With soaring fuel bills and a growing green lobby, energy-saving measures are becoming more important to househunters.
It includes the American Small Business League (ASBL) and various pressure groups for women and minority entrepreneurs, all of which devote most of their lobbying energy to increasing their share of the fiscal gravy train.
The state's Roman Catholic bishops have been somewhat distracted, too, having focused their lobbying energies this session on defeating a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to bring civil claims, and have appeared unprepared for the battle over marriage.
In 2008 and early 2009, Ameren paid Elmendorf Strategies $120,000 to lobby on "energy issues, global warming and greenhouse gas legislation, energy taxes".
Calderwood and his managers are also constantly monitoring the lobby's "energy".
Mr. Hayes was hired to help the company resolve a costly dispute with a federal agency and also to lobby federal energy regulators.
While it focuses on lobbying on energy, forests and similar issues, the club has also been pouring money into lobbying Congress to pass campaign finance legislation that has passed the Senate but stalled last week in the House.
Lobbying by energy companies to channel government policy towards serving their best interests is intense.
The executive committee, Mr. Hable added, also did not know Mr. Bone was lobbying the energy commission until 2001.
The issue then fell to Mr. Bush, who had long questioned the science pointing to human-caused global warming and was heavily lobbied by energy companies to reject it outright.
Jeffrey Harris, vice president for programs at the Alliance to Save Energy, a national group that lobbies on energy issues, called the legislation "a very significant step forward" in testing the combination of mandates and incentives that could work at a national level to encourage lower energy use in commercial and residential buildings.
