On election night, polluter-backed candidates lost in some of the most expensive races targeted by polluters, despite outside ad spending that tallied to $270 million. The American Petroleum Institute already has 2014 in its sights, and it is spending aggressively to protect the oil industry's multi-billion-dollar tax breaks. Three weeks since election day, API has spent $3 million on TV ads, according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Kantar Media' ...

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On election night, polluter-backed candidates lost in some of the most expensive races targeted by polluters, despite outside ad spending that tallied to $270 million. The American Petroleum Institute already has 2014 in its sights, and it is spending aggressively to protect the oil industry's multi-billion-dollar tax breaks. Three weeks since election day, API has spent $3 million on TV ads, according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Kantar Media's CMAG data. That is already $1 million more than what API spent in the final two months of the election, as part of its "I'm an Energy Voter" campaign. A bulk of the spending, $600,000, targets specific senators over Big Oil's $4 billion annual tax breaks, all of whom are up for reelection in 2014. All but two voted in March to end oil subsidies, a vote blocked by 47 senators who have taken more than $23.5 million from the oil and gas industry.

Authors Bio:

OpedNews volunteer from 2005 to 2013.

Amanda Lang was a wonderful member of the Opednews team, and the first volunteer editor, for a good number of years being a senior editor. She passed away summer 2014.