In an online campaign launched last week, Taxpayers for Common Sense urged voters to lobby supercommittee members against giving subsidies to energy companies.

According to the group’s Subsidy Gusher analysis, oil and gas companies are expected to get $78 billion in subsidies over the next five years.

Oil companies are resilient, the group argues, and made record profits even during the recent recesssion and despite major environmental disasters like the BP Gulf oil spill. They don’t need special suppot.

Taxpayers for Common Sense spokesman Mike Serresco said that his group, along with Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen and even the Heartland Institute, a libertarian organization that denies climate change, are pushing cuts to energy company entitlements.

“If we had our way we would cut all energy subsidies,” he said. “Solyndra is a good example. The government is just a bad venture capitalist. You should let the private market do that kind of financing. In the case of oil and gas, which gets by far more in subsidies than renewables, those subsidies are just bolstering profits. They are put in place a century ago for reasons that are no longer valid.”

The Intangible Drilling Costs tax credit, for example, established in 1918, allows oil companies to deduct most of the expenses of drilling. With oil prices near $116 a barrel, it’s hard to argue that ending this deduction with impede exploration, yet this benefit is expected to cost $8.9 billion over the next five years.

Some of the other tax benefits designed for energy companies include:

Ultra-deepwater and Unconventional Natural Gas and other Petroleum Resources R&D

Cut: $190 million

Expensing of Exploration and Development Costs

Cut: $270 million

Percentage Depletion Allowance (Gas & Oil) (Excess of percentage of cost depletion)

Cut: $10.8 billion

Percentage Depletion Allowance (Coal)

Cut: $1.3 billion

Capital Gains Treatment for Royalties on Coal

Cut: $630 million

Domestic Manufacturing Deduction for Hard Mineral Fossil Fuels

Cut: $2.3 billion

Manufacturing Tax Deduction for Oil and Gas Companies (IRC Sec 199)

Cut: $15.9 billion

Geological and Geophysical Amortization

Cut: $1 million

Because these benefits are part of the tax code, any attempt to change them risks devolving into a politically difficult ideological battle over raising taxes, and the groups that are arguing to end these breaks must compete with the energy lobbyists that are defending them.

Exxon Mobil — the biggest U.S. oil company — has spent more than $10 million lobbying Congress so far this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Though energy companies have vastly more money to devote to framing the discussion on their tax breaks, they have been forced into a defensive position.

The oil lobby has ramped up television ads in the home districts of supercommittee members in which they frame ending their tax breaks as the creation of “job-crushing new energy taxes.”

In an interview on CNN on Sunday, American Petroleum Institute lobbyist Marty Durbin even claimed that oil companies don’t get any special treatment.

“There are no loopholes,” he said when asked to justify billions in tax breaks for oil companies that are showing record profits. “These are basic tax deductions that every industry is allowed to use.”

Exxon Mobil spent $2.52 million in the second quarter lobbying Congress and the White House on offshore drilling, the Associated Press reports.

Much of its lobbying was focused on proposals related to offshore drilling and the U.S. moratorium on deepwater exploration. Some of those proposals would lift liability caps for oil spills, boost safety requirements and ban companies with poor safety records from receiving new permits.

For context, this quarter’s numbers are “a drop from the $4.27 million that the company spent in the same three-month period last year and the $3.39 million it spent in the first quarter of this year,” the AP says.

Of course, during that same period last year, the House was working to pass its climate bill and key senators were working to draft their version of the bill. At the same time, the Obama administration was trying to figure out whether to expand drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. (It later decided to do so.)

According to Open Secrets, the oil and gas industry spent more than $175 million in 2009 on lobbying, more than any time in the last 10 years. In 2010 so far, the industry has spent just under $75 million.

It will be interesting to see how much lobbying numbers jumped in quarter three, once more serious debate began on offshore drilling proposals.

Prop 23, as I’ve blogged previously and Think Progress has enumerated in even greater detail, is an initiative sponsored by Texas independent oil refiners Valero and Tesoro. It has also received a gift of $1 million from Koch Industries. Its goal is to repeal California’s landmark law, AB 32, which seeks to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that both sides of the fight on Prop. 23 are upping their game:

On Tuesday, the president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association solicited financial support for Prop. 23 from the group’s members. “I am pleading with each of you—for our nation’s best interest and for your company’s own self-interest,” wrote Charles Drevna in an email that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. [...]

Meanwhile, a loose coalition of environmental groups and individuals, including clean-technology investors, has geared up to oppose Prop. 23.

Former Secretary of State George Shultz plans this weekend to hold a fund-raising event to fight Prop. 23 at his home near Stanford University. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a vocal opponent of Prop. 23, is expected to attend.

Tom Steyer, a San Francisco hedge-fund manager, has contributed $2.5 million to the opposition campaign, while the National Resources Defense Council has given nearly $1 million. Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr has given $500,000, according to filings.

No matter how you slice it, the environmental groups will be out-financed, but it looks like they have popular opinion among Californians on their side, for now. Meanwhile, WSJ notes that, at least so far, oil companies are divided as to whether they should pour money into the race:

Several big oil companies have steered clear of supporting Prop. 23. Royal Dutch Shell PLC opposes the measure, while Exxon Mobil Corp., BP PLC and Chevron Corp. remain neutral. Unlike Valero and Tesoro, these oil giants have broader operations, such as finding and pumping oil, in addition to refining and marketing it. AB 32 primarily affects oil refiners, because refining emits far more greenhouse gases than the extraction of oil.

“From the standpoint of the major oil companies, they could benefit if the independents [such as Valero and Tesoro] go out of business,” said Ann Kohler, an energy analyst at Caris & Co. “There’s a sort of chess game going on.”

According to the statement:

Today’s announcement demonstrates the industry’s commitment to safe operations. The experts and engineers at these companies will build on the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon accident to design, develop and implement a state-of-the-art engineering system that will raise industry safety preparedness and capability.

API also outlined more details on the system. Four oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell — have put $1 billion into a new non-profit organization called the Marine Well Containment Company. The non-profit will construct a new “subsea containment assembly,” which will stop the flow of oil in the event of a future blowout, API said.

Interestingly, BP is not among the four companies. The companies are Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron.

Update: This post has been updated to reflect the fact that the companies are creating a spill response system, not an emergency fund.

Judges Smith and Davis, the Alliance reports, attended all-expenses-paid seminars hosted by the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), which receives major funding from … none other than Exxon Mobil:

FREE hosts industry-funded seminars for judges, often including leisure activities such as golf and horseback riding, to “explain why ecological values are not the only important ones.” The year that Judge Smith attended the seminar, FREE received $70,000 from ExxonMobil, of which $20,000 was for “Federal Judicial Seminars,” $30,000 was for “General Operating Support,” and $20,000 was for a “Climate Seminar.”

The third judge on the panel, notes Think Progress, hasn’t gone on any free trips — but he does have investments in oil stocks that may total as much as $305,000. And of the sixteen active judges on the Fifth Circuit that could hear the case if the three-judge panel decides to reinstate the moratorium and it’s appealed by the industry, ten are invested in oil.

Again, be sure to check out the whole report here.

The dismissal by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Comer v. Murphy Oil came after half of the court’s 16 judges recused themselves from hearing the appeal, effectively negating an October decision by a three-judge panel on the same court that allowed the case to proceed. The Comer class action suit was filed by Gulf Coast residents seeking financial damages from more than two dozen oil and coal companies for the local havoc wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, which the plaintiffs argued was exacerbated by the effects of global warming.

The plaintiffs now must decide whether to seek a hearing in the Supreme Court, an outcome deemed all but inevitable by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in a Friday blog post reacting to the dismissal.

“Expect more appeals and suits from plaintiffs hoping to hit the jackpot and environmental activists trying to create a carbon-command-and-control economy through the courts,” NAM’s Carter Wood wrote. The group is a vocal critic of congressional climate legislation and filed a brief supporting an en banc hearing of the Comer case by the full Fifth Circuit after the initial ruling allowing the case to proceed.

Greenwire reported today (sub. req’d.) that the high number of Fifth Circuit recusals in Comer — generally an indication that judges have personal ties to the companies or law firms involved, such as stock ownership — “infuriated environmentalists” who viewed the moves as a sign that industry has all but captured the appeals court in the Gulf region. But a legal analysis published last month by the firm McGuire Woods suggested that the nation’s highest court could face similar recusal hiccups in deciding whether to hear a Comer appeal:

[T]he mass recusal of members of the 5th Circuit in Comer begs the question as to whether such recusals would be an issue for the U.S. Supreme Court as well. Initial analysis suggests it would. Justice Samuel Alito has recused himself on several occasions from cases involving ExxonMobil due to his ownership of its stock. See, e.g., Exxon Shipping v. Baker; American Isuzu v. Ntsebeza. Likewise, Justice Steven Breyer has recused himself from cases involving BP due to his ownership of its stock. See, e.g., New Jersey v. Delaware; Morgan Stanley Capital Group v. Public Utility Dist. 1. Both ExxonMobil and BP are defendants in the Comer suit.

Similarly, Justice Sonia Sotomayor would also likely recuse herself due to her participation in the Connecticut v. American Electric Power case [another high-profile climate case] when she was on the 2nd Circuit. … Indeed, it may not even be possible for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear any appeal in Comer.

The recusal issue, as Greenwire notes, could also come into play as lawsuits stemming from BP’s role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster move forward. We have a call in to the plaintiffs’ counsels in the Comer case, seeking word on whether they plan to petition for a Supreme Court hearing, and will update this post as more becomes known.

The American Petroleum Institute is objecting, and the major oil companies potentially on the hook are among the biggest of the big lobbying powers in Washington: BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell. They will “hide behind the independent oil companies,” predicts Erich Pica, an analyst for Friends of the Earth, “and threw in everything but the kitchen sink.”

These five companies spent  a combined $59.4 billion in lobbying in 2008 alone, according to figures from the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.org, these five companies have plenty of money to throw in. Several prominent former Democrat legislators and staff members lobbied on behalf of these companies in 2008 — including former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux (Shell), former Hill staffer Holly Bode (Exxon), who previously worked for Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.); and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Paul Brathwaite (BP).

But Big Oil’s ability to prevent the plugging of this loophole could be waning. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) targeted royalty relief in her “first 100 days” agenda when Democrats took control of Congress in 2007. The House approved a rollback, but it narrowly failed to gain Senate approval. Since then, pro-oil Republican Sen.Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Wayne Allard of Colorado have been replaced by green Democrats, Tom and Mark Udall, respectively. Pencil in Minnesota’s DFL Senator-in-waiting Al Franken in place of former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, and as Daniel Weiss of the Center for American put it, ”Big oil faces an uphill climb.”

www.willyoujoinus.com

While walking around Washington, it’s hard to miss all the large Chevron ads. They are at bus stops and in metro stations, and they feature “everyday people” promising to conserve energy. “I will carpool to work,” one person in the ad says. “I will take the golf clubs out of the trunk,” promises another. “I will leave the car at home more,” pledges a third.

And, in each one, Chevron vows it will conserve energy, too.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Chevron launched its “I will” campaign last month in Washington, Houston and cities throughout California. The new ads continue the oil company’s “Power of Human Energy” ad campaign that began about a year ago. Through TV spots, print ads, billboards and a website called Will You Join Us, Chevron says it seeks to raise awareness about energy conservation and efficiency.

But exactly how green can an oil company claim to be? And will consumers buy its claims?

Chevron, America’s second largest oil company, with profits of $18.7 billion last year, isn’t the only oil producer spending millions to burnish its image. Like other big oil companies, it has switched gears from ignoring or denying climate change to announcing it role in combating this problem, oil experts say.

For example, if you’ve turned on the TV lately, you’ve probably seen a commercial like this from ExxonMobil:

Exxon, the country’s biggest oil company, with profits last year of $39.5 billion, recently launched its environmental-themed ad campaign. BP was perhaps ahead of this curve — for British Petroleum started rebranding itself as “Beyond Petroleum” in 2000.

Some experts say Chevron and all the other oil companies will have to work a lot harder to gain the trust of consumers, who are finally getting some relief at the pumps after gasoline prices hit $4 a gallon this summer. They say the companies will have to transform their actions, not just their images.

Chevron says it differs from the other oil companies because it invests in clean technologies and fuel efficiency. Those who study the oil industry assert that the company’s investment is minor when compared to its large profits.

www.willyoujoinus.com

But Kimberly Beman the Chevron spokeswoman said, “Between 2007 and 2009, Chevron has projected spending of more than $2.5 billion for alternatives, renewables and energy-efficiency services.” *

Beman also pointed out that, since 2000, Chevron Energy Solutions, a Chevron subsidiary that focuses on environmental issues, has developed hundreds of projects in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

“CES projects will help to reduce over a billion dollars in energy costs for customers,” Beman told The Washington Independent.

But a billion dollars spent over an unspecified period of time doesn’t exactly seem like a lot of money for a company that made a record $18.7 billion in profits last year alone.

Steve Kretzmann, director of the nonpartisan organization Oil Change International, said that Chevron’s priority is cleaning up its image — and that speaks volumes about its credibility on conservation. “Chevron spends millions and millions on these ad campaigns,” said Kretzmann, “and then doesn’t devote hardly any amount of money to invest in renewable-energy technologies that could make a huge difference.”

Chevron spent $15 million last year on advertising to promote it’s green policies, according to Grist. This seems to be the norm among the big oil companies.

Exxon, for example, spent only 1 percent of its record-breaking annual profit last year on alternative energy, reports ABC News.

www.willyoujoinus.com

But Chevron spokeswoman Beman says her company isn’t like the other oil companies. “We feel we differentiate ourselves from our competitors to say conservation is key to our [mission],” she said. “I think it’s just an overall call to action that all of us are responsible. Chevron is taking the lead in opening this discussion.”Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of Adbusters Magazine, a non-profit that studies consumerism, finds this claim surprising. Until recently, he says, oil companies like Chevron have been “instrumental in delaying the debate we needed to have on climate change.”

“For years,” Lasn said, “[they were] trying to deny climate change and keep the business-as-usual scenario going.” James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world’s leading climate scientists, agrees with Lasn. In June, he testified before Congress:

Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer.

“Then, just a few short years ago” Lasn said, “when it became quite obvious that they couldn’t deny climate change any longer, one by one they jumped on this [PR] bandwagon…and started painting themselves as the good guys.”

That’s why almost all big oil companies now have ads greenwashing themselves, Lasn said. It started with BP — originally British Petroleum — changing its logo in 2000 to a sun and referring to itself as “Beyond Petroleum.” BP talks about this global branding strategy on its website.

Now, even ExxonMobil — a company known to have given millions of dollars to groups denying global warming — has launched green ads.Are these costly PR campaigns working?

Lasn says they have potential. “A lot of people are totally hoodwinked by this,” he said. “There are millions of people out there who actually do fall for it, who are not aware of some of the history of these big oil companies.”

That’s what Chevron is counting on, Lasn says.

Green advertising can help companies shape their brand, says Lasn, because even large corporations care about public perception.

“[Oil companies] know the next time there is a financial crunch, like now, or if climate change veers out of control even more than it already has, then their survival depends on how the public perceives them,” he said.

TerraChoice, an environmental marketing firm that conducts advertising research, agrees that green advertising can be effective. Media consultant Kate Rusnak says consumers are happy to see so many businesses moving in a more sustainable direction. As a result, she said, “there has certainly been a huge rise in the amount of green advertising.” This could be why even oil companies are jumping on the bandwagon.

Still, not everyone says Chevron is winning on the public-perception front. “I don’t think that [this ad campaign] is particularly effective for consumers,” said Kretzmann of Oil Change International. “The industry knows it has an image problem.”

*Note: This article originally did not say how much Chevron spends on its alternative energy projects. A quote from the oil company detailing its projected budgets was added to the piece after posting.