On Thursday, a handful of Senators wrote a letter to President Obama that stated, “as you continue your negotiations, we urge you to remember the oil and gas industry is part of the solution.” Or, in other words, don’t single out big oil companies and their taxpayer subsidies as a way to reduce the deficit.

Ken Vogel writes in Politico this morning that, “An increasingly bitter personal rift between billionaires T. Boone Pickens and Charles and David Koch has morphed into an expensive political battle that is testing the commitment of House Republicans to the tea party principles many of them have publicly embraced.”

National Journal reports in an email this morning:

Just over a year ago, during a Congressional hearing on the BP oil spill, we saw an apology by a member of Congress to an oil company executive whose PAC and employees had donated to his campaign.

Here's a round-up of Public Campaign and Public Campaign Action Fund's work for the week of July 5-July 8, 2011.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has an oped in Investors Business Daily today attacking environmental groups for any number of things, including using hyperbole to "motivate" environmental donors.

One year ago today, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) sat at a Congressional hearing about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster and apologized to BP executives for the White House pressure on the company.

Former Sen. George Allen (and current Senate candidate) is holding a fundraiser today with some of his former colleagues at Cava, a Mediterranean restaurant, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Politico reports this morning that Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFP), an organization founded and funded by the owners of energy giant Koch Industries, will begin a new campaign to blame President Obama for rising gas prices.

At a Congressional hearing today, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour attacked Senate Democrats for trying to end wasteful subsidies to oil companies by saying, “Do I think there are some people that don’t like the oil industry and think it’s a good whipping boy politically? I suspect that.”