From The Washington Examiner:

As BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking,  Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was on the phone with allies in his push for climate legislation, telling them he would soon roll out the Senate climate bill with the support of the utility industry and three oil companies — including BP, according to the Washington Post.

The Kerry-BP alliance for an energy bill that included a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases pokes a hole in a favorite claim of President Obama and his allies in the media — that BP’s lobbyists have fought fiercely to be left alone.

Lobbying records show that BP is no free-market crusader, but instead a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s bottom line.

While BP has resisted some government interventions, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels. 

BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.

Other convienent connections...

BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans.

It employs the Podesta Group, co-founded by John Podesta, Obama’s transition director and confidant.

Other BP troops on K Street include Michael Berman, a former top aide to Vice President Walter Mondale; Steven Champlin, former executive director of the House Democratic Caucus; and Matthew LaRocco, who worked in Bill Clinton’s Interior Department and whose father was a Democratic congressman.

Read the whole report HERE

Notable Problems w/ Cap and Trade

1. Cap-and-trade is a massive energy tax;
2. It will not make a substantive impact on the environment;
3. It will kill jobs;
4. It will cause electricity bills and gas prices to sharply increase;
5. It will outsource manufacturing jobs and hurt free trade;
6. It will make you choose between energy, groceries, clothing and haircuts;
7. It will be highly susceptible to fraud and corruption;
8. It will hurt senior citizens, the poor, and the unemployed the worst;
9. It will cost American families over $3,000 a year
10. President Obama admitted “Electricity Rates Would Necessarily Skyrocket” under a cap-and-trade program

The Heritage Foundation