Drill here, drill now, pay Newt

Newt Gingrich has been making himself out to be a green lately - but activists at the Alaska Wilderness League say he's just an oil company shill. Get the details at Political Climate:

Since May, the former speaker has been larding his environmental rhetoric with calls for America to begin new drilling programs to achieve energy independence and bring down the price at the pump. Never mind that domestic oil production will never put a significant dent in gas prices or offset the demand for imported oil: Newt’s sloganeering - “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” - hit a nerve, and more than 1.3 million people signed a petition backing his campaign.

That was bad enough. Now, though, researchers at the Alaska Wilderness League have revealed that Gingrich’s cheerleading for Big Oil was bankrolled by a veritable Who’s Who of the extractive industries. The group behind Newt’s drilling drive has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from executives and investors with close ties to companies like Exxon, Shell, and Suncor.

Read more here.