WASHINGTON (AP) -- Occidental Petroleum Corp. spent $1.02 million in the third quarter to lobby the federal government on hydraulic fracturing and other issues, according to a disclosure report.
That's up from the $680,194 that the Los Angeles oil and gas company spent in the year-ago period, and the $750,627 it spent in the second quarter of this year. Occidental also lobbied the federal government on legislation involving the recovery of aging oil fields, tax rules surrounding carbon dioxide emissions, cleaning oil spills, clean air laws, over-the-counter commodities trading, and chemical facility regulations, according to the report filed on Oct. 20.
Occidental and many other energy companies want to continue developing large deposits of shale gas and oil in the U.S. using a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Environmentalists say the method could contaminate groundwater supplies, but the industry insists that fracking is safe.
In the July-to-September period, Occidental lobbied Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Surface Transportation Board, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Executive Office of the President, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Securities & Exchange Commission, and the departments of Energy, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture and State, according to a report filed with the House clerk's office.
