Can Money and Celebrity Test the Influence of Oil Companies?

Oil tax fight becomes costliest Calif. initiative campaign as producer, oil companies ante up.

In any other year, a $60 million opposition campaign fueled by a deep-pockets industry would almost certainly spell doom for a California ballot initiative.

But the infusion of $40 million by a Hollywood producer has given environmentalists pushing Proposition 87, an oil-production tax, plenty of financial firepower against the petroleum companies that oppose it.

The battle over the so-called oil tax has become the costliest initiative campaign in California history, with a combined $104.4 million raised so far on both sides.