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Climate Progress

What Makes Koch Industries ‘Big Oil’ And Why You Shouldn’t Believe The Claims Saying It Isn’t

By Rebecca Leber on May 14, 2012 at 10:30 am

The Obama campaign and the super PAC Priorities USA recently fired back at Americans for Prosperity, highlighting Mitt Romney’s ties to a funding source of $18.5 million in energy attack ads: Koch Industries.

Koch Industries has produced its own video claiming it doesn’t deserve the label of a secretive Big Oil corporation.

Shockingly, Factcheck.org and the Washington Post have taken up Koch’s argument. Factcheck.org wrote that despite Koch’s $100 billion revenue, the corporation’s diverse holdings mean “it is hardly in the league of the truly ‘big oil’companies.” The Washington Post Factchecker took the same angle.

While it’s true the most profitable U.S. corporations — ExxonMobil and Chevron — are larger than Koch, using this standard to claim the company isn’t Big Oil is incorrect. Let’s take a look at some key facts:

  • The Koch brothers’ net worth tops $50 billion and they have pledged to spend $60 million to defeat President Barack Obama, according to the Huffington Post.
  • The Koch PAC is the largest oil and gas contributor — donating more than even ExxonMobil — spending over $1 million in each of the last two cycles. This cycle, it has spent almost $750,000. Koch Industries sends 90 percent of these contributions to Republicans.
  • It’s the fourth-largest lobbyist in the oil and gas industry, spending $2,300,000 so far in 2012 and over $8 million in 2011.
  • Koch Industries emits over 300 million tons of greenhouse gases a year, based on the assumption that Koch emits the same amount of greenhouse pollution per billion dollars in revenue as Exxon and Chevron.
  • Flint Hills Resources, a Koch subsidiary, processes 300 million barrels of oil a year. This company is responsible for up to five percent of the U.S. 7-gigaton carbon footprint.
  • Koch says itself that the company is on par with big banks and is among the world’s top five oil speculators.
  • Koch is a major player in driving up gas prices through speculation, hurting American consumers. ThinkProgress reported that in 2008, Koch leased four supertankers to hold oil in the Gulf, leading to a gas price increase anywhere from 20 to 40 cents a gallon at the time.
  • According to Inside Climate News, Koch industries “has touched virtually every aspect of the tar sands industry since the company established a toehold in Canada more than 50 years ago.” It is active in mining Canada’s tar sands and exporting to the U.S., and is active in Canadian politics, with half a million dollars in donations between 2007-2010.
  • As reporters consider these factors, Koch has been widely reported as a Big Oil corporation by media outlets like Politico, Forbes, NPR, and Politifact.

It is absurd to say Koch Industries is not Big Oil when it plays such a hugely influential role in a wide variety of fossil fuel markets — all while flexing its power to protect the oil industry’s special interests.

Health

Koch-Funded Analyst Changes His Tune On Obamacare Deficit Projections

By Igor Volsky on Apr 13, 2012 at 11:27 am

Earlier this week, Medicare Trustee Charles Blahous, who also works for the Koch-funded Mercatus Center, published a study claiming the Affordable Care Act would add at least $340 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade. To produce the number — which contrasts sharply with the findings of the Congressional Budget Office — Blahous thew out the assumption that Congress will fund its entitlement obligations and instead pretended that “when the trust fund reaches its expiration, it would automatically cut benefits.”

But interestingly, Blahous made the exact opposte case to a caller concerned about the longevity of the program during his appearance this morning on Washington Journal:

CALLER: I’m on dialysis and if Medicare is done away with, then I won’t even be able to live because I can’t afford the treatment…I just wish you would rethink it because it helps me when I get dialysis. [...]

BLAHOUS: Well, this is obviously beyond a very compelling story that the caller just gave. This is actually very important to the point of my paper, which is that Medicare finances are a very important part of this whole equation. There is a bipartisan commitment at all times to upholding the solvency of Medicare. Now, one of the effects of the Affordable Care Act, is to extend the solvency…What does it mean for a situation like the callers? What it means is that the measures that the caller has to take in order to keep Medicare solvent are now somewhat relaxed moving forward because we’re showing Medicare to be solvent for eight additional years….So I would just say with respect to the viability of Medicare, you have a bipartisan commitment to upholding that…The caller should remain confident that the Medicare system will be kept solvent as it has for several decades.

Watch it:

In other words, he seems to be saying that once the trust funds run out, Congress will continue the spending that keeps the relevant programs going because our society has a demonstrated commitment to maintaining the social safety net for retirement, health care, and so forth. That honest answer comes from Blahous the Medicare trustee, not Blahous the Koch-funded analyst. As he himself admitted, “I certainly didn’t do [the study] wearing my hat as a Trustee.”

Climate Progress

Pro-Oil Outside Groups Spend More Than $16 Million On Energy Attack Ads Since January

By Rebecca Leber on Apr 12, 2012 at 9:44 am

A handful of outside groups, fueled by oil and coal dollars, are committing tens of millions to propel Big Oil to the forefront of the 2012 elections — outspending the Obama campaign on political energy ads by an overwhelming amount.

In the first three-and-a-half months of 2012, groups including Americans for Prosperity, American Petroleum Institute, Crossroads GPS, and American Energy Alliance have spent $16,750,000 on energy attack ads. The total amounts to more than $56 million, including the American Clean Coal Coalition’s pledge of $40 million on ads promoting coal.

According to a Think Progress analysis, there have been at least $16,750,000 worth in dirty energy ad buys since January:

American Petroleum Institute spent $4.3 million since January, reported by the Washington Post.

Crossroads GPS has spent a total $2.85 million since January, with three major ad buys. Crossroads spent $500,000 distorting the administration’s Solyndra record, $650,000 on gas prices, and $1.7 million promoting “drill, baby drill.”

American Energy Alliance bought $3.6 million of gas price ads for the “largest effort of its kind in AEA’s history.” The group is partially funded by Charles and David Koch.

Americans For Prosperity: $6 million on an ad distorting Obama’s Solyndra record, which ran in at least six states. This followed an earlier $2.4 million Solyndra ad in November, which was not included in the total count.

By comparison, the Obama campaign and his super PAC have spent at least $1.67 million defending the president’s energy record.

Other groups have pledged to spend millions more this election cycle, and will include ads focusing on promoting pro-oil and coal interests:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce has committed to spend more than $50 million this year on a range of issues. So far it has targeted several lawmakers, including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who faced $2.5 million of ads against him for wanting to end oil subsidies. In February, it spent $200,000 ads promoting Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) for his pro-oil stance.

American Coalition For Clean Coal Electricity: $40 million overall campaign to push coal interests to the forefront of the presidential campaign.

American Crossroads, whose donors include oil and gas executives, has a bankroll of more than $200 milllion for 2012.

Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch “plan to pump at least $100 million through their network of independent groups” which include Americans for Prosperity and the American Energy Alliance.

Ad spending this cycle has skyrocketed 1600 percent compared to the 2008 race, partly due to oil and gas’s serious money to elect a candidate committed to putting oil’s profits first.

LGBT

Koch-Funded Reason Institute Trivializes Severity Of Bullying Young People Experience

By Zack Ford on Apr 2, 2012 at 10:40 am

The Reason Foundation, a self-described “libertarian” think-tank funded by the Koch Family Foundations and tied strongly to the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, is now trying to downplay the severity of bullying young people experience. In a column and interview with the Wall Street Journal, Reason Vice President Nick Gillespie suggests that kids “are safer and better-behaved” than in decades past and that parents are just “overprotective and thin-skinned”:

But is America really in the midst of a “bullying crisis,” as so many now claim? I don’t see it. I also suspect that our fears about the ubiquity of bullying are just the latest in a long line of well-intentioned yet hyperbolic alarms about how awful it is to be a kid today.[...]

Now that schools are peanut-free, latex-free and soda-free, parents, administrators and teachers have got to worry about something. Since most kids now have access to cable TV, the Internet, unlimited talk and texting, college and a world of opportunities that was unimaginable even 20 years ago, it seems that adults have responded by becoming ever more overprotective and thin-skinned.

Gillespie relies on data that suggests that bullying has not increased, but he only refers to reports about what is documented in schools. Despite acknowledging the technology young people have access to, he completely ignores the significant impact that cyberbullying now has on young people. Last year, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that nine out of ten have witnessed the cyberbullying of their peers. A similar Associated Press-MTV poll found that about half of young people regularly encounter discriminatory slang in their online communications, and 54 percent of them think it’s okay to use such language in their circle of friends because “I know we don’t mean it.”

In addition, even if in-school bullying is no more severe than when Gillespie grew up, plenty of new studies demonstrate severe long-term consequences from that bullying that implore a better response than just telling young people to tolerate “lower-level harassment.” For example, LGBT youth who are targeted for their identities are 5.6 times more likely to experience mental health challenges as they age, such as depression, suicide attempts, and substance abuse. In fact, one study has shown that anti-gay stigma can lead to suicidal thoughts that last a lifetime.

It’s unsurprising that Gillespie shied away from discussing anti-LGBT bullying, which is where the “supposed crisis” is most exacerbated. According to GLSEN’s climate survey from 2009 (more recent than the data Gillespie cites), nine out of ten LGBT students experience anti-gay harassment at school. A new study released in January found that nearly half of students and teachers in elementary schools even hear language like “that’s so gay” on a regular basis. Instead, Gillespie invoked the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a group that defends the religious free speech of students, often when it is anti-gay in nature. In other words, he’d rather highlight the work of those defending the bullies than those defending their victims.

Regardless of whether bullying is better or worse than in years past, it’s a significant problem. To trivialize its impact is to discount the real consequences its victims face.

Justice

Cato Senior Fellow: Koch Brothers Want To Take Over Cato Because ‘Cato Wasn’t Doing Enough To Defeat’ Obama

By Ian Millhiser on Mar 5, 2012 at 9:50 am

As ThinkProgress reported last week, energy barons Charles and David Koch recently filed a lawsuit attempting to seize majority control over the libertarian Cato Institute. According to Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at Cato, this effort is part of a longstanding effort by the Kochs to transform Cato from a warehouse for radical libertarianism into something more purely concerned with electoral politics:

Last year, [the Kochs] used their shares to place two of their operatives – Kevin Gentry and Nancy Pfotenhauer – on our board against the wishes of every single board member save for David Koch. Last Thursday, they used their shares to force another four new board members on us (the most that their shares would allow at any given meeting); Charles Koch, Ted Olson (hired council for Koch Industries), Preston Marshall (the largest shareholder of Koch Industries save for Charles and David), and Andrew Napolitano (a frequent speaker at Koch-sponsored events). [...]

Why are they forcing out Cato board members, all strong, principled libertarians who have been heavily involved with Cato – financially and organizationally – for years? The answer was given in early November of last year when David Koch, Richard Fink (he of many Koch hats), and Kevin Gentry met with Cato board chairman Bob Levy. They told Bob that they intended to use their board majority to remove Ed Crane from Cato and transform our Institute into an intellectual ammo-shop for American for Prosperity and other allied (presumably, Koch-controlled) organizations. That statement of intent is certainly consistent with what we’ve been hearing from both Kevin Gentry and Nancy Pfotenauer. They’ve frequently complained during their short time on our board that Cato wasn’t doing enough to defeat President Obama in November and that we weren’t working closely enough with grass roots activists like those at AFP.

In its present incarnation, Cato combines a kind of Randian social Darwinism with several less extreme positions on issues such as defense and gay rights. Cato doesn’t just oppose Social Security and Medicare, it believes that they are unconstitutional. Yet Cato is also a genuine ally in the fight for marriage equality and it has at times been the most pacifistic major DC think tank. Among other things, Cato opposed the 1990 Gulf War.

Taylor is clearly concerned that Cato will abandon its commitment to a modest defense policy and potentially even its progressive views on gay rights if the Kochs take over. Koch-sponsored board member Nancy Pfotenauer is a former spokesperson for the McCain campaign who argued in support of both the Iraq War and Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. Koch front man Kevin Gentry is a “social conservative activist.” The Kochs also tried and failed to install John Hinderaker on the Cato board, a right-wing blogger who supports the Patriot Act and the Iraq War and who once called George W. Bush “[a] man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius.” If this is reflective of the Kochs’ vision for Cato, then they want Cato to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Republican Party.

If the Kochs truly are committed to transforming America’s top libertarian organization into the Campaign To Defeat The President, however, then Cato will need to moderate many of its more extreme positions on domestic policy. Jerry Taylor’s job as one of Cato’s top climate science deniers will no doubt be safe — as the Koch energy juggernaut is unlikely to cut back on an issue so near and dear to its bottom line — but Cato’s miserly view of the Constitution is wholly inconsistent with an effort to develop a winning electoral agenda for President Obama’s opponent and would have to be abandoned.

Even in 2010, when President Obama’s popularity was at its lowest ebb and America’s economic woes seemed to stretch on for years to come, candidates like Joe Miller (R-AK), Sharron Angle (R-NV), John Raese (R-WV) and Ken Buck (R-CO) — all of whom share the Cato view of the Constitution — were creamed at the polls, each of them significantly underperforming Republicans with less radical stances on the Constitution. Now, by contrast, President Obama’s polls are experiencing a sharp upturn, and our economy is likely to experience meaningful growth in 2012 absent an economic disaster in Europe. If the Cato constitutional vision was toxic in 2010, it will be downright deadly in 2012.

Update

Dave Weigel has a similar report on the consequences of the Koch takeover of Cato, except that his report attributes many of Taylor’s concerns to Cato president Ed Crane. According to Crane, the Kochs intend to transform Cato into, “a partisan adjunct to Americans for Prosperity, the activist GOP group they control.”

Climate Progress

Pollutocrat Deniers Charles And David Koch File Suit To Take Over The Cato Institute

By Joe Romm on Mar 1, 2012 at 12:29 pm

The top funders of anti-science disinformation in this country, the Koch brothers, are fighting in court to seize control of the Cato Institute. The Washington Post’s Allen McDuffee broke the amazing story this morning. Politico further reports:

Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch, the deep-pocketed conservative activists, launched a court fight yesterday over control of the Cato Institute, one of the nation’s best-known free-market think tanks. The Washington-based public-policy group was founded in 1974 as the Charles Koch Foundation. The name was changed to Cato in 1976, with the Koch brothers as longstanding contributors. The group had four shareholders until last year: Charles Koch; David Koch; Edward H. Crane III, Cato’s president; and William A. Niskanen, who died in October.

You can read the Kochs civil filing here.

Koch officials tell Politico that the brothers think the shareholder agreement is clear that there should now only be three shareholders, while Crane thinks Niskanen’s 25-percent control should go to his widow, Kathryn Washburn. “We’ve proposed a stand-still agreement and third-party mediation,” said Wes Edwards, deputy general counsel of Koch Companies Public Sector LLC. “We feel that we’ve been refused. … We haven’t alleged any wrongdoing or sought any damages. This is not about money. We view this as a matter of shareholder rights.”

Let’s remember who the Kochs are — billionaire brothers who have done more to spread anti-science, pro-pollution disinformation than any other people on the planet:

Of course, the Cato Institute has been a bastion of anti-science, pro-pollution disinformation for a long time, with research fellows like Patrick Michaels, who is a serial deleter of inconvenient data. This power grab would just make it official that Cato is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries.

Related Posts:

Politics

David Koch Admits Plans To Buy Public Support And, Possibly, An Election

By Adam Peck on Feb 21, 2012 at 6:32 pm

Nowadays it’s hard to find anyone who is comfortable with the absurd amount of money being poured into political campaigns. Progressives, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party have all lamented the disproportionate influence that exorbitant amounts of money is having on politics in the age after Citizens United. Even Sheldon Adelson, one of the highest of the high rollers in the Republican presidential primary season and who has donated millions of his personal fortune to a Super PAC backing Newt Gingrich, thinks the system’s broken.

But not the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch, two of the world’s richest men, have bankrolled conservative causes and candidates for years, but only recently have they begun to openly flaunt their willingness and ability to purchase public opinion and—possibly—an election.

David Koch sat down for an interview with the Palm Beach Post:

Asked about his efforts to sway public opinion, Koch acknowledges his group is hard at work in places such as Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker is facing off with public unions and grappling with a likely recall vote.

“We’re helping him, as we should. We’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years,” he says. “We’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We’re going to spend more.”

The Nation reported yesterday that David Koch’s willingness to discuss their family’s efforts to support Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) during the recall being waged by progressives in the state may potentially have crossed the fine line separating the perfectly legal practice of contributing money to a candidate and the illegal practice of directly coordinating with a political campaign.

Legality aside, the Koch Brothers’ candor on their plans to interfere with democracy using loads of money is enough evidence that the system isn’t working.

Politics

Koch-Linked ‘Charity’ Aiding WI Gov. Scott Walker In Recall

By Josh Israel on Feb 10, 2012 at 11:00 am

Protester with "This is your Governor on Koch" sign

A protester at a workers' rights rally (credit: Marion Dyer)

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt “charitable organization” is in the midst of a $700,000 campaign aimed at supporting embattled Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) in his upcoming recall election, according to the Center for Media and Democracy. By not explicitly naming Walker in the ads touting his reforms, they may be narrowly avoiding a federal law that says (c)(3) organizations may “not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.”

In 2010, Americans for Prosperity, the group’s affiliated 501(c)(4) tax-exempt “social welfare” organization spent more than $1.3 million on electioneering. When the group told the IRS in its annual disclosure that it does not engage in political activity, tax experts questioned whether the group was complying with the laws governing nonprofits.

Charles and David Koch are major funders of Americans for Prosperity. Last year, Walker famously had a lengthy phone conversation with a prankster posing as David Koch in which the governor bragged about his union busting campaign, joked about using a baseball bat against his opponents, and confessed that he had considered planting trouble makers in the protest crowd.

The Koch brother’s corporate PAC and organizations they bankroll spent hundreds of thousands on donations to and expenditures in support of Walker’s campaign, but David Koch claims he doesn’t “directly” support the governor.

Climate Progress

Rep. Pompeo (R-Koch) Defends ‘Vilified’ Koch Brothers From ‘Nixonian’ Obama

By Guest Blogger on Feb 3, 2012 at 5:33 pm

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Koch)

After the Koch brothers secretly mobilized $100 million from fellow billionaires to unseat President Barack Obama last weekend, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) wrote an op-ed in Politico today accusing the Obama administration of harassing the co-owners of Koch Industries and Pompeo’s greatest contributors. Calling Charles and David Koch “U.S. citizens, taxpayers, entrepreneurs and employers,” Pompeo claimed that the administration is taking a “Nixonian approach to politics”:

Liberal blogs and publications have published countless slanted pieces on Koch Industries, heavy on innuendo and light on facts.

The Obama administration has long been criticized for maintaining a de facto “enemies list” of its perceived political opponents, whether they are respected Supreme Court justices, disfavored reporters or private citizens who just want to keep their own doctors. The Democrats’ obsession with the Kochs as a political target is, indeed, additional evidence of a truly Nixonian approach to politics.

That the Obama administration and its allies use private citizens as symbols to be attacked and vilified is unfair and deeply threatening to our civic life and the rule of law.

In fact, the Koch brothers have made themselves very public figures. After Charles Koch founded the Cato Institute in 1977, David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket he bankrolled in 1980. In person and through their latest front group, the astroturf organization Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs have “attacked and vilified” the Obama administration to a level that approaches “obsession”:

Charles Koch: Obama Is ‘Greatest Assault On American Freedom.’ In his letter inviting fellow conservative millionaires and billionaires to a secret Palm Springs retreat in January 2011, Charles Koch accused President Obama of “the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes.” [ThinkProgress]

Charles Koch: Obama Is ‘Saddam Hussein.’ At another secret retreat in the fall of 2011, Charles Koch compared President Obama and the 2012 elections to Saddam Hussein and the Iraq War. “We have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we’ve got in the next 18 months. For the life or death of this country.” [Mother Jones, 9/6/11]

Read more

Politics

Billionaire Buddies: Adelsons Join Forces With Koch Brothers To Take Down Obama

By Josh Israel on Feb 2, 2012 at 10:45 am

Charles and David Koch

Charles and David Koch

In recent years, billionaire oil magnates David and Charles Koch have bankrolled the Tea Party movement, Republican candidates, and efforts to deny the existence global warming. But less noticed have been their series of twice-yearly strategy coordination meetings for wealthy right-wing donors. These secret confabs have attracted Republicans like Govs. Rick Perry (R-TX) and Rick Scott (R-FL), as well as former Fox News Channel talker Glenn Beck, Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and executives from the oil, banking, and health insurance industries.

The most recent meeting attracted two newcomers: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. Between them, the Las Vegas casino-owner and his wife have reportedly plowed $10 million into a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC and have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican party committees and candidates already this cycle.

A Center for Public Integrity report suggests this may just be the beginning:

Adelson has recently indicated strong interest in backing other GOP allied groups, say fundraisers familiar with his giving. In 2010, Adelson wrote a seven figure check to Crossroads GPS, a non-profit advocacy group that doesn’t have to disclose its donors publicly which was co-founded by GOP super consultants Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.

The story quotes unnamed fundraisers “familiar with Adelson,” the American Crossroads super PAC and the 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS, as expecting Adelson to “pump a few million dollars more” into one of the Crossroads groups this year, to help defeat President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. They also say Adelson is also considering writing a check to the American Action Network, former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)’s non-profit, to help preserve the Republican majority in the U.S. House.

Between the Kochs and the Adelsons, voters around the country should expect to see what voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida have seen in recent weeks: a seemingly unending stream of dishonest attack ads, paid for by billionaire-funded super PACs and tax-exempt organizations.

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