We've created a map of the contributions from companies in the coal industry to legislators holding federal office. This is a relationship map of the contribution network. That means that unlike a physical map, where points are positioned at a geographic location, the icons for the companies and legislators are placed so that they are that they are as close as possible to whomever they contribute to or receive contributions from.

Think of the map as a molecule: the companies and legislators are like atoms, and the contributions are like atomic bonds. Or, one can think of it like the popular websites Facebook or MySpace, in which companies and legislators have become 'friends' by giving money.

Example of Boucher's contribution network

Example: Selected contributions to Representative Frederick Boucher.

What is "Coal Money"?

The term "Coal Money" refers to contributions from either coal mining or coal burning companies (i.e., electric utilities that operate coal-fired power plants), as well as trade associations and political action committees representing those industries. Because electric utilities can use a variety of fuels or renewable resources to generate electricity, it was necessary to determine which companies rely predominantly on coal in order to include them in the "coal money" database. Included in this database are companies or subsidiaries of companies that generated a minimum of 3.5 million Megawatt hours (MWh) from coal and at least 70% or more of their electricity from coal in the year 2006. Note that 3.5 million MWh is equivalent to a 500 Megawatt coal-fired power plant running at 80% capacity for a year. The information used to determine the amount and percentage of electricity each company generated from coal was obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency's eGRID2006 database.

How does it work?

We wrote software to go through a database of contributions and pull out all the contributions from known coal company Political Action Committees or employees thereof. We only look at the contributions that went to the selected group of elected officials (House, Senate, etc.) while they were in office. Contributions that are below the specified minimum are discarded.

Next, we check how much each company gave, and how much each legislator received and exclude those that don't meet the minimum that has been set (under 'Filters'). We add up all the contributions and run this data through network visualization software to position the companies and legislator according to their ties. We also pull the identification numbers for the original FEC records so that it is possible to click through from the table view and see the exact FEC filing the data came from.

What is Mountaintop Removal (MTR)?

The US Environmental Protection Agency defines mountaintop removal as follows:
"Mountaintop removal/valley fill is a mining practice where the tops of mountains are removed, exposing the seams of coal. Mountaintop removal can involve removing 500 feet or more of the summit to get at buried seams of coal. The earth from the mountaintop is then dumped in the neighboring valleys."
To lean more about the impacts of mountaintop removal, see the ilovemountains.org FAQ.

Are there bills in Congress now that would impact the coal industry?

In the coming years, Congress will be considering numerous bills that will dramatically affect the coal industry. One such piece of legislation, the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 2169), would stop the dumping of mining waste into streams and would curtail most mountaintop removal coal mining. Click here to see a list of Members of Congress who support the Clean Water Protection Act.

Where did you get the data?

Federal legislators running for federal office are required to file reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) giving the names and addresses of everyone who donates more than $250 to the legislator. This information is available free of charge from the FEC. We also purchased data from the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics that that group has painstakingly cleaned and categorized. We also used tools, data, and information from the following sources:

Center for Responsive Politics

Categorized coal contributions and company names
Assistance with data interpretation

Appalacihian Voices

Created database of coalmining companies and their involvement in mountaintop removal

GovTrack.us

Photos of members of Congress (courtesy of the Government Printing office)
Information about who is in office when

Sunlight Labs API.

Some additional legislator photos
Information about current members of congress
ID number conversion tables
Zip code lookup

Images of company logos were acquired from company websites without permission or authorization and may be under copyright of the respective companies. They are used here nominatively to refer to the companies and do not in any way indicate an endorsement or sponsorship of this project by any of these firms.

How did we determine which companies are engaged in mountaintop removal?

Both mining companies that operate mountaintop removal mines, and electric utilities that buy coal from those companies, are marked in the data as "mountaintop removal companies." In order to determine which mining companies operated mountaintop removal mines, we primarily made use of three data sets:

A database of all US coal mines and historic ownership of those mines supplied to Appalachian Voices by the Mine Safety and Health Administration in September, 2007. That database is searchable at MSHA's Data Retrieval System. This allowed us to determine the ownership and geographic location of surface mines in the Central Appalachian region where mountaintop removal occurs.
A comprehensive map of Appalachian mountaintop removal mine sites based on satellite imagery from 1976, 1985, 1995 and 2005, produced by Skytruth for Appalachian Voices in October, 2007. Landsat satellite images were purchased from the US Geologic Survey (USGS), and 1:100,000 scale digital elevation models of pre-1976 terrain were also provided by the USGS. Click here to see the detailed methodology of this study. By correlating the location of surface mines from the MSHA data (#1) with this map, we were able to determine which mines could be considered mountaintop removal mines.
Because coal companies can be divided up into hundreds of subsidiaries and limited liability corporations (LLCs), the final step was to determine the relationships between local mining companies and their parent companies, which are typically contributing monies. To determine relationships between mining companies, we used the SEC EDGAR(R) database.

Determining which power companies purchased coal from companies engaged in mountaintop removal was possible by using a database compiled for the "What's My Connection" utility on iLoveMountains.org. More information on this data set is available here.

How recent is this data?

Most legislators are only required to file quarterly, so in some cases data may be several months old. There is some additional delay while the FEC and the Center for Responsive Politics process the data. The date of the most recent FEC data release that we are using is shown on the bottom of each page. You can view the date of each contribution by looking in the details of the table view.

What do the settings under 'Filters' do?

To make our relationship maps easier to read, we've included filters that make it possible set what range of values should be shown. Adjusting these settings to lower values will include more of the corresponding elements in the relationship and table views. For example, setting the option to 'Show contribution in the top 75%' means that all the contributions except the smallest values will be included in the views. (The actual dollar values used for filtering are displayed under the title for the map)

The 'Show contributions' option refers to each individual contribution received by a member/legislator, By decreasing the minimum contribution amount, you will expand the number of listed contributions.
The 'Show Politician' option filters out legislators based on total amount of money that the member accepted from the Coal Industry in the given time period. By decreasing the minimum total, more members/legislators will appear in the relationship map or table.
The 'Show companies' option filters out companies based on the total amount of money that each company gave to federal legislators or members in the given time period. If a company gave less than the stated minimum, their details will not be listed on the relationship map or table. By decreasing the minimum total, more companies will appear.

How do I show more (or fewer) companies on the map/table?

See the 'Filters' settings above

What is the Table View for?

The Table View and the Relationship View always show the same data from two different perspectives. The Table View allows you to sort every legislator in the graph, to see the amounts from all of a legislator's contributors at the same time, and to link directly to the FEC image file of the report-- but it is much harder to get a picture of all the relationships at the same time in this view.

Why don't the column in the table views add up to the legislator's total?

The most common reason for this is that the filter settings (see 'Filters' above) are hiding some of the contributions in order to simplify the display. The hidden contributions are still included in the totals. To view all the contributions, you can set the contribution limit lower, or look at legislator's profile view.

How are the results from the Zip Code and Name Search different from other views?

The Search views allow you to find members of Congress either by your zip code or by typing part of their name. The result will be a list of members. Clicking on any of the members will show a profile with the total since 2000 as well as totals for each Congressional cycle. Clicking any of these cycles will show a map of contributions to the member for that year (only).

What software did you use?

The data is stored in a MySql database. We use PHP to build the web pages and to format the data in order run through the open-source Graphviz software to compute the positions of the companies and legislators on the layout. The resulting image is combined with custom Javascript code to create the interactive elements. The interactive tables are created in part using the Prototype script.aculo.us and TableKit ajax libraries.

What do the negative values mean? Are legislators paying coal companies now?

Well, not directly. Negative values usually indicate repayment of a debt, or the return of a contribution from an earlier year.

What do the companies 'Coal Mining' or 'Coal Miner' mean?

Some people who work in the coal industry list their occupations as 'self-employed' or 'consultant,' so we don't know exactly which company they work for.

Is this showing me the money they accepted while in office, or the money they got while running for office?

For each congressional session we show the members of congress who were in office and the contributions they received during that session. Since Senators have six-year terms, we are only showing two years of their term at a time.

Why are the contributions from the 106th congress lower?

Currently our data only goes back as far as 2000. This means that we have only half the data for the 106th congress so the totals for that congress will appear artificially lower.

What does the category 'pre-term contributions' in the congress profiles mean?

For congress members we show the contributions received during each term they were in office. This means that the contributions they receive during their initial campaign would not be included. So we added an additional category for these contributions to make sure they are included in the total.

How do I find the specific contribution I'm looking for on the FEC form?

Each FEC form image corresponds to three or more contributions. In most cases the campaign committee for the Congress member receiving the donation is listed at the top of the page. The transactions are usually identified by the letters 'A, B, C' in the left margin. Next to each letter is the name of the contributor, below is the address and employer information. The amount of the contribution is shown in the box on the right.

When I look at the image of the report filing from the FEC I see a different year entered for the campaign, why?

Sometimes legislators use contributions to pay off debts from old campaigns, or have already begun collecting for future campaigns.

Why are contributions from 'Mrs. Bigcoal' included with 'Very Big Coal Company Inc.' when she doesn't work there?

One of the ways that political entities get around contribution limits is to have the legislators' spouses and family members make contributions. CRP matches up individuals who have the same last names and addresses as company executives and includes them as well.

Hey, I live in Texas or Georgia and it told me the wrong representative for my zip code!

Some of the district data for Texas and Georgia is out of date due to congressional redistricting. We will update our data as soon as it's available. In the meantime, if you know the name of your representative you can do a direct name search for your member.

Where can I find more information about other kinds of contributions to legislators?

A good place to start is the website of the Center for Responsive Politics. Oil Change International's FollowTheOilMoney tool tracks the flow of Oil Money in US politics.