The Money Trail: The Texas Connection

Just over half (21 of 40) of the Marcellus Shale Coalition's members are Texas based companies. With natural gas pollution in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area equalling that of pollution caused by vehicles, the time has come to time to take the business out of their backyards.

Total campaign contributions from Marcellus Shale interests out of Texas for 2010 was just under $550,000. Here are the details (alphabetized by recipient):

The Money Trail: Tom Corbett in 2010

In the Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign, then candidate Tom Corbett was labeled "Toxic Tom" by critics of his close ties with the natural gas industry. Candidate Corbett received approximately 270 Marcellus Shale related campaign contributions totaling $1,169, 546.41 


Big money buying influence in a state without limits. 

Follow the trail here:

The Money Trail

In the next series of posts, I will look at the amount of money dumped on Pennsylvania politicians by the natural gas industry over the past few years. In a state where there are no limits to political contributions, the numbers are staggering.

Along with posting totals, I will be posting the seemingly endless list of individual contributions made by the industry to various politicians. This will take up a lot of your screen and will require extensive scrolling, but I feel this visual is critical to understanding what the communities of Western Pennsylvania are up against. In American politics money buys influence and Western Pennsylvania has been inundated by some of the premiere heavyweight influence procurement specialists.