It’s not only health care that is prompting rallies and counter rallies across North Carolina during the August congressional recess.

On Thursday, Energy Citizens, a coalition of industry groups, will hold a rally at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, reports Rob Christensen. Greensboro is the home of freshman Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan.

The event is called “Rally for Jobs and Affordable Energy” and is one of a series of rallies being held in 19 states across the country.

The industry-sponsored rally centers on legislation in Congress designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions often called cap and trade.

Meanwhile, a counter rally will be held across the street by a coalition of groups that wants Hagan to support legislation backed by Obama administration, which says it will create clean energy jobs and lesson dependence on foreign oil.

Environmental groups and their allies were circulating a memo from the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying arm of the oil industry, which is organizing the rallies.

The memo says, in part: “The objective of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at those states’ U.S. Senators to avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill and the Obama Administration’s tax increases on our industry.”

A mayors group led by Pat McCrory sought out corporate sponsors.

The Republican Mayors and Local Officials 527 advocacy group, which the Republican gubernatorial candidate led from 2000 to 2005, advertised for corporate sponsors on its Web site.

"Wanted: Corporate sponsors," read one page. 

"The RMLO hallmark of promoting local governance and partnering with other elected officials at all levels is also extended to those who share RMLO's ideals, including Corporate Sponsors," McCrory wrote in a welcome message on the group's Web site.

Annual sponsorships cost $5,000.

Based on tax forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service, the following groups contributed in 2003: the American Trucking Association and the International Council of Shopping Centers each gave $5,000 and the Bond Market Association contributed $10,000.

In 2005, the shopping centers council, the American Petroleum Institute and the Edison Electric Institute each gave $5,000 and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association gave $10,000.

Other corporate sponsors listed on the group's Web site in 2003 include: the American Chemistry Association, AT&T, Anheuser-Busch, DaimlerChrysler, Fannie Mae, Goldman Sachs, the National Rifle Association and Waste Management.

That and other pages are no longer available online, as the group appears to have let its Web site registration expire in September of 2003. The address was then briefly used by an outside company to advertise Internet porn (NSFW) and is now defunct.

They can be viewed on the Wayback Machine, an Internet archive. 

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole has accepted more than a quarter of a miillion dollars from oil and gas companies and their employees.

According to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, the Salisbury Republican has received $266,456 from people associated with the oil and gas industry since 2002. Of that, $102,827 — or roughly 39 percent — came in the past two years.

Dole received much more from other industries, however.

Over her career, she's received $2.6 million from retirees, $903,810 from lawyers, $853,063 from people in real estate and $747,736 from employees of investment firms. Donations from the oil and gas sector were 14th among industries who gave to Dole.

Donors include Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who gave $1,000 in April; and American Petroleum Institute president Red Cavaney, who gave $4,100 in 2007.

In addition, Dole has received $35,000 from oil and gas companies' political action committees since 2002, including $10,000 from Piedmont Natural Gas, $6,000 from ExxonMobil and $5,000 from Valero Energy.

Of that money, $30,500 came in the past two years.

After the jump, the contributions.

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U.S. Sen. Richard Burr’s chief of staff, Alicia Peterson Clark, has joined an international lobbying and public affairs consulting firm in Washington.

Peterson Clark will become a vice president and senior advisor for APCO Worldwide, the company announced.

She worked with Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, during his time in the U.S. House of Representatives and re-joined him in the Senate. In between, she also worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and in the White House during Bush’s first term.

APCO Worldwide has a long list of clients that include Microsoft, Ikea and Procter & Gamble. The agency also has worked with the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, two key supporters of Burr. Bob Dole, the former senator from Kansas and husband of Sen. Elizabeth Dole of Salisbury, joined the firm several years ago as a senior counselor.

Replacing Clark in Burr’s office will be Chris Joyner, a former Burr staffer who is returning from the American Petroleum Institute.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr's chief of staff, Alicia Peterson Clark, will leave that post to take a job for a public relations firm in Washington.

Clark started with Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, during his House of Representatives days, serving as scheduler, press secretary and chief of staff, Barb Barrett reports.

She worked with with the Bush-Cheney campaign during the 2000 presidential race and in the White House during the first Bush term. She returned to Burr's Senate office as his chief of staff in 2005.

Replacing Clark will be Chris Joyner, Burr's former policy director. Joyner is returning to Capitol Hill from the lobbying world. He left Burr's office in March 2006 to work for the American Petroleum Institute, where he lobbied on energy issues.

Joyner will be back as Burr's chief of staff June 2.

"You always hate these things, but I knew she'd be here for only a finite period of time," Burr said about Clark’s departure.

"I'm looking forward to having Chris Joyner come back," Burr said. "From an office perspective, I don't think we’re going to miss a beat, because he was trained by Alicia."

Correction: An earlier version had some details incorrect. 

The gas tax has gone as high as it can go.

Under a limit set by the legislature, the state tax cannot rise higher than 30.15 cents per gallon.

The N.C. Department of Revenue would have set the rate higher—to 33.68 cents—if Gov. Mike Easley and the legislature had not agreed to cap it last year, Bruce Siceloff reports.

North Carolina's gas tax, its primary funding source for road improvements and other transportation needs, is one of the highest in the nation. As of July 2007, only 14 states had higher gas tax rates, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

But the state also sets its highway use tax on car sales lower than other states.

Expect Bill Graham, the Republican gubernatorial candidate who previously pushed for a cap on the gas tax, to make some hay with today's increase.