With Friends Like These ....

Want to know who Big Oil likes the most. Ask Jim Jubak.

Think it's a matter of chance that we don't have a meaningful national energy policy? Wondering why oil and gas companies don't pay higher royalties to the Treasury now that oil is over $55 a barrel? Amazed that Washington loves to talk about energy research with promise 15 years down the road, but won't put significant money into alternative technologies that could reduce energy consumption now?

For answers to all those questions and more, just follow the money. Nothing about U.S. energy policy should be a surprise if you know where the money's been going and which legislators have taken the biggest payouts from the energy industry. So don't miss your only chance in the next two years -- the Nov. 7 election -- to tell Congress what you think of its sellout to the energy companies.

And here's the list of Big Oil's 10 favorite Congress members:

1 - Hutchison, Kay Bailey, R-Texas - Senate - $258,361
2 - Burns, Conrad, R-Mont. - Senate - $188,775
3 - Santorum, Rick, R-Pa. - Senate - $188,120
4 - Bode, Denise, R-Okla. - House $153,650
5 - Allen, George, R-Va. - Senate - $148,600
6 - Talent, James M., R-Mo. - Senate - $147,470
7 - Cornyn, John, R-Texas - Senate - $142,750
8 - Barton, Joe, R-Texas - House - $138,450
9 - Hastert, Dennis, R-Ill. - House - $122,200
10 - Pombo, Richard, R-Calif. - House - $121,340

Data from the FEC as of Sept. 11, 2006. Compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

As Gomer Pyle was often heard to say: “Surprise, surprise, surprise.”

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This about Jim Jubak:

Jim Jubak is senior markets editor for MSN Money. Previously, he served as senior financial editor at Worth magazine and as editor of Venture magazine. Jubak was a Bagehot Business Journalism Fellow at Columbia University and has written two books: "The Worth Guide to Electronic Investing" and "In the Image of the Brain: Breaking the Barrier Between the Human Mind and Intelligent Machines." As an investor, he says he believes the conventional wisdom is always wrong -- but that he will nonetheless go with the herd if he believes there's a profit to be made. His column Jubak's Journal appears on MSN Money every Tuesday and Friday. He lives in New York.