Marathon

Marathon (Marathon Oil Corporation) based in Houston, Texas, explores for and produces oil and gas in countries such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ireland, Libya, Norway, the U.K., and the U.S. It has the fourth largest gas station chain in the U.S., selling under the brands Marathon, Speedway, and Pilot.

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
Marathon has been a corporate funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

A list of ALEC Corporations can be found here.

Political contributions
Marathon gave $209,100 to federal candidates in the 2006 election cycle through its political action committee - 21% to Democrats and 79% to Republicans.

Lobbying
Marathon is one of the largest energy company contributors to both Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress. These contributions total $346,200 to the 110th US Congress (as of the third quarter), the largest of which has been to Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) for $21,450. Sen. Landrieu, for her part, has strongly supported the oil industry on energy, war and climate bills.

Contributions like this from fossil fuel companies to members of Congress are often seen as a political barrier to pursuing clean energy.

More information on oil industry contributions to Congress can be found at FollowtheOilMoney.org, created by the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Oil Change International.

The company spent $2,200,000 for lobbying in 2006. $300,000 went to three outside lobbying firms with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists.

Personnel
Selected board members:
 * David A. Daberko, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer—National City Corporation
 * Charles R. Lee, Retired Non-Executive Chairman of the Board—Verizon Communications Inc.
 * Thomas J. Usher, Non-Executive Chairman of the Board—Marathon Oil Corporation

Contact details
5555 San Felipe Road Houston, TX 77056 United States Phone: 713-629-6600 Fax: 713-296-2952 Web: http://www.marathon.com

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Oil industry
 * Philip Lader

External articles

 * David Leigh, "Stripped of Its Wealth", Guardian/CorpWatch, June 2, 2005.
 * Ed Crooks and Sheila McNulty, "Big oil's waiting game over Iraq's reserves", Financial Times/CorpWatch, September 19, 2007.