Campaign contributions from the mining industry to members Congress spiked last year in the aftermath of a deadly West Virginia coal mine explosion, which helped sour some lawmakers on legislation that would have tightly regulated industry safety standards. The mining industry’s federal lobbying expenditures likewise increased, and ultimately, the proposed bill died.

Such are some of the key findings of a Los Angeles Times / Center for Responsive Politics collaboration that appears today in the pages of the Times.

The article, written by Times journalists Kim Geiger, Tom Hamburger and Doug Smith, in conjunction with the Center’s Senior Researcher Doug Weber, notes numerous ways the mining industry sought to influence federal politics and governance throughout last year.

An accompanying database and chart, produced by the Times in collaboration with the Center, compares the mine safety voting records of members of Congress with the amounts of money they’ve received from mining industry interests.

From the article:

Industry lobbying against the bill was intense. The National Mining Association alone reported spending $3.2 million on lobbying last year, a portion of it to oppose Miller’s bill. That effort was joined by hundreds of other companies and trade associations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Overall, the mining industry made $6.4 million in political donations in the 2010 cycle, according to data provided by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which developed a detailed history of mining industry lobbying and campaign expenditures in collaboration with the Los Angeles Times. The industry coalition targeted vulnerable moderate Democrats in swing districts, warning them that the legislation could cost jobs.

The accompanying chart indicates how the mining industry rapidly accelerated its political contributions to members of Congress in the months immediately after an April 5, 2010, West Virginia mine explosion that killed 29 men — the worst such disaster in four decades:

Read more about the industry campaign contributions and lobbying efforts of the mining industry in the Center’s OpenSecrets.org databases.



For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: [email protected]

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