I’ve written before about the essential provision in state law that requires political ads to include identification of the three top contributors to the campaign.

We are lucky this has survived attempts to dismantle the rule. It’s really important this year because the oil companies are spending untold millions trying to defeat the ballot initiative that would raise oil taxes by a few hundred million. They’ve already put up nearly $11 million.

Voting for Ballot Measure One is the most sensible step Alaska can take this fall toward a real fiscal plan for Alaska that strikes a proper balance. If there are elements of it that need to be tweaked, that can happen as early as 2023.

But the oil industry giants would have you believe that it is the end of the world as they know it. The weeping and gnashing of teeth from the Texas-based companies is a bit too much.

The campaign attacking the initiative is paid for almost entirely by ConocoPhillips, BP, ExxonMobil and Hilcorp, as everyone in Alaska should know by now. When you hear the name OneAlaska, it means OilAlaska.

Now there is a new advertising effort with a misleading twist applied to the list of top contributors that deserves special recognition.

The Alaska Chamber of commerce has lent its name to a second front group nearly entirely funded by oil companies from Texas.

The disclosure statement on the Alaska Public Offices Commission website doesn’t include a single contribution from any of the 54 board members of the chamber.

The companies appear to have decided that only two of them should give to the Alaska Chamber front group. That way the list of “top contributors” can include an entity that is not named ConocoPhillips, BP, ExxonMobil or Hilcorp.

ConocoPhillips gave the chamber $400,000 on Aug. 26 for the attack ads. Hilcorp, controlled by Texan Jeff Hildebrand, one of America’s richest men, chipped in with $400,000 on Aug. 31.

So 99.9 percent of the money backing this campaign is from Texas, from outsiders.

The third contributor listed on the disclosure line? It’s Calista, which gave all of $500 to get that coveted ranking as a “top contributor.” There are no other contributors.

Send $1 to the chamber and you can become the fourth biggest contributor.

Why $500?

I suspect the modest sum is part of a setup so that the chamber can say at least one of its top three contributors is not an oil company from Texas.

But $500 is not enough to erase the deception and dishonesty at the heart of the Alaska Chamber campaign.

Calista and the 54 board members listed by the APOC should be embarrassed at what the organization is doing with oil company money from Texas.

The chamber has already contracted for $731,000, with ads created by Brilliant Media Strategies that portray the oil tax measure as the work of people who want to destroy Alaska and control it from afar—extreme environmentalists from Outside.

That the Alaska Center in Anchorage supports the initiative no more makes the measure an environmental plot than the four cash donations to the opposition from Alaskans—totaling $2,350—make OneAlaska a grassroots movement. Four oil companies have given nearly $10 million to bankroll OneAlaska.

“Reject Outsider’s Meddling in Alaska,” says the chamber ad funded by the Texas companies. (You would think at these prices that they would know enough to get the apostrophe in the right place.)

“Their agenda would shut down our economy,” a chamber radio ad says, as ominous music plays in the background. “That’s why Alaska Native corporations, small businesses and labor union oppose Ballot Measure 1. Reject outsiders meddling in Alaska’s future.”

There are no small businesses, no labor unions and only one Native corporation coughing up cash for the chamber. There is just the $800,000 from the two oil companies and the $500 from Calista, $800,500.

Without Calista, the chamber would not have topped the $800,000 mark.

Compare OneAlaska’s $10 million haul from the oil companies to the hundreds of donations from Alaskans to Vote Yes for Alaska’s Fair Share.

If you really want to keep outsiders from meddling in Alaska, vote yes on Ballot Measure One.

Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.

Comments? Write to me at dermotmcole@gmail.com