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.

Billionaire energy investor T. Boone Pickens has a bone to pick with the country’s leading pollutocrats.

Pickens said in an interview Wednesday with Yahoo’s Daily Ticker that Koch Industries, the company owned by Charles and David Koch, is the major stumbling block to a coherent U.S. energy policy:

“The biggest deterrent to an energy plan in America is Koch Industries,” the BP Capital founder tells Yahoo’s Aaron Task. “They do not want an energy plan for America because they have the cheapest natural gas price they’ve ever had, and they’re in the fertilizer business and they’re in the chemical business. So their margins are huge. And they do not want you to have an energy plan, because if you had a plan, then natural gas prices would come up.”

Watch it:

Back in October, a German state minister explained that the country could decarbonize with renewables because “We Don’t Have the … Koch Brothers.” He was referring to the Kochs’ lobbying for dirty fuels and against clean energy, and its spending on climate science disinformation, which exceeds that of ExxonMobil. As Business Insider explains:

The second-largest private company in the United States, Koch Industries has spent at least $5 million in lobbying in each of the past four years, and given at least $1,000,000 in seven of the last eight election cycles, according to data from OpenSecrets.

In 2008, the company spent nearly $18 million on lobbying for oil and gas interests alone, according to Open Secrets. They’ve already spent $2.3 million on oil and gas lobbying in 2012.

Pickens was referring to the Koch brothers’ Americans For Prosperity front group, which has been bashing Pickens’ beloved NAT GAS Act (HR 1380) to promote natural-gas vehicles (NGVs). Since the AFP campaign began, 14 House Republicans have withdrawn support for the legislation. Of course, we now know that NGVs are bad for the climate (see “Natural Gas Is A Bridge To Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage“). As EDF chief Fred Krupp put it, “I’m here to tell you today that every truck we switch to natural gas damages the atmosphere.”

Still, who can argue with Pickens’ central point? The men from Koch — and the groups, politicians, and  disinformation they fund — are now the Sith Lords of climate and clean energy inaction in the country.

Our guest blogger is Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts

Countless lives were saved this weekend by vigilant government officials who warned of deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska — states whose politics are dominated by anti-government, anti-science ideologues. Over 100 tornadoes struck down in 24 hours, but only six people died in Oklahoma, Sen. Jim Inhofe’s home state, thanks to warnings from the National Weather Service scientists he has worked to discredit:

The tornadoes were unrelenting – more than 100 in 24 hours over a stretch of the Plains states. They tossed vehicles and ripped through homes. They drove families to their basements and whipped debris across small towns throughout the Midwest. In some areas, baseball-size hail rained from the sky.

And yet, in a stroke that some officials have attributed to a more vigilant and persistent warning system, relatively few people were killed or injured.

Wichita, Kansas, the headquarters of Koch Industries, suffered $280 million in damage from a ferocious twister, but the “ever-increasing government” demonized by the Koch brothers prevented any loss of life.

Greenhouse pollution from the fossil fuel industries that control the region’s politics is making our weather more extreme and dangerous. The heat trapped by carbon pollution is powering these earlier and more intense storms with record-warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico. As Dr. Jeff Masters wrote on Friday:

This is the warmest March value on record for the Gulf of Mexico, going back over a century of record keeping. During the first two weeks of April, Gulf of Mexico waters remained about 1.5°C above average, putting April on pace to have the warmest April water temperatures on record. Only one year in the past century has had April water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico more than 1.1°C above average; that year was 2002 (1.4°C above average.) All that record-warm water is capable of putting record amounts of water vapor into the air, since evaporation increases when water is warmer. Because moist air is less dense than dry air, this warm, moist air flowing northwards from the Gulf of Mexico into the developing storm system over the Plains will be highly unstable once it encounters cold, dry air aloft. The record-warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico are a key reason for the high risk of severe weather over the Plains this weekend.

Related Post:

• Tornadoes, Extreme Weather and Climate Change, Revisited

The Obama campaign is acting as if it is already in a general-election fight, against a Big Oil-Mitt Romney ticket. In a new ad, President Barack Obama attacks “big oil” and Mitt Romney, pushing back against oil-industry campaign ads that accuse Obama of raising gas prices. The front group American Energy Alliance, secretly funded by Koch Industries and other oil giants, is running a $3.6 million ad campaign that criticizes Obama policies that don’t favor the oil-industry agenda. Oil companies have been profiting from American suffering at the gas pump, but they believe they would do even better under a Romney presidency, the new Obama ad argues:

Under President Obama, domestic oil production’s at an eight-year high. So why is Big Oil attacking him? Because he’s fighting to end their tax breaks. He’s raising mileage standards, and doubling renewable energy. In all these fights, Mitt Romney stood with Big Oil, for their tax breaks, attacking higher mileage standards and renewables. So when you see this ad, remember who paid for it and what they want.

Because of Citizens United, the spending by Koch-funded front groups on this election is practically unlimited, especially as the oil industry pulls in $200 million more every time the price of gas goes up a penny.

At the Republic Report, Lee Fang details how the Koch Industries petrochemical empire is involved in the boom in natural gas hydrofracturing. The right-wing Koch brothers have developed a vertical empire designed to extract wealth from every point in the hydrocarbon lifecycle. A small fraction of their profits is funneled into corrupting our political system, in order to prevent government from protecting society against the costs of the waste products.

The October 2011 issue of Discovery, the in-house Koch Industries newsletter, explains how the Koch Industries empire is profiting from the “really exciting” fracking boom:

– 1. Koch Pipeline is partnering with NuStar Energy to develop a dormant pipeline from Pettus, TX to refineries in Corpus Christi. The pipeline will transport natural gas from fracking sites in southern Texas. Koch Pipeline is a Koch Industries subsidiary.

– 2. Flint Hills Resources recently purchased a small craft pier and wharf in Ingleside, TX to store shipments of natural gas from fracking operations in the Eagle Ford shale formation. Flint Hills Resources is a Koch Industries subsidiary.

– 3. Koch Supply & Trading, a Koch Industries company that deals with commodity trading and financial products, is “already trading Eagle Ford crude” to help supply Koch companies and other customers, according to a Koch Industries newsletter.

– 4. Koch Chemical Technology Group is designing a processing facility near Yoakum, TX to help process natural gas fracked in southern Texas. Koch Chemical is a subsidiary of Koch Industries.

– 5. John Zink, a Koch Industries company, is providing flares for a natural gas processing plant in Helena to service the fracking industry.

– 6. Georgia Pacific produces resins used for chemicals used to prop open micro-fractures, an important process for fracking to occur. GP is a Koch Industries subsidiary.

– 7. Koch Fertilizer, a Koch Industries company, has tapped into increased natural gas production from fracking to develop fertilizer.

From Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney to the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, the Koch political network has been furiously attempting to block any oversight or regulation of the pollution and risks associated with fracking, no matter the danger to the American public.

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:

• A 2010 report found Koch Industries now outspends Exxon Mobil on climate and clean energy disinformation
• We have video proof David Koch pulls the strings of the Tea Party extremists
• We know Koch-fueled Americans for Prosperity takes credit for bullying GOP lawmakers into climate denial

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:

• From promoting acid rain to climate denial — over 20 years of David Koch’s polluter front groups
• New Yorker exposes Koch brothers along with their greenwashing and whitewashing Smithsonian exhibit

Five senators and 40 congressional representatives received a perfect 100 percent score from the Koch brothers’ astroturf group Americans For Prosperity for the first half of the 112th Congress. AFP judged Congress on their votes to protect the Koch brothers’ right-wing petrochemical empire on such issues as the repeal of President Obama’s new health care law, pre-empting EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget to end Medicare, ending ethanol subsidies, several Congressional Review Act resolutions of disapproval to overturn new regulations, and the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills.

In a previous post, ThinkProgress Green reviewed the five Koch senators and their massive haul of campaign contributions from the Koch empire. Below is a compilation of the 40 members of the Congressional Koch Caucus, in addition to their contributions received from Koch Industries, according to data compiled from OpenSecrets.org.

The Koch Caucus
Representative Koch Cash Akin, Todd (R-MO) $2000 Amash, Justin (R-MI) $2500 Brooks, Mo (R-AL) $0 Buerkle, Ann Marie (R-NY) $1250 Burton, Dan (R-IN) $0 Chabot, Steve (R-OH) $21000 Chaffetz, Jason (R-UT) $2500 Coffman, Mike (R-CO) $0 Flake, Jeff (R-AZ) $12300 Fleming, John (R-LA) $0 Franks, Trent (R-AZ) $7500 Garrett, Scott (R-NJ) $23000 Gowdy, Trey (R-SC) $7000 Graves, Tom (R-GA) $7500 Harris, Andy (R-MD) $15000 Herger, Wally (R-CA) $6000 Huelskamp, Tim (R-KS) $15900 Huizenga, Bill (R-MI) $2500 Jordan, Jim (R-OH) $5000 Labrador, Raul (R-ID) $3500	Representative Koch Cash Lamborn, Doug (R-CO) $20000 Landry, Jeff (R-LA) $0 Lummis, Cynthia (R-WY) $7500 Manzullo, Donald (R-IL) $0 Marchant, Kenny (R-TX) $19000 McClintock, Tom (R-CA) $1000 McHenry, Patrick (R-NC) $2500 Mulvaney, Mick (R-SC) $7000 Neugebauer, Randy (R-TX) $24000 Pence, Mike (R-IN) $20750 Quayle, Benjamin (R-AZ) $6000 Ribble, Reid (R-WI) $10000 Ross, Dennis (R-FL) $12500 Schmidt, Jean (R-OH) $0 Schweikert, Dave (R-AZ) $10000 Southerland, Steve (R-FL) $5000 Stutzman, Marlin (R-IN) $2500 Walberg, Tim (R-MI) $27000 Walsh, Joe (R-IL) $0 Wilson, Joe (R-SC) $1000
All U.S. Representatives who were given perfect records from Americans For Prosperity for their 2011 votes. Lifetime Koch Industries political contributions, from Center for Responsive Politics data.

Fourteen members of the Koch Caucus are members of the Tea Party caucus. The average contribution to the Koch Caucus was $9,869.

Five senators and 39 representatives received a perfect 100 percent score from the Koch brothers’ Astroturf group Americans For Prosperity for the first half of the 112th Congress. AFP judged Congress on their votes to protect the Koch brothers’ right-wing petrochemical empire on such issues as the repeal of President Obama’s new health care law, preempting EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget to end Medicare, ending ethanol subsidies, several Congressional Review Act resolutions of disapproval to overturn new regulations and the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills.

The Koch Five are Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Ron Johnson (R-WI), who have received a combined $187,400 in campaign contributions from the Koch empire:

THE KOCH FIVE
Senator	Koch Contributions
Coburn (R-OK)	$56300
Crapo (R-ID)	$42000
Hatch (R-UT)	$26500
Rubio (R-FL)	$34700
Johnson (R-WI)	$27900

The Kochs were the top contributors to Ron Johnson’s successful campaign to unseat Russ Feingold in 2010. Like first-termers Rubio and Johnson, Coburn has a perfect lifetime Koch score.