The Center for Public Integrity

The political decision to sell the Elk Hills oil reserve was made from high in the Clinton administration nearly three years before the bids were due on Oct. 1, 1997. The critical time was late 1994 and early 1995, when Patricia Godley, then the Department of Energy's assistant secretary for fossil energy, tried to get the executive branch to sign off on a plan to create a public corporation to run the field more efficiently and obtain a better assessment of its worth.

"For the last eight years, I have had the challenge of running the streamlining program called 'Reinventing Government,'" Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore proudly declared at the final 2000 presidential debate, to bolster his claim that he favors smaller government. "And if there are any federal employees in this group, you know what that means." In the case of the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1 near Bakersfield, Calif., a 47,000-acre oil field that Gore's program "streamlined," it has meant a questionable deal with millions, perhaps billions, of dollars in lost federal revenue. In 1997, the Clinton administration auctioned off NPR-1, or Elk Hills, as the oil field is more commonly known due to its prevalence of Tule elk. Occidental Petroleum Corp. made the highest bid, at $3.65 billion. But from the start, the sale - the largest single privatization in U.S. history - was greeted with disdain by many executive branch employees familiar with the deal.

Montana might not seem like the logical setting for a full-scale brawl over a U.S. Senate seat, but with the U.S. Senate majority in the balance, every contest in the states matters. The voters of Montana have thus been inundated by ads from outside groups spending millions to push their issue or candidate.

Officially, thousands of delegates, legislators and elephant banner-wavers swarmed Philadelphia from July 31 to Aug. 3 to crown George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as the Republican ticket for 2000. But like its Democratic counterpart in August, this year's Republican National Convention seemed to be nearly as much about corporate America's penchant for party throwing as with anointing its presidential and vice presidential nominees.

George W. Bush violated federal securities laws at least four times when he was a director of a Texas oil firm in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to an internal government report.

New Yorks U.S. Senate candidates, Republican Representative Rick Lazio of Long Island and his Democratic opponent, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, have agreed to discourage outside interest groups from airing issue advocacy ads during the contest and to let the two candidates and their parties duke it out on their own.

WASHINGTON, D.C. September 27, 2000 — The largest media firms have gained the kind of access to the political process that only money can buy, according to a new report from the Center for Public Integrity. "Off the Record: What Media Corporations Don't Tell You About Their Legislative Agendas" documents the influence that the large broadcasting, cable and publishing conglomerates wield in Washington.

A list released by the White House shows that 404 guests stayed overnight at the White House and Camp David since Hillary Rodham Clinton began campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat from New York in July 1999. The guests include a substantial number of donors to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The Sierra Club is distributing campaign items attacking Senator Spencer Abraham in the form of a "campaign contribution," above, and his "environmental batting average," below.

The Second Congressional District cuts a swath about 275 miles long and 180 miles wide through the deepest, most rural counties of Mississippi.