The fossil fuel industry has given more money than ever this election cycle to the two super PACs tied to the leaders of the Republican caucuses in the House and Senate.
Including companies like ConocoPhillips and CEOs like Tim Dunn, the fossil fuel industry gave more than $20 million combined in the third quarter of this year to the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), according to a Sludge analysis of quarterly filings posted this week to the Federal Election Commission. The CLF is aligned with House Speaker Mike Johnson, campaigning to hold the U.S. House, and the SLF is closely tied to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose caucus seeks to retake the Senate.
The latest wave of donations brings the fossil fuel industry’s total to more than $54.2 million given to the CLF and SLF during the 2023-24 election cycle through September, according to Sludge’s analysis.
The two super PACs have launched tens of millions of dollars of ads in the month before Election Day, with control of both chambers of Congress up for grabs.
This amount outpaces the $32 million that fossil fuel industry donors gave during the 2020 cycle to the CLF and SLF, according to Sludge’s review of FEC data, and the nearly $51.9 million it gave the two super PACs during the 2022 cycle. The two super PACs raised significantly less money from the fossil fuel industry during all prior election cycles.
CLF and SLF have been two of the highest-spending groups supporting Republicans during this election cycle. Only the largest super PAC backing Donald Trump, MAGA Inc., and the super PAC arm of Americans for Prosperity have spent more than SLF, according to OpenSecrets. After SLF comes the Elon Musk-funded America PAC, and behind it CLF. Through September, SLF spent over $112 million and CLF spent nearly $99 million to back Republican congressional hopefuls.
