Jack Gerard asked its member companies to urge their employees to participate in planned protests (designed to appear independently organized) against the cap-and-trade legislation the House passed that same summer. "The objective of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at states," including Florida, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Gerard went on to assure recipients of the memo that API will cover all organizational costs and handling of logistics. In response to the memo, an API spokesman told media that participants will be there (at protests) because of their own concerns, and that API is just helping them assemble.
To help fight climate control legislation that has been approved by the US House, API supports the Energy Citizens group, which is holding public events. API encouraged energy company employees to attend one of its first Energy Citizen events held in Houston in August 2009, but turned away Texas residents who were not employed by the energy industry. Fast Company reported that some attendees had no idea of the purpose of the event, and called it “astroturfing at its finest.“
Similarly the mass-media ads aired in 2008 and 2011 were focused on claims that more jobs would be created by high-carbon "dirty oil" projects than by energy conservation which tends to result in more construction industry, renovation and smart home / smart grid jobs. This claim is hotly disputed especially by the Obama Administration itself.
Read more about this topic: American Petroleum Institute