A report filed Friday with the Internal Revenue Service shows that American Solutions for Winning the Future accepted at least $460,000 from oil interests in the first half of the year, after advancing offshore oil drilling as an issue during the 2008 campaign cycle, and $150,000 from the Workforce Fairness Institute, a business-backed group opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act, which Gingrich has lambasted as “a mortal threat to American freedom.”

Gingrich’s aides said Friday the group is not a campaign-in-waiting for Gingrich, who makes many short lists of prospective 2012 GOP presidential contenders.

“Absolutely not,” said Dan Varroney, American Solutions chief operating officer. “American Solutions exists to reflect the interests and views of a tri-partisan majority of American people and to provide solutions and transform the country from the world that fails to the world that works.”

Dan Kotman, American Solutions’ spokesman, said the group is “one of the nation’s largest grassroots organizations of more than 1.5 million members” and has accepted donations from more than 200,000 people and groups.

“We’re happy to be supported by other organizations and individuals who agree with our position, but we would never change our positions based on financial considerations,” he said.

The operation, which includes a pollster and fundraisers, promotes Gingrich’s books, sends out direct mail, airs ads touting his causes and funds his travel across the country via charter and first-class airfare.

Last year, it spent $2.6 million on first-class or charter air travel for Gingrich and his staff, according to its 2008 tax returns. This year, it has spent about $670,000 on charter flights alone, according to Friday’s report.

Kotman explained that “traveling to events and meetings is necessary for American Solutions to continue to grow and build a nationwide movement to further the organization’s mission of creating and implementing the next generation of solutions.”

The group has raised a total of $31.9 million and spent $31.6 million since it was created in 2006, according to its IRS reports, leaving it with about $235,000 in the bank.

American Solutions is registered under Section 527 of the tax code, which allows it to accept contributions far larger than the $4,800 maximum that individuals can give to federal candidates for the 2010 election cycle, as well as from corporations, which are barred from giving to federal campaigns. But the group is barred from contributing to federal candidates or from promoting any potential Gingrich candidacy.

Still, it can pay for Gingrich to do many of the same base-building activities that other prospective 2012 Republican presidential candidates are engaged in. And it raised considerably more money than the political groups of his potential rivals, most of which are registered as federal political action committees, and therefore prohibited from accepting the types of large checks that American Solutions accepted in the first six months of the year.

For instance, the group accepted $250,00 from Peabody Energy, which also gave that much last year, and $100,000 each from American Electric Power and Plains Exploration and Production Company.

By contrast, the political action committee affiliated with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2008 and is considered a possible candidate in 2012, reported late Thursday that it raised a total of $300,000 in the first six months of the year.