“I’ve never been to a tea-party event,” pollution billionaire David Koch told New York magazine in July, 2010. “No one representing the tea party has ever even approached me.” Koch’s corporate public relations officials declared in April 2010 that “no funding has been provided by Koch companies, the Koch foundations, Charles Koch or David Koch specifically to support the tea parties.”

However, in October, 2009, Koch was applauding his army of Astroturf tea party organizers. Koch, who founded Americans for Prosperity with his brother David, was the guest of honor at AFP’s annual Defending the American Dream Summit. Independent filmmaker Taki Oldham filmed Koch beaming as organizers who run AFP’s 25 state-level outposts touted their success in mobilizing dozens of tea party events across the nation:

AFP CALIFORNIA: We helped organize huge tea parties all throughout the state. And on April 15, Tax Day, over 10,000 Californians joined us on the steps of the state capital and we held one of the largest tea parties in the country. . . .

AFP MICHIGAN: … We have held the largest tea party in the state …

AFP GEORGIA: … the largest Tax Day tea party in the nation on April 15 …

AFP OKLAHOMA: … we’ve held 29 tea parties …

AFP MARYLAND: … we organized dozens of tea parties …

DAVID KOCH: This is a phenomenal success in my judgment. Eight hundred thousand activists from nothing five years ago. This is a remarkable achievement. And we’re being effective in so many ways.

Watch it:

Oldham’s documentary, (Astro)Turf Wars, reveals that David Koch’s tea party army has demonized health care and climate legislation by stoking false fears of their costs and lying about the science of global warming. AFP, the Guardian explains, “has spun off other organizations such as November is Coming, Hands Off My Healthcare, and the Institute of Liberty, which are buying up television ads and holding rallies across the country in an attempt to defeat Democrats.”

One particular focus of Koch’s efforts this November is California’s Proposition 23, which would kill the state’s landmark global warming law. The Koch brothers’ corporation gave $1 million to the Prop 23 campaign, while AFP California attempts to stoke grassroots support, and Koch-funded think tanks attack climate policy.

(Astro)Turf Wars explains in detail how the Koch brothers and other right-wing plutocrats have succeeded in mobilizing millions of grassroots conservatives to support their pollution-for-profit agenda, at the price of the nation’s health and security.

(HT Kevin Grandia)

I’ll bet you didn’t know that

• The success Republicans had killing the climate and clean energy jobs bill means they are now ready to embrace a big new federal spending effort of $15 to $25 billion a year for low-carbon technology.
• Such RD&D could, all by itself, bring the cost of new carbon-free power plants below the cost of existing coal plants.
• A massive federal RD&D effort, even if it were not politically untenable, could, all by itself, avert catastrophic climate change.
• “Liberals often maintain” the “choice” is between “global warming apocalypse or mandating the widespread adoption of today’s solar, wind, and electric car technologies.”
• Nuclear power is likely to be a key part of an effort to deliver cheap, low-carbon power.

You didn’t know any of that because none of it is true. But it’s all part of a new report by Steven F. Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute, Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution, and others, amusingly titled, “Post-partisan power.”

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This is Part Two of a four-part Wonk Room series examining the implications for climate and clean energy policy of the 2010 gubernatorial races. Read Part One, on heartland states, or view the governor-race compilation.

Yesterday, the Wonk Room reviewed four gubernatorial races featuring anti-climate Republicans in the Midwest. Today, we look at five competitive state contests that pitch climate champions against global warming deniers with Tea Party backing, in Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, and Ohio. The future of renewable electricity standards, efficiency and clean technology support, and climate policy rest on these election results.

FLORIDA: Alex Sink (D) v. Rick Scott (R)
ILLINOIS: Pat Quinn (D) v. Bill Brady (R)
MINNESOTA: Mark Dayton (D), Tom Emmer (R), Tom Horner (I)
WISCONSIN: Tom Barrett (D) v. Scott Walker (R)
OHIO: Ted Strickland (D) v. John Kasich (R)

FLORIDA: Alex Sink v. Rick Scott

538 estimate: 43 percent chance of Democratic pickup

Florida is under imminent threat from the rising sea levels, fiercer heat waves, and stronger storms of global warming. Clean energy investment and energy-efficiency retrofits could restore hundreds of thousands of jobs to the economically battered state. However, millionaire health care executive Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Florida governor, is a global warming denier:

Asked if he believes in climate change, he said “No.” “I have not been convinced,” he said. Asked what he needs to convince him, “Something more convincing than what I’ve read.” [St. Petersburg Times, 7/26/10]

Despite the lingering BP disaster, Scott is open to oil drilling off the coast of Florida. Scott’s campaign attacked his Democratic opponent Alex Sink’s advocacy of renewable energy standards as “leftist energy proposals,” promoting nuclear power instead. Florida’s renewable-industry advocates responded: “Rick Scott needs to say something of substance or stop attacking small business people.”

Scott is a signatory of the Americans for Prosperity “No Climate Tax” pledge and the FreedomWorks Contract From America, and was endorsed by the FreedomWorks PAC.

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Applied Materials is leading microchip company that has made a big move into the solar energy business.  This is what they wrote on their blog today.

One of the most hotly contested items on this year’s California ballot is Proposition 23, an initiative aimed at suspending the State’s landmark AB 32 law (the Global Warming Solutions Act). Prop 23 is being touted as a “jobs initiative,” but the real thrust of the proposition is to suspend AB 32 until unemployment reaches a level of 5.5% for four consecutive quarters, a mark that has been hit only a few times in the last 30 years. As a consequence, Prop 23 is effectively a repeal of the law. At a time when the U.S. and California need to redouble its leadership in mitigating climate change and its investment in building a low-carbon economy, Prop 23 would be a major step backwards.

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Brad Johnson highlights four gubernatorial races which could shut down the clean energy revolution in the Midwest.

In Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, four Democratic governors who have supported clean energy may be replaced by Republicans who have expressed fealty to big oil. The Republican candidates “” Terry Branstad in Iowa, Sen. Sam Brownback in Kansas, Rep. Mary Fallin in Oklahoma, and Matt Mead in Wyoming “” hold commanding leads in the polls over their Democratic opponents. The Republicans mock global warming as a conspiracy, doubt that it is caused by manmade pollution, and promote the expansion of the coal and oil industries in their states.

The heartland of America is under extreme threat from the destructive power of global warming, including increasingly frequent catastrophic storms, heat waves, and drought. Furthermore, by denying the opportunity of clean energy jobs, these potential governors risk turning their states into economic wastelands.

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Immigrants are integral to driving clean energy innovation. They accounted for 70 percent of men and women who entered the engineering and science fields from 1995 to 2006 and 40 percent of all high-tech venture-backed companies.

CAP’s Jorge Madrid has a new report, “From a ‘Green Farce’ to a Green Future.”  Here’s his summary:
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White House Lifts Ban on Deepwater Drilling

The Obama administration lifted the moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling on Tuesday, but it will be weeks or months before drilling resumes while industry and government regulators scramble to meet strict new rules intended to prevent another disaster like the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill.

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