It also helps that these companies are so profitable that they have money not just to burn, but to bribe—especially when that bribery is legal. In 2013 in the United States alone, the oil and gas industry spent just under $400,000 a day lobbying Congress and government officials, and the industry doled out a record $73 million in federal campaign and political donations during the 2012 election cycle, an 87 percent jump from the 2008 elections.
