Iosif Dan, a top advisor to Romanian President Ion Iliescu, explained in a recent interview with the Center for Public Integrity why he had accepted money from a petroleum company vying for a piece of the country's oil-privatization action.

"I have taken some money from these boys, as a loan, and this seems perfectly okay to me," Dan said. "Should I have gone to a bank that would give me money with … interest instead of going to these people? They are my friends."

The frank and surprising interview took place in the Cotroceni Palace, the headquarters of the Romanian Presidency. Dan is just one of several top Romanian officials who have connections to the oil industry.

With proven crude oil reserves of about 950 million barrels and with the largest refining capacity in Central and Eastern Europe, Romania, a nation of 22.6 million people, plays an important role in the European oil economy.

From the end of the Second World War until December 1989, when Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was executed, the Romanian oil industry was entirely State-run. Since then, it has been gradually privatized and restructured and its refining capacity downsized.

Romania is scheduled to join the European Union in 2007. Privatizing the country's main oil company, the National Petroleum Society, Petrom, is considered a vital part of that process.

Petrom is the biggest national oil company in central and eastern Europe. It is the main crude oil producer in Romania and accounts for roughly a third of Romania's natural gas needs. It also has 700 retail stations and 146 depots, part of a national network that accounts for more than half of the total number of gas stations in Romania.

In 2003, Petrom's annual revenue was more than $2.7 billion. The company also does oil-field exploration in Kazakhstan, Iran and India and has a chain of gas stations in Hungary and the Republic of Moldova.

In the spring of 2001, at a cocktail party on Capitol Hill, a staff member of the House Committee on Science brought up a subject of great interest to a lobbyist for the Gas Technology Institute, a Chicago-area organization that provides research and development for the natural gas industry: Rep. Ralph Hall, an 11-term Texas Democrat who sat on both the science committee and the Committee on Energy and Commerce, was interested in ultra-deepwater drilling and research collaborations between industry and government. In fact, the staffer let on, the science committee was drafting a bill proposing that the government subsidize technology for extracting natural gas and oil from hard-to-reach sources such as sand, rock and the deepest waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

This no doubt came as welcome news to the GTI lobbyist, as the organization was already working on developing deepwater drilling technology. And the news would only get better: GTI eventually contributed language to the legislation, which was later incorporated in the 2003 comprehensive energy bill as a program that would allocate more than $2 billion for research into "ultra deepwater and unconventional natural gas technology."

But if GTI's constituents stood to gain from the measure, many lawmakers saw it as yet another gift to an industry with plenty of market incentive to go after valuable hydrocarbons itself. Now, as Congress places a new energy bill atop its list of priorities for the upcoming session, Gulf-state legislators are shrugging off the skeptics and again promoting the program as beneficial for American energy independence, not to mention hometown jobs.

Energy companies prospecting for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico have used advanced technologies to drill in the deepest waters of U.S. territory. But what happens when they have the capacity—some say they already do—to drill beyond those borders into the high seas? Many believe the answer lies in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

UNCLOS has been signed by 156 nations plus the European Union since opening for ratification in 1982. The treaty endeavors to establish a comprehensive legal framework regarding the world's oceans, including navigational rights, marine conservation and exploitation of resources. The convention also creates several institutions to carry out its provisions: the International Sea Bed Authority regulates mineral prospecting in the deep seabed, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea resolves border disputes, and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf determines national maritime boundaries.

President Ronald Reagan originally refused to sign the treaty because of language he believed prevented the United States from mining minerals from the sea bed. The following year, however, he announced a new oceans policy that incorporated most of the convention's provisions, including the establishment of a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off U.S. shores. In November 1994, President Bill Clinton sent UNCLOS to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for ratification, but in 1995 incoming chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) refused to even hold a hearing on it because of his view that all such UN charters undermined U.S. sovereignty.

Today, a coalition encompassing legislators, the energy industry, scientists and the U.S. Navy hope to finally witness the ratification of UNCLOS during the coming session of Congress. The Bush administration has called passage of the treaty "urgent," and industries from fishing to shipping to telecommunications have lobbied in favor of it.

After scores of private meetings with Big Oil giants such as ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is aggressively undermining the authority of state and local governments to reject dozens of proposed liquefied natural gas facilities all across the country.

The energy companies' influence with FERC and its chairman, Pat Wood III, is evident in schedules, letters, e-mails and handwritten notes obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Center for Public Integrity. The documents indicate an extremely close relationship between the commission and the industry it regulates.

Over the past three years, FERC's current four commissioners have met privately at least 83 times with executives and lobbyists representing oil and gas companies active in the LNG trade. In comparison, FERC has met privately only a handful of times with opponents of specific LNG projects.

Industry access seems to be paying off. For example, despite state and local opposition, FERC recently asserted its authority to unilaterally permit the construction and operation of LNG facilities. (California is currently in the process of challenging that decision in court. ) Top FERC officials have also supported more LNG imports in speeches and presentations. The agency has even announced a "new regulatory approach" that "remove[d] economic and regulatory barriers to the development of onshore LNG import terminals."

NEW DELHI — Late last year, officials at the World Bank decided it was time to practice what they had been preaching about reducing carbon emissions.

Well, sort of.

Some environmentally-friendly types at the international finance agency calculated the bank spewed 147 tons of carbon into the atmosphere when it flew in attendees for a conference in Washington in October 2003.

Looking to set a cheap and practical example on the worldwide issue of carbon emissions, the Washington, D.C.-based organization went halfway around the world to a tiny village located in the remote jungles of southern India.

In the ironically named village of Powerguda, the villagers had recently begun to collect and sell to a local mill the seeds of a native tree called the Pongamia pinnata. The seeds produce a natural oil that can be used as an alternative to diesel fuel. And unlike diesel and other fossil fuels, pongamia oil produces little carbon emissions when burned.

By providing the raw material for an alternative to relatively dirty diesel, Powerguda was effectively reducing the overall carbon load in the atmosphere—at least in the eyes of the World Bank. And it was this theoretical tiny reduction in worldwide carbon emissions that the Bank decided to buy to offset the carbon emissions resulting from its conference.

The price tag to the World Bank: $645. For that the bank got the village's entire potential carbon emission savings for the next 10 years.

The World Bank and others believe the Powerguda deal—while tiny and relatively insignificant—could help provide a new blueprint for governments and businesses trying to comply with the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol, the controversial manifesto meant to address greenhouse gas emissions on a worldwide basis. The treaty goes into effect early next year, after being approved this month by Russia.

Former Sen. Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who ran for President in 1996, is known for his dry wit and television commercials after 45 years of public service.

What he is not known for is his work as a powerful lobbyist in the nation's capital for Indonesia.

Espousing the Pacific nation's value to the United States as an ally in the war on terror, Dole is also trying to recover hundreds of millions of dollars for the Indonesians—at the expense of an American company.

The Indonesian government paid the Alston & Bird law firm nearly $850,000 to have Dole and nine other lobbyists wine and dine Washington officials during a five-month period in the past year. Another political insider, Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for International Law Enforcement and chief counsel to Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' presidential candidate, is part of Dole's team.

One of the top tasks for Dole and company is protecting the interests of Indonesia's state oil company Pertamina in a huge, multi-million dollar legal case brought against it by Karaha Bodas Co., a Cayman Islands-based joint venture between U.S. companies Caithness Energy and Florida Power and Light Co.

In 1998, Karaha Bodas had a contract with Pertamina to build a geothermal plant in Indonesia, which was voided by the since-ousted Suharto dictatorship. The Geneva Arbitration Court found Pertamina liable for breach of contract, and KBC subsequently took Pertamina to court across the globe—in the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, even Singapore—to freeze the company's assets and collect up to $299 million in damages and interest. Pertamina has said it wants to settle the case, but Karaha Bodas has held firm and pushed ahead with its litigation.

"Pertamina owes KBC a lawful debt and they should pay it as soon as possible," said Chris Dugan, lead counsel for Karaha Bodas in the case.

Saudi Arabia has spent more of its petroleum dollars lobbying the U.S. government than any of the other 10 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, a total of $6.6 million since mid-2003.

All told, the Saudi government and companies within the kingdom have hired 11 lobby shops and public relations firms to plead their case before official Washington and the American public, the Center for Public Integrity has found.

Business spiked on K Street soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Saudis have spent more than $20 million on lobbying and public relations efforts in the United States since the terrorist attacks, according to foreign lobbying disclosure filings with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia.

Qorvis Communications Inc. has benefited the most from the Saudis' political and PR largesse, taking in $4.5 million during October 2003 through March 2004. Through Qorvis, several firms have been subcontracted to conduct focus groups, produce print, radio, and television ads, and meet with Washington power players.

An Alexandria, Va., firm, Sandler-Innocenzi, handled the radio image campaign for the Saudis. In late 2003, the company orchestrated a three-week blitz in 16 markets across the country touting the kingdom and its people. The total cost was nearly $1 million.

As one of Qorvis' strategic partners, Patton Boggs, one of Washington's largest law and lobbying shops, performs a mountain of lobbying work for the Saudis. For example, Patton Boggs lobbyists have met with congressional staffers on behalf of Saudi interests 62 times in the first half of 2004 alone.

Using Venezuela's oil wealth to fund his social programs, President Hugo Chavez has divided his country largely along class lines, resulting in protests, strikes, and even a coup since his 1998 election.

Yet Chavez not only secured enough support in his home country to win this past August's recall election, but also found friends here in the United States—grassroots activists who have opposed the White House and now promote Chavez's cause.

The Latin American nation's welfare policies have reverberated with American organizers. "Venezuela, under Chavez, is using its oil resources to improve the lives of the poor," said Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco, Calif., international human rights organization. "We here are obviously very excited about that."

Chavez has spent more than $1.6 million from mid-2003 through June 2004 on lobbying the federal government in Washington. The country also created its own Washington mouthpiece called the Venezuela Information Office in July 2003 and soon after hired a top U.S. protest organizer as its executive director.

The VIO tapped into a major U.S. activist network by contacting Global Exchange in early September 2003. The group has helped organize some of the world's largest protests, including demonstrations against Seattle's 1999 World Trade Organization summit and the 2004 Republican National Convention.

"We have been very careful to make sure we remain separate in our work," said Deborah James, the VIO's executive director, referring to Global Exchange. "I have not met with their people down there [in Venezuela]."

Yet the activist group and the VIO together posted an action alert online in May 2004 to voice concern over an editorial in The Washington Post.

As a trading bloc, The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is one of the world's most powerful. Yet political influence here in Washington, even for the oil-rich nations, does not come cheap.

Since mid-2003, OPEC members will have spent at least $13.3 million in lobbying the U.S. federal government and currying favor with the American public, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of foreign agent lobbying disclosure records filed with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Unlike garden variety lobbying forms by U.S.-based clients and representatives, the foreign agent forms are extremely detailed. They even include details on specific meetings, who attended, and what was discussed.

All 11 member countries of the petroleum cartel have lobbyists representing their interests in Washington, including some of city's premier political power brokers.

"[OPEC] acts as a price regulator and indirectly affects American politics," said Michael Klare, the author of Blood and Oil and a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College. "If prices go too high, that has implications for the economy. If prices go too low, that has implications for the Texas producers because their costs are too high."

The group's members have hired high-powered law firms and advocacy shops such as Hill & Knowlton and Barbour Griffith & Rogers to lobby legislators. They have contracted political consultants to devise elaborate media campaigns to win over public opinion. And they have wined and dined lawmakers on Capitol Hill and in the White House, all in the hopes of swinging U.S. foreign policy their way.