Troy Carter pledged to shun oil industry money

Troy Carter, runoff candidate to succeed Cedric Richmond in Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District seat, has accepted $19,150 from oil and gas interests. Despite a campaign pledge to shun the industry’s money, a national environmental nonprofit says.

The oil Change in the USA removed him from its list of more than 3,200 candidates and officeholders including his opponent, Karen Carter Peterson who signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge.The nonprofit says Carter campaign reported receiving nine donations from oil and gas sources, including top executives at Entergy Corp., a Chevron Corp. lobbyist and several companies such as Edison Chouest Offshore of Cut Off and Grand Isle Shipyard that service the offshore oil and gas industry.

Collin Rees, a senior campaigner for oil Change USA made a statement that the nonprofit alerted Carter campaign on April 12 of the contributions, giving it one week to respond and return the donations per the pledge’s terms. The nonprofit received no response,Rees also added that they are concerned and refusing to respond or refusing to remedy the pledge. This is considered a violation. Carter was removed from the pledge list Monday when the week elapsed.

Rees said it’s not unusual for No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge signers to receive a couple of contributions from lobbyists with what the nonprofit considers to be a problematic client or companies with names not associated with oil and gas interests. Typically, signers, once notified, return the money. In the vast majority of cases, they do respond and return the money promptly. It’s probably a single digit out of our 3,200 signers where we’ve had to remove somebody from the pledge for noncompliance.