In addition to the Western Skies Coalition, Colorado Ethics Watch is seeking an investigation into the American Future Fund, Coloradans for Economic Growth and Freedom’s Watch. By federal law, 501(c)(4) groups, which are not required to disclose the names of their donors, must spend at least 51 percent of their total resources on charitable activity.

Ethics Watch alleges that “it appears that more than half of the activities engaged in by AFF, CEG, Freedom’s Watch and WSC have been partisan, non-educational activities that provide benefit to various conservative candidates for state and federal public office in violation of statutory requirements for 501(c)(4) organizations.”

“Each of these organizations have paid considerable money to purchase television ads attacking U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall and candidates running for the state legislature,” said Chantell Taylor, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, in a news release.

“Based on our research, it appears that the organizations are primarily engaged in political activities and need to show where, how and what they are doing to promote the welfare of the community at large. If they do not, they can and should lose their tax exempt status.”

On Sept. 5, the Colorado Independent reported on the Western Skies Coalition and its efforts to — fueled by unlimited gas and oil industry cash — boost conservative candidates running for the state Senate.

This campaign cycle, the group has been sponsoring TV ads portraying Republican state Senate candidates such as incumbent Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, as renewable energy advocates despite voting records to the contrary. Western Skies-sponsored ads have also appeared to boost Republican state Senate candidate Libby Szabo, who is running against Democrat Evie Hudak in the northern Jefferson County race, targeted by both parties, to replace Democrat Sue Windels.

Further, The Colorado Independent found, the Western Skies Coalition, registered as a Virginia corporation with an office in Littleton, is allegedly being used by state Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita, to raise funds from oil and gas companies in a bid to target several key Colorado state Senate races and win back a Republican majority in 2010, according to several sources.

When contacted by the Colorado Independent, several oil and gas companies doing business in Colorado refused to confirm or deny their involvement in the coalition’s efforts. However, as TCI has also reported, many of them have dropped a mind-blowing $10 million into fighting Amendment 58 — a statewide initiative that would eliminate a tax credit for oil companies in Colorado that would raise more than $300 million a year for college scholarships, wildlife habitat and other programs. In that campaign, they have been required by state election laws to disclose their contributions.

In late July the Colorado Independent also reported on the activities of another group targeted by Colorado Ethics Watch this week — Coloradans for Economic Growth.

This summer Coloradans for Economic Growth launched a $670,562 negative ad blitz against Rep. Udall, the Democratic Senate candidate. The principals behind the organization include Denver-based GOP heavyweight and former legislator Cliff Dodge; Margo Branscomb, the executive director of the pro-charter and school voucher group Foundation for Academic Innovation; and Michele Austin, an operative and delegate to the Republican National Convention in Minnesota.

All three have ties to Udall’s Republican opponent, former congressman Bob Schaffer, including through his former boss, Aspect Energy CEO Alex Cranberg. Schaffer resigned as Aspect’s vice president for international business development Dec. 31, 2007, to run for the Senate.

The ad features a gloomy-looking Mitchell with a wind turbine in the background that creaks to a halt and one by one loses its blades as a narrator cites Mitchell’s four “no” votes on the renewable energy standard that finally passed in 2007, as well as opposition to efficiency measures.

“There are few in the Legislature with a worse record than Sen. Mitchell when it comes to support for clean energy,” Colorado Conservation Voters Campaign Fund executive director Carrie Doyle said in a release.

Doyle points to the $140,000 ad buy by a Virginia corporation, Western Skies, which has an office in Littleton and was registered with the Colorado Secretary of State by Sean Tonner of the conservative consulting group Phase Line Strategies.

Tonner is a former chief of staff for Republican Gov. Bill Owens, who is a former oil and gas lobbyist and is listed on the executive board of the Western Skies Coalition, as detailed in a series of stories on the group by the Colorado Independent last week.

(Photo/Jason Kosena)

Rep. Frank McNulty is one of a trio of GOP state lawmakers thought to be behind the Western Skies Coalition — a Virginia corporation raising oil and gas money to target key state senate races.

In an interview with Colorado Independent, McNulty (R-Highlands Ranch) declined to discuss the group’s funding sources Tuesday, but he did acknowledge signing its “Energy Leadership Action Plan” pledge.

Click to enlarge the image.

Several sources, both on and off the record, have told Colorado Independent that McNulty, along with Sen. Josh Penry (R-Grand Junction) and Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma), are behind the Western Skies Coalition (WSC), which bills itself as a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization but has not registered as such with the Internal Revenue Service.

WSC has a Littleton office, but messages left there have not been returned, and both Penry and Gardner did not return numerous phone calls and e-mails seeking comment.

So-called C4 organizations by law do not have to disclose donors but must engage in promoting social issues, with no more than 49 percent for their contributions spent on political advocacy. Western Skies in recent weeks ran thousands of dollars worth of television ads in support of Republican state senate candidates Shawn Mitchell and Libby Szabo.

The ads have portrayed both Mitchell, an incumbent from Broomfield and Szabo, a businesswoman running for Senate District 19 on the Front Range, as green-energy advocates. In fact, Mitchell has repeatedly voted against increasing the state’s renewable-energy portfolio and Szabo is running on a pro-traditional-energy platform. Neither Mitchell nor Szabo returned messages requesting comment

According to an Aug. 29 story in the Rocky Mountain News, Mitchell also signed the Western Skies pledge, but did so because of its traditional-energy opportunities rather than its nod to pursuing renewable sources, telling the paper, “What I’m not is a clean-energy statist that’s going to force consumers to transition before it makes sense.”

McNulty said he is interested in renewables as part of a menu of energy-production options: “On the hydro front we need to look at pump-back, because it provides the ability to provide a battery for wind and solar, which we also need to look at. Wind and solar make sense, but it doesn’t work all the time and it doesn’t work without having some way to flip the switch and generate electricity when the wind’s not blowing or the sun’s not shining. I don’t think it’s to the detriment of oil and gas.”

McNulty added it’s simply a matter of maintaining the Colorado lifestyle.

“It’s clear that as a state and nation we’re going to have to look at the full broad spectrum of energy resources if we’re going to be able to continue our economic growth and be able to continue something resembling the standard of living to which we as Coloradans have become accustomed,” he said.

Several oil and gas companies with extensive interests in Colorado flatly refused to disclose whether they have contributed to Western Skies, and McNulty wouldn’t go there either. The group lists on its executive committee former Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican who used to work as an oil and gas lobbyist and was behind the infamous Trailhead Group 527 that flooded state airwaves with attack ads in 2006.

Another reportedly targeted race — Senate District 8 in northwest Colorado, which includes parts of gas-rich Garfield County — has yet to see substantial injections of outside money.

“I’ve seen a couple of mailers for me that have come from somebody called Coloradans for Integrity, and I don’t know who that is. I haven’t seen anything against me,” said Rep. Al White (R-Hayden), who’s running to replace term-limited Sen. Jack Taylor in SD 8. “It’s certainly not to the extent that some of those targeted Front Range races are being identified for support, and I don’t know frankly how much more I will get, if anything, by way of outside entities.”

Coloradans for Integrity is a Colorado LLC registered in January to Jennie Willis, a receptionist at Denver-based Axiom Strategies, which on its Web site purports to be a bi-partisan political consulting and lobbying firm. It lists among its clients the Colorado Independent Energy Association, which promotes natural gas production but also renewable energy.

White is running against former Steamboat Springs City Councilman Ken Brenner, a Democrat who’s accused his opponent of being in the pocket of the oil-and-gas industry, which White flatly denies, pointing to two past endorsements from the environmentally-minded Colorado Conservation Voters.

As for a concerted Republican strategy to retake the senate using groups such as Western Skies, White said it’s no secret the state GOP wants to regain the legislative majority standing it enjoyed for decades before being ousted in 2004.

“Yeah, the party’s always interested in having the majority, and although my seat would just be a hold as opposed to a pickup, until we stop losing seats we’re never going to get the majority back,” White said. Democrats hold 20 of the 35 senate seats and Republicans would need to maintain those seats and pick off three from the Dems in the 18 races being contested in November in order to regain a majority.

McNulty declined to discuss the overall Republican strategy for regaining control of the senate, but acknowledged 501(c)4 groups have supplanted 527s (also named for their IRS code) as a useful political tool since the crackdown this year on 527 disclosure.

“It is interesting how 501(c)4’s have become the new 527s, but it’s a campaign finance change,” McNulty said. “Folks are going to figure out how to support the issues that are important to them, so whether that’s through a state party, or a 527, or a contribution to an individual candidate, or whatever vehicle is out there, I suppose smart folks will figure out how to do it.”

(Photo/kool_skatcat, Flickr)

Oil and gas companies doing business in Colorado have dropped a mind-blowing $10 million into fighting Amendment 58 — a statewide initiative that would eliminate a tax credit and raise more than $300 million a year for college scholarships, wildlife habitat and other programs. But when it comes to whether big oil may be pumping in cash to help Republicans retake control of the state Senate, well, they’re just not saying. And in fact, they don’t have to.

Last week the Colorado Independent reported extensively on the Western Skies Coalition, which bills itself as a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization.

Though it has yet to show up as actually registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit, Western Skies claims ex-Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, a former oil and gas lobbyist, as a member of its executive committee, along with former U.S. Secretary of Education and drug czar Bill Bennett.

The group was registered in Colorado on April 2 as a Virginia corporation by Sean Tonner, president of the Highlands Ranch-based GOP consulting group Phase Line Strategies, as the group’s registered agent in Colorado. Listed as directors on the organization’s Virginia filing are Tonner and fellow Phase Line employees Katie Behnke and Mike Ciletti.

The three have worked on behalf of numerous high-profile Republicans, including Owens, for whom Tonner served as chief of staff, Ciletti worked as a deputy director of the Office of Innovation and Technology and Behnke was a press assistant.

Sources have indicated that oil and gas money helped pay for TV ads this summer that were designed to portray Republicans Shawn Mitchell (no enemy to big oil) and Libby Szabo as champions of alternative energy. Their opponents claim the intent is clear: to help oil company-friendly Republicans retake control of the Colorado Senate by 2010.

Because Western Skies claims to be a 501(c)4, it does not have to disclose its donors — unlike traditional campaign organizations and 527 groups that have to make their financial backers known in Colorado.

Numerous companies that do business in energy-rich Colorado responded with various degrees of “no comment” when asked whether they contributed money to Owens and Tonner’s charitable nonprofit.

John Christiansen, the spokesman of Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, said last week he was not sure whether the company had made a contribution to Western Skies, and that the company does not disclose any specific amounts it contributes to charities.

“The reason we give to entities is we see value in it, not to see the dollar amount out there,” Christiansen said.

A spokeswoman from Houston-based Noble Energy did not return several messages seeking comment. Nor were messages to Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams energy company returned.

Reached late last week, Wendy Wiedenback, of Calgary, Alberta-based EnCana, indicated she would look into the request, but never returned the call.

And Susan Spratlen, the vice president of corporate communications of Irving, Texas-based Pioneer Natural Resources, said she “cannot confirm one way or another” whether the company has contributed funds to Western Skies.

“We don’t disclose any activity with not-for-profits, whether they are political or charitable,” Spratlen said. “We don’t talk specifics of who we support.”

Not even for campaigns designed to elect candidates to public office?

“We don’t disclose that,” Spratlen said.

Companies may not have to disclose financial contributions or other support — or non-support — when it comes to 501(c)4 nonprofits, but state laws do require contributors to disclose the amounts they have given — in Amendment 58′s case furiously pumped — into statewide political campaigns.

According to state campaign finance reports, eight oil companies have so far contributed $1 million each to battle Amendment 58, a measure designed to raise more than $300 million for college scholarships and other programs, by eliminating the tax credit that energy companies can take for severance taxes in Colorado. The million-dollar contributors include:

• Anadarko
• BP
• Chevron
• ConocoPhillips
• EnCana
• ExxonMobil
• Noble
• Williams

“Josh Penry has been raising money from oil and gas companies for this effort and the spending is focused on electing Republican candidates in the Senate,” said Colorado Conservation Voters Executive Director Carrie Doyle. “So the assumption is the goal is to claim a Republican majority in the state Senate. The irony is that this is oil and gas money being used to talk about how these candidates stand for clean energy when their voting records are anything but.”

Penry didn’t return several phone calls and e-mails requesting comment.

Western Skies has been running television ads supporting incumbent Sen. Shawn Mitchell (R-Broomfield), who’s running against Democrat Joe Whitcomb in Senate District 23, and ads have also been running touting the alternative-energy agenda of Republican businesswoman Libby Szabo, who’s running against Democrat Evie Hudak in Senate District 19.

Sources say two other races being targeted by Western Skies include Senate District 8, where Republican Al White is running against Democrat Ken Brenner, and Senate 26, where Republican Lauri Clapp is running against Democrat Linda Newell, who last week was facetiously endorsed by comedian Jon Stewart during a taping of the Daily Show during the DNC.

(Photo/Jason Kosena)

A conservative Colorado political group allegedly backed by big-oil money and calling itself the Western Skies Coalition has targeted key state Senate races, apparently bent on portraying pro-oil Republicans vying for those seats as champions of alternative energy.

Cable television ads paid for by Littleton-based Western Skies tout the “alternative-energy” agendas of incumbent Sen. Shawn Mitchell (R-Broomfield) and businesswoman Libby Szabo, who’s running for Senate District 19.

The most recent two-week ad buy, at a reported $143,000, depicts Mitchell as a big fan of solar, wind and biofuels, and claims he supports the “wise use” of natural gas and clean-coal energy. In fact, over the past 10 years, Mitchell has repeatedly opposed renewable energy standards in Colorado. Mitchell represents Senate District 23 in Broomfield, where he’s being challenged in November by law student and U.S. Army veteran Joe Whitcomb.

“This Western Skies ad makes Shawn Mitchell look great, and he has the most god-awful voting record [on alternative energy],” Whitcomb said Tuesday. “He was one of only seven or eight senators who voted against doubling Colorado’s alternative-energy portfolio.”

Mitchell did sponsor a bill that capped solar-panel inspection fees, but Whitcomb called that legislation mere green-washing.

“His whole ‘I’m a Sun-God’ bill was capping inspection fees for solar panels at $300, which is higher than they are in most counties already, so it was really saying, ‘Hey, I’m all for solar energy’ without really doing anything to help solar energy,” said Whitcomb.

Mitchell did not respond to requests for an interview for this story.

Szabo, meanwhile, is running in the open seat in north Jefferson County against Democrat Evie Hudak, who currently serves on the Colorado State Board of Education. Hudak said the ads echo the GOP’s broader approach of blaming Democrats for the current energy crisis while at the same portraying themselves as potential alt-energy saviors.

“I’ve seen the ads on TV for both Libby and Shawn and they’re virtually identical,” Hudak said. “I’m not familiar with that organization [Western Skies], although I guess that doesn’t surprise me that they’re paid for by oil and gas companies, because so is [Republican U.S. Senate candidate] ‘Big-Oil Bob’ [Schaffer].”

Schaffer, a former Colorado congressman and oil and gas executive, is running against Democratic Rep. Mark Udall. Schaffer has received significant contributions from the oil and gas industry, but in campaign ads and stump appearances has been talking up alternative energy. Hudak called Szabo a one-trick pony on the energy issue.

“My opponent does not have a record because she has not run for public office before,” Hudak said. “But I’ve seen a lot of her flyers and she seems to be using the energy issue only. I don’t see her using any other issue.”

Szabo did not return phone calls or e-mails requesting comment.

Western Skies is a Virginia corporation and as such does not have to reveal its contributors. However, a source identified several oil and gas companies with operations in Colorado that have pumped a total of as much as $1 million into the group’s coffers, including the Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. On Tuesday, Anadarko spokesman John Christiansen said he was not sure whether the company had made a contribution, and that the company does not disclose any specific amounts it contributes to charities or campaigns.

“The reason we give to entities is we see value in it, not to see the dollar amount out there,” Christiansen said.

Western Skies Coalition was registered in Colorado on April 2 as a Virginia corporation by Sean Tonner, president of the Highlands Ranch-based GOP consulting group, Phase Line Strategies, as the group’s registered agent in Colorado.

Listed as directors on the organization’s Virginia filing are Tonner, and fellow Phase Line employees, Katie Behnke and Mike Ciletti.

The three have worked on behalf of numerous high-profile Republicans — including former Gov. Bill Owens, the founder of the now-defunct Trailhead Group, one of the most notorious and wealthiest 527 GOP hit squads of 2006. During the time that Owens served as governor, between 1998 and 2006, Tonner was his chief of staff, Ciletti worked as a deputy director of the Office of Innovation and Technology and Behnke was a press assistant.

Tonner did not return a call requesting comment, and a message left on the answering machine of Western Skies’ Littleton office Tuesday was not immediately returned.

Bill Owens’ daughter, Monica Owens — who also is with Phase Line and is currently a delegate at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul — is also helping coordinate Western Skies activities. Under the “contribute” section of the Western Skies Web site, here’s how Owens describes the group:

Our organization is dedicated to promoting issues that make our nation great. We are dedicated to people who care about the values America was founded on and together, we can make real progress on the issues we stand for and believe in.

Within the next few weeks you will have the opportunity to support the ideas and policies important to you by making a donation to Western Skies Coalition. Please contact Monica Owens at 303.730.2702 if you have any further questions.

Western Skies’ Web site highlights several areas of interest, including a pro-growth economic agenda, a strong national defense, environmental preservation, health care reform and increased domestic energy production.

(Source: Western Skies Coalition.org)

Ironically, under a photo of a panoramic, untouched mountain vista, the group indicates that, “It is vital for the United States to increase its domestic supplies of energy and decrease its dependence on foreign oil. Western Skies Coalition is committed to promoting and encouraging competition in the ethanol market, removing limits on new oil and gas exploration, restructuring the burdensome requirements placed on energy production in the United States and supporting the research of renewable energy…”

The site also promotes numerous well-known conservative causes and mouthpieces, including the Heritage Foundation, The Cato Institute, Hugh Hewitt, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.