Public Service Commission President Twinkle Cavanaugh, a vocal supporter of coal interests in Alabama, received a total of $88,902 in 2012 that can be traced directly to either coal mining companies or political action committees funded primarily by Alabama coal companies, according to an examination of state campaign finance records by AL.com.

That represents roughly 25 percent of the overall contributions to her successful 2012 campaign for president of the Public Service Commission.

This week, Cavanaugh dismissed the notion that donations from the coal industry had influenced her perspective, instead suggesting that her position had attracted support from the industry.

“As a candidate and a commissioner, I promised to fight attempts by Barack Obama’s rogue Environmental Protection Agency to cripple Alabama’s coal industry and the 5,000 good paying jobs it directly provides,” read a statement from Cavanaugh. “It is no surprise that my efforts to fight extremist environmental mandates and protect coal workers’ jobs have earned me their support.”

Cavanaugh’s campaign war chest dwarfs that of fellow PSC commissioner Terry Dunn, whose call for formal hearings on gas and power rates was rejected by Cavanaugh and newly appointed commissioner Jeremy Oden.

Oden, who was appointed in December to fill the PSC seat Cavanaugh vacated when she won the presidency in November, has yet to receive any campaign donations related to his PSC seat. A former state representative from Eva, Oden received donations from an array of political action committees during his last reelection campaign for his District 11 seat in 2010.

Dunn received just one campaign donation from a political action committee during his 2010 campaign for PSC. That was a $10,000 donation from the Alabama chapter of the Action Committee for Rural Electrification, which advocates on behalf of rural electric co-op customers. His 2010 general election campaign cost about $13,000. Cavanaugh’s 2012 campaign cost $398,200.

Cavanaugh has not hidden her support for Alabama's coal industry since taking office. An open letter on the Public Service Commission website is titled "Environmental extremists push for formal hearings to kill coal jobs and increase utility rates."

The same letter said that the enemies of coal want an opportunity to use "their fancy San Francisco environmental lawyers and junk science hucksters to make what amounts to a legal, judicial case against coal production within our borders." Read the letter here.

She has also used a similar argument as the rationale behind her refusal to hold formal hearings looking into natural gas rates in Alabama.

Reporting by AL.com has shown that the customers of Alabama's two largest gas utilities, Alagasco and Mobile Gas, pay more than twice as much for gas as customers of regulated gas utilities in Biloxi, Jackson, and other Mississippi cities.

Asked during a recent interview with AL.com to explain how a hearing on the gas rates charged by Mobile Gas could be used to attack the coal industry, Cavanaugh said that “environmentalists will hijack the process.”

Cavanaugh has received about $79,000 from political action committees funded entirely or primarily by the Drummond Company, the largest coal mining company in Alabama.

In addition, Cavanaugh received corporate donations of $1,000 or more from a number of Alabama businesses associated with coal mining including Best Coal Inc., Cedar Lake Mining, RJR Mining Co., Black Warrior Minerals, Birmingham Coal and Coke, Reed Minerals, and Warrior Investment Co.

In news releases and public remarks, Cavanaugh has tied coal production in the state to low utility rates, though most of the coal used at Alabama’s coal-fired power plants comes from Wyoming and other states, or from Colombia.

This chart shows the decline of coal as a fuel source for Alabama Power through 2011, along with the simultaneous rise of natural gas as a fuel.

The importance of coal to the state’s electricity supply has been declining.

While coal was used to generate about 77 percent of the electricity produced by Alabama Power in 1999, that percentage has now fallen below 50 percent, according to recent reports, due largely to the increased use of natural gas.

With most of the coal used by Alabama Power mined outside of Alabama, a great deal of the coal produced in the state by the Drummond Company is now shipped overseas, headed to 16 different countries. Alabama ranks third in the nation for coal exports, according to a 2012 news release from Gov. Robert Bentley.