VIDEO: New ad ties Romney to Big Oil

Priorities USA Action this week released an ad it says reveals Mitt Romney’s ties to Big Oil companies. According to Priorities, dedicated to protecting progressive leaders against what they call “misleading attacks,” the true motivation for Big Oil’s criticism of President Obama is to elect Mitt Romney, who the group says “stands to protect Big Oil’s profits at the expense of middle class Americans.”

“While President Obama is taking serious action to make America less dependent on dirty and dangerous sources of Middle East oil and create clean energy jobs here at home, Mitt Romney and the oil companies bankrolling his campaign are profiting from high gas prices politically and financially,” says Paul Begala, senior adviser for Priorities USA Action, in a press release. “How can the American people trust Governor Romney to bring down gas prices when he and his biggest backers benefit so much from gas prices being so high?”

According to a recent Politico piece, the group funding a recent $3.6 million ad campaign hitting President Obama on gas prices has deep ties to Charles and David Koch, the billionaire libertarian brothers who spend millions to influence elections across the country.

Via Politico:

The American Energy Alliance is the political arm of the Institute for Energy Research, and sources tell POLITICO that both groups are funded partly by the Koch brothers and their donor network.

The groups are run by Tom Pyle, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. Pyle regularly attends the mega-donor summits organized by the Koch brothers, including the 2012 winter summit in Indian Wells, Calif., where the Kochs raised more than $150 million to be directed to groups ahead of the general election.

The Priorities USA Action ad shows a clip of the Koch-funded ad, while a narrator asks, “Who’s behind this ad smearing President Obama?”

Big Oil, that’s who.

The money they make from high gas prices — is going right into Mitt Romney’s campaign.

Big oil executives have pledged 200 million to help him.

And Mitt Romney’s pledged to protect their record profits — and their billions in special tax breaks too.

These guys all profit. You pay the price.

The ad will run both on television and online in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.

Watch it in full: