Oil Industry's Contributions to Presidential Candidates Called "Dirty Money" by Consumer Advocacy Group

On Friday, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights stated that Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is accepting more "dirty money" than any other Presidential candidate from either major party due to his contributions from "Big Oil".

The group said that Giuliani has close ties with the oil industry, ties that he began forming when he was mayor of New York City.

His ties, in one way or another, include those to Texas-based Citgo Petroleum Corporation; Chevron-Texaco; BMB Munai, a developer of oil wells in Kazakhstan; Statoil, a Norway-based oil and gas conglomerate; Valero Energy, the largest North American oil refiner; TransCanada Corporation; Shell Oil Company; and the Saudi Arabian oil ministry.

Because of his law firm, the Houston-based Bracewell & Giuliani, he has been called an "honorary Texas oil lawyer."

Giuliani has received $536,708 in "Big Oil money" to date, more than the total of the next two top recipients, Mitt Romney with $291,033 and Hillary Clinton with $211,043 in oil money.

"With the price oil heading toward $100 a barrel and prices at the pump headed back to $3.00 a gallon, politicians should be treating Big Oil's contributions as dirty money. Americans can't afford politicians, especially a president, indebted to the oil industry," said Judy Dugan, research director of OilWatchdog.org and its parent organization, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

In Friday's futures trading, crude oil did reach a new record high of $90.07 per barrel, before retreating slightly to close at $89.80, due to the weak U.S. dollar that fell further against the Euro, Turkey's new military moves against Kurdish terrorists which will cause Iraq to freeze its oil exports going out via Turkey if that nation's military enters into Iraq, and a bomb attack on the former prime minister of Pakistan.

Investors were buying oil, and thus pushing up the price, on the chance that the Federal Reserve is going to move to cut borrowing costs on Halloween in an effort to further fortify the United States economy in the aftermath of the housing market bust.