What the heck am I looking at?

We've created maps of political campaign contributions from companies in the oil & gas and coal industries to congressional representatives. These are relationship map of the contribution network. That means that unlike a physical map, where points are positioned at a geographic location, the icons for the companies and representatives are placed so that they are as close as possible to whomever they contribute to or receive contributions from.

Think of it like a social networking site in which companies and politicians have become 'friends' by giving money.

How does it work?

We wrote software to go through a database of contributions reported on FEC filings and pull out all the contributions from known coal and oil company Political Action Committees or employees thereof. We only look at the contributions that went to the selected group of elected officials (House, Senate, etc.) while they were in office. Contributions that are below the specified minimum are not shown.

Next, we check how much each company gave, and how much each representative received and exclude those that don't meet the minimum that has been set (under 'Filters'). We add up all the contributions and run this data through network visualization software to position the companies and politicians according to their ties. We also pull the identification numbers for the original FEC records so that it is possible to click through from the table view and see scanned version FEC filing the data came from.

Where did you get the data?

Anybody who runs for federal office is required to file reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) giving the names and addresses of everyone who donates more than $250 to the campaign. This information is available free of charge from the FEC. We use public data from the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics that they have painstakingly cleaned and categorized. We used tools, data, and information from the following sources:

Center for Responsive Politics: categorized oil contributions and company names and provided assistance with data interpretation.

GovTrack.us: Representative photos (courtesy of the Government Printing Office) and information about who is in office when.

Sunlight Labs API: additional Representative photos and ZIP code lookup

Images of company logos were acquired from company websites without permission or authorization and may be under copyright of the respective companies. They are used here to refer to the companies and do not in any way indicate an endorsement or sponsorship of this project by any of these firms.

Finally, we got data regarding which electric utilities are coal dependent from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. See How do you define Coal Money below.

Who built the site?

This site is a project of Oil Change International, developed by Greg Michalec and Skye Bender-deMoll and designed by Diligent Creative. Earlier versions of the site were named 'Follow the Oil Money' and 'Follow the Coal Money'.

How recent is this data?

The date of the most recent FEC data release that we are using is shown on the bottom of each page. Most representatives are only required to file quarterly, so in some cases data may be several months old. There will be some additional delay while the FEC and the Center for Responsive Politics process the data. You can view the date of each contribution by looking in the details of the table view.

Also, as CRP notes on their data update calendar:

NOTE: Just because a data set is downloaded after a filing deadline, it cannot be assumed that the data being downloaded will include all the data from the filing. It takes the FEC some time to run these new records through their auditing processes and to resolve any reporting problems uncovered. Additionally, as the Senate still does not file electronically, it takes some time for the FEC to manually enter that information. How long any of this takes is not always the same from report to report.

How is this data Different than data available from CRP?

The Center for Responsive Politics Oil & Gas sector category closely matches our interests, although we have refined it somewhat as describe below. Their coal category doesn't include many of the dirty energy producers whos interests influence congress. We add in companies from the Coal Mining sector plus selected electric utilities and related carbon polluting corporations that do not normally land within the CRP's industry categorization.

Other key differences:

With the exception of past presidential candidates, our site focuses on contributions to congress members in office. This means that contributions to some groups (such as industry PACs) and candidates who did not win elections will not appear in the site totals.

We have made an extra review of the company names in the database, removing a few companies that appear to have slipped through CRP's screening process, and aggregating some additional subsidiaries into the 'parent' company.

Since we maintain separate views for presidential candidates, we don't include money from congressmember's presidential campaigns in their totals.

We don't sum in the previous cycles into Senator's terms. (Overall totals should be similar, but non-election year totals will be lower, reflecting the dates when the contributions occurred.)

We provide links to the original filing documents for individual contributions, when available from the FEC.

At times our data may lag by a week or so behind the CRP's site while we wait for a data release

CRP's database goes back to 1989. Ours goes back to 1999. This causes a discrepancy in 'lifetime' or 'career' numbers.

Can I look at contributions for different years?

Yes. On a profile for an individual company or politician you can click on the list of congresses in the filter bar to go to a different year, total, or on 'pre-term' contributions involving congress members who have not yet taken office. On the Congress and Presidential views, use the the drop-down menu on the left side of the filter bar.

What do the filter bar settings do?

To make our relationship maps easier to read in the Congress (and Presidential) views, we've included filters that make it possible set what range of values should be shown. Adjusting these settings to lower values will include more of the corresponding elements in the relationship and table views. For example, setting the 'CONTRIBUTIONS' slider to 'Top 75%' means that all the contributions except the smallest values will be included in the views. (The actual dollar values used for filtering are displayed under the title for the map)

The CONGRESS option selections which two-year batch politicians and contributions to show.

CHAMBER, not surprisingly, selects which politicians will appear based on the chamber of the U.S. Congress they serve in.

The INDUSTRY option can be set so that the maps will show only contributions from Oil & Gas, Coal, or All (both together).

The POLITICIANS slider filters out politicians based on total amount of money that they accepted from the selected industries in the given time period. By decreasing the minimum total, more representatives will appear in the relationship map or table.

The COMPANIES slider filters out companies based on the total amount of money that each company gave to congress people in the given time period. If a company gave less than the stated minimum, they will not appear on the relationship map or table. By decreasing the minimum total, more companies will appear.

The CONTRIBUTIONS slider refers to each individual contribution received by a representative, By decreasing the minimum contribution amount, you will expand the number of listed contributions, showing more links on the network.

How do I show more (or fewer) companies on the map/table?

See the info on filter bar settings above.

Why don't the column in the table views add up to the representative's total?

The most common reason for this is that the filter settings (see 'Filters' above) are hiding some of the contributions in order to simplify the display. The hidden contributions are still included in the totals. To view more the contributions, you can set the contribution limit lower, or look at politician's profile view.

What's a Dirty Dollar?

A Dirty Dollar is a printable keepsake to remind you just how much dirty energy money your favorite representative has taken. Print several hundred and spread the word on how much Dirty Energy Money your Represenatives have taken! Just visit any politician profile and click 'Dirty Dollar'.

How do you define 'Coal Money'?

The term 'Coal Money' refers to contributions from either coal mining or coal burning companies (i.e., electric utilities that operate coal-fired power plants), as well as trade associations and political action committees representing those industries. Because electric utilities can use a variety of fuels or renewable resources to generate electricity, it was necessary to determine which companies rely predominantly on coal in order to include them in the 'coal money' database. The lists of companies was compiled by Appalachian Voices. Included in this database are companies or subsidiaries of companies that generated a minimum of 3.5 million Megawatt hours (MWh) from coal and at least 70% or more of their electricity from coal in the year 2006. Note that 3.5 million MWh is equivalent to a 500 Megawatt coal-fired power plant running at 80% capacity for a year. The information used to determine the amount and percentage of electricity each company generated from coal was obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency's eGRID2006 database. Note that we will update this data as it becomes available. We expect the next update in Fall 2010.

What is the Zip Code search for?

The Search field allow you to find current members of Congress either by your zip code or by typing part of their name. The result will be a list of members. You can also search for companies by typing in a company name. Clicking on any of the results will show a profile with the total since 1999 as well as totals for each Congressional cycle.

What software did you use?

The data are stored in a MySql database. We use PHP to build the web pages and to format the data in order run through the open-source Graphviz software to compute the positions of the companies and representatives on the layout. The resulting image is combined with custom Javascript code and SVG to create the interactive elements. The interactive tables are created in part using the Prototype script.aculo.us and TableKit ajax libraries.

What do the negative values mean? Are politicians paying oil companies now?

Well, not directly. Negative values usually indicate repayment of a debt, or the return of a contribution from an earlier year.

What do the companies 'Oil & Gas' or 'Oil & Gas Exploration' mean?

Some people who work in the oil and gas industry list their occupations as 'self-employed' or 'consultant,' so we don't know exactly which company they work for.

Is this showing me the money they accepted while in office, or the money they got while running for office?

For each congressional session we show the members of congress who were in office and the contributions they received during that session. Since Senators have six-year terms, we are only showing two years of their term at a time.

What does the category 'pre-term contributions' in the congress profiles mean?

For congress members we show the contributions received during each term they were in office. This means that the contributions they receive during their initial campaign would not be included. So we added an additional category for these contributions to make sure they are included in the total.

How do I find the specific contribution I'm looking for on the FEC form?

Each FEC form image corresponds to three or more contributions. In most cases the campaign committee for the representative receiving the donation is listed at the top of the page. The transactions are usually identified by the letters 'A, B, C' in the left margin. Next to each letter is the name of the contributor, below is the address and employer information. The amount of the contribution is shown in the box on the right.

When I look at the image of the report filing from the FEC I see a different year entered for the campaign, why?

Sometimes politicians use contributions to pay off debts from old campaigns, or have already begun collecting for future campaigns.

Why are contributions from 'Mrs. Bigoil' included with 'Very Big Oil Company Inc.' when she doesn't work there?

One of the ways that campaigns get around contribution limits is to have the representatives' spouses and family members make contributions. CRP matches up individuals who have the same last names and addresses as company executives and includes them as well.

How can I spread the word?

Dirty Energy Money makes it easy to spread the word to your friends and family. Click 'share this' in the toolbar to share results of your congress, politician, or company search via Twitter, Facebook, or as an embeddable widget.

Where can I find more about the influence of oil companies in American politics?

You are in the right place, check out the rest of the Oil Change International website.

Where can I find more information about other kinds of contributions to politicians?

Check out the websites of the Center for Responsive Politics, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and MapLight.org. You also might be interested in our friends at Public Campaign, who lead the campaign for public financing of elections.