Exxon Mobil gave a cease-and-desist order to Comcast, forcing the cable provider to pull an ad about climate change from Fox News' coverage of the State of the Union address in some areas, according to a press release from one of the groups responsible for the ad.

The ad, titled "Exxon Hates Your Children," urges Congress to eliminate fossil fuel industry subsidies, and was produced by progressive advocacy groups Oil Change International, The Other 98% and Environmental Action.

Huffington Post reports:

The ad was scheduled to air in Houston, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, during Fox's State of the Union coverage. However, a few hours before the event began, a senior vice president of Universal McCann, which handles global media duties for Exxon, fired off an email to Comcast, which provides Fox programming in those areas.

"Please let this serve as an official cease & desist notification that claims made by Oil Change International that their claims in any spot that 'ExxonMobil Hates Your Children' is false and unsubstantiated," the email stated.

"ExxonMobil fully expects the spot in question to be pulled down immediately," the email continued. "Any delay in executing this cease & desist will be viewed as willful defamation and slander of the Exxon Mobil Corporation and will result in aggressive action."

The ad is part of an ongoing campaign -- ExxonHatesYourChildren.com -- targeting the more than $10 billion per year the U.S. government spends in fossil fuel subsidies. In response to Exxon's move to halt the ad run, they’ve launched a new group statement, Exxon Can’t Silence Us, which is already garnering thousands of public signatures online.

“When the richest company on Earth uses their power to silence the voices of average Americans it’s a very dark day for democracy,” said John Sellers, of The Other 98%. “Exxon thinks that they can take away our right to freedom of speech. They have made a huge mistake. They will only make us louder.”

“Every year U.S. taxpayers give Exxon and the rest of Big Fossil at least $10 Billion corporate welfare – it’s time to stop our tax dollars from funding climate chaos” said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International. “People are tired of seeing our political system bullied by the biggest oil companies in the world. It’s time to fight back.”

“We wanted to do something very simple: on a night where the President laid out a plan to address our climate and economic challenges, we wanted Fox News viewers to finally hear about Exxon and the billions in taxpayer dollars that go toward helping them ruin our future,” said Drew Hudson, Executive Director of Environmental Action. “What people can’t understand is why it’s okay for some viewers to hear the full story in primetime, but others have to be shielded by the richest company in the world.”

By Kim Barker and Justin Elliott, ProPublica

Dark money groups flooded Albuquerque's airwaves in August, aiming to sway a hotly contested U.S. Senate race by making more than half the political ad buys on top TV stations.

That fact, gleaned through a review of TV station political ad records now available in our Free the Files news application, highlights the role that unlimited anonymous money is playing in this year's election.

Our analysis of a month of ad orders in the Senate race between Republican Heather Wilson and Democrat Rep. Martin Heinrich is possible because of a new Federal Communications Commission rule requiring major-market affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC to upload political ad files to a government website.

In statements to ProPublica, the campaigns of Heinrich and Wilson blamed each other for relying on dark money.

Wilson campaign spokesman Chris Sanchez accused "environmental extremists" of pouring money "into New Mexico to falsely attack Heather Wilson because they know her opponent, Congressman Heinrich, supports their radical agenda."

Heinrich campaign spokeswoman Whitney Potter accused "corporate special interest groups" of spending millions in secret money to support Wilson "because they know she will support their misplaced priorities that put the wealthy special interests ahead of middle-class families in New Mexico."

The Senate race has attracted national attention because, with incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman retiring, it is a rare open seat. The race was considered tight earlier this year. After a summer of heavy spending by outside groups on both sides, Heinrich is now the favorite.

In August, while Wilson's campaign contracted to spend about $512,000 on ads in Albuquerque, four prominent conservative groups booked almost $658,000 of ads attacking Heinrich, station records show.

That means about 56 percent of the ad orders on the Republican side came from groups that don't disclose their donors, including Americans for Prosperity, founded by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, and Crossroads GPS, launched by GOP strategist Karl Rove. Campaigns are required to report their donors.

Heinrich, who as a congressman has called for donor disclosure and campaign-finance reform, booked an estimated $246,000 worth of ads in August. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which also reports its donors, chimed in with another $74,000.

But nonprofits on the Democratic side spent an additional $288,000 on ads criticizing Wilson, about 47 percent of the money spent on ads overall.

The liberal dark money groups included a coalition of environmental organizations and the Citizens for Strength and Security Fund, which appears to be a successor to a nonprofit active in the 2010 election.

The spending figures are estimates because most of the files uploaded to the FCC website are ad orders. Sometimes, ordered ads never run because of changes in programming. The numbers also are  not comprehensive; other TV stations in the Albuquerque market besides affiliates of the major networks do not have to put political ad files online until 2014.

While the FCC files have long been public, they were previously kept on paper at TV stations and were largely inaccessible. The files capture certain spending not reported to the Federal Election Commission and offer a detailed look at how campaigns and outside groups are spending ad dollars, including how many ads have been ordered, which stations are running them, the programs they run on, and how much they cost.

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