BP: Corporate Code and political money don’t mix

From the Washington Post:

BP, the global energy corporation whose massive oil spill is fouling huge swaths of the Gulf of Mexico, proclaims in its corporate code of conduct that it will “make no political contributions, whether in cash or in kind, anywhere in the world.”

But BP North America — the energy giant’s U.S. subsidiary — has donated at least $4.8 million in corporate contributions over the past seven years to political groups, partisan organizations and campaigns for federal and state elections, an analysis of campaign and tax records shows.

Its most generous corporate contributions — totaling about $4 million — have gone to two Republican-aligned political action groups working to defeat state ballot initiatives in California and Colorado that could have raised oil and gas industry taxes.