Rocky Mountain fracker Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. handed out $10 million in political contributions on its way into chapter 11, but its bankruptcy paperwork doesn’t mention who got the money, the Wall Street Journal reported. Much of the Denver-based company’s political cash, $4.6 million, went to Protect Colorado, a group that supports oil and gas projects and that has battled environmental activists, a Wall Street Journal review of state records revealed. A spokesperson for Protect Colorado said recently that the group was determined to defeat “divisive ballot measures that would effectively ban new oil and natural gas development in Colorado.” Additional cash went to statewide Republican political-action committees and other energy-industry pro-development groups in Colorado. An arm of an organization that supports the election of Democrats to the position of state attorneys general received $100,000 from Extraction, according to Colorado records. The Republican Attorneys General Association received $250,000, according to data from OpenSecrets.org. State political contribution reports explain only part of political spending shown in Extraction’s bankruptcy records, which detail payments from mid-2018 to March 2020. Data from OpenSecrets.org shows minor contributions on the national scene. Where the standard bankruptcy form asks for “name,” Extraction wrote “political contribution,” 60 times.
