After the State of the Union, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), will deliver the Republican response, where he will likely repackage many of the same dirty energy policies that lost spectacularly among voters in 2012.

Although Rubio was dubbed by TIME magazine a “new voice of the GOP,” the presidential hopeful sounds no different from the old party — particularly his positions on climate change and favoring Big Oil above all.

Just last week, Rubio claimed climate change is not a problem for his home state Florida, despite a devastating year of extreme weather. “I know people said there’s a significant scientific consensus on [human-caused climate change], but I’ve actually seen reasonable debate on that principle,” he said.

Not surprisingly, Rubio is a member of the Koch polluter caucus. He is one of five senators who received a perfect score from the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity, and he received more of the petrochemical giant’s cash than any other Senate campaign in 2010, for a career total of $32,200. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Senator Rubio has received nearly $260,000 in dirty energy contributions from oil, gas, and coal, with his largest contribution coming from the Koch-linked group, Club for Growth.

But Rubio’s polluter backing comes at a cost. His record includes:

–Voting against repealing Big Oil subsidies to fund clean energy projects and reduce the deficit.

– Voting against extending tax credits for renewable energy, at the same time he maintained oil industry tax breaks

– Signing a pledge to Americans for Prosperity that promises to “oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.”

– Voting against legislation aiding states harmed by the 2010 BP oil disaster. Rubio was the only senator from the Gulf Coast to do so, and one year later, he voted to expand coastal oil and gas exploration and issue faster drilling permits to oil companies.

Rubio has given no reason to expect anything less than a Big Oil agenda tonight.

Tiffany Germain, ThinkProgress War Room Senior Climate/Energy Researcher, contributed substantial research to this post.

Starting tomorrow, the world’s largest oil companies — ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips — will begin to announce their third-quarter profits for 2012. In the first half of 2012, these companies — all ranked in the top 10 of Fortune 500 Global — earned over $60 billion.

The oil industry reinvests tens of millions of these dollars for political purposes, including nearly all political contributions to Republicans, lobbying, and campaign ads. Through its enormous spending, these five and other Big Oil companies have fought to maintain $4 billion of their annual subsidies, while seeking to undermine clean energy investments:

$105 Million On Lobbying Since 2011, 90 Percent Of Campaign Contributions To GOP: The big five companies have spent over $105 million on lobbying Congress since 2011, according to lobbying disclosures through the third quarter. The biggest spenders were Shell ($25.7 million), Exxon ($25.4 million), and ConocoPhillips ($22.9 million). The five companies’ oil PACs have donated over $2.16 million to mostly Republican candidates this election cycle. Koch Industries also spends big money to pressure Congress, with $16.2 million on lobbying and more than $1.3 million from its PAC (the top oil and gas spender). In total, the oil and gas industry sends 90 percent of its near $50 million in contributions to Republicans, far eclipsing their record spending in 2008.

Misinformation Campaigns, Including Over $150 Million In Election Ads:
Over $150 million has been spent on TV ads promoting fossil fuel interests, particularly oil and coal, reports the New York Times. In addition to traditional campaign donations, the oil industry has turned to outside groups running attack ads. Earlier this year, Americans For Prosperity — founded and funded by the Koch brothers — launched a bogus ad claiming that clean energy stimulus dollars went overseas. And the oil lobby American Petroleum Institute has its own campaign promoting myths about oil production and gas prices. For example, API chief Jack Gerard, rumored to be on Mitt Romney’s shortlist for a White House or agency appointment, claimed that oil production on federal land is down. This is simply not true, since oil production is up 240 million barrels on federal lands and waters under President Obama compared to the Bush administration. And oil companies hold 20 million acres of federal oil, gas leases in Gulf of Mexico that remain unexplored or undeveloped. This is just one of the many myths Big Oil has pushed this campaign cycle.

Behind-The-Scenes Campaign To Defeat Clean Energy: Koch Industries and fossil fuel groups are mobilizing to defeat the extension of modest tax incentives for wind energy, even though oil tax breaks are permanent. The American Energy Alliance, which has Koch ties, aims to make the credit “so toxic” for Republicans it would be “impossible for John Boehner to sit at a table with Harry Reid.” The Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity is also campaigning against wind energy. Meanwhile, the industry has argued its own century-old tax breaks are necessary to maintain, despite years of record-breaking profits.

Overall, these efforts to keep their tax breaks while weakening public health safeguards from pollution have paid off in Congress and for Republican candidates. The House of Representatives is the most anti-environment in Congressional history, averaging at least one anti-environment vote per day to eliminate or undermine pollution protections, many benefiting Big Oil. And the Romney/Ryan budget plan would give the big five oil companies another $2.3 billion annual tax cut beyond existing loopholes.

After the big five companies’ second quarter profits, ThinkProgress calculated what a typical 24 hours looks like for the oil industry:

Read more

The wind energy industry faces a lame duck fight in the House of Representatives over extending the expiring production tax credit. The tax credit has broad bipartisan support, and considering that 81 percent of U.S. wind projects are installed in Republican districts, GOP lawmakers have a good reason to support it.

But with Koch Industries and fossil fuel groups mobilizing to defeat the credit, its future after 2012 is uncertain. The American Energy Alliance, which has Koch ties, told Politico Pro this week that it aims to make the credit a toxic issue for House Republicans: (Article requires subscription access):

“Our goal is to make the PTC so toxic that it makes it impossible for John Boehner to sit at a table with Harry Reid and say, ‘Yeah, I can bend on this one,’” said Benjamin Cole, spokesman for the American Energy Alliance.

American Energy Alliance has a strong link to Koch Industries: AEA’s president Thomas Pyle was former director of federal affairs for Koch Industries, and it is affiliated with the Koch- and ExxonMobil-backed Institute for Energy Research. Pyle is a former lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. AEA is also running a half-million-dollar TV ad in Virginia slamming Obama on coal issues.

A host of groups in the Koch network, including American Tradition Institute, Americans for Prosperity, and American Legislative Exchange Council, have undermined wind energy before. The Guardian reported on an ATI secret memo that suggested forming “dummy businesses” and a “counter-intelligence branch” against the wind industry.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, the wind tax credit supports 75,000 wind jobs — up to 6,000 jobs in Boehner’s home state alone — and has helped raise $20 billion in private investment in wind.

Conservatives claim an end to the wind tax credit will put energy on a level playing field; however, they have fought to maintain $4 billion in annual tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. The oil industry has outspent clean energy advertising by four times this election cycle, and send 90 percent of their political contributions to Republicans.

Charles and David Koch

The Koch brothers’ $60 million pledge to defeat President Obama — along with their political network’s $400 million spending — make them two of the most influential conservatives this election.

Not content with their unprecedented influence in politics, the Kochs have also taken to influencing the votes of their employees. According to In These Times, Koch Industries sent 45,000 mailers to employees at Koch subsidiary Georgia Pacific, urging votes for Romney and other conservative candidates. The letter warns ominously of “consequences” for the workers if Republicans lose. 

The Koch mailer is one of several recent examples of executives warning that employees may lose their jobs if Republicans do not win in November. Here is an excerpt of the letter:

While we are typically told before each Presidential election that it is important and historic, I believe the upcoming election will determine what kind of America future generations will inherit.

If we elect candidates who want to spend hundreds of billions in borrowed money on costly new subsidies for a few favored cronies, put unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses, prevent or delay important new construction projects, and excessively hinder free trade, then many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation, and other ills.

In These Times also reports that employees are restricted in their political free speech on social media outlets.

“It’s just they can intimidate people this way and they can make life miserable for you. The law would be strong enough to protect them probably, but you could be looking at being without your job for nearly a year,” said one Georgia Pacific employee.

One of the most absurd parts of the letter is its hypocritical charges of “cronyism.” The Kochs use their money and political clout to influence elections. Charles Koch once penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed, included in the employee packet, that attacked “partisan rhetoric” and rewards for “politically connected friends.” At the time, we listed the various ways the Kochs personally profit from subsidies and government contracts and attempt to influence the political process through every means possible. Koch Industries has also played a speculative role in hiking oil prices higher for profit. And that “delay” in “important new construction projects,” mentioned in the letter refers to projects the Kochs would profit from, like the Keystone XL pipeline for shipping tar sands.

The Kochs are not the only ones attempting to influence employee votes. Two CEOs recently issued threats to employees about their jobs if Obama wins. And Murray Energy’s CEO allegedly coerced donations to Republican candidates after forcing coal miners to attend a pro-Romney rally without pay.

When infamous industrial billionaire Charles Koch funded a study to review the science of global warming, it’s very likely he didn’t expect the chief scientist, Richard Muller, to conclude that “humans are almost entirely the cause” of an accelerating warming trend.

So will Charles Koch ignore the study he supported? Greenpeace’s Executive Director Phillip Radford sent a letter to Charles Koch yesterday, asking him if the science he funded is enough to convince him of the urgency of climate change. Here’s the letter in full:

As you know, one of your grant recipients – Dr. Richard Muller of University of California Berkeley – recently published an op-ed in the New York Times about his “total turnaround” from climate skepticism based on the results of his latest study. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation granted at least $150,000 to Dr. Muller’s Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study. Dr. Muller’s results are consistent with decades of scientific evidence, fully convincing him that global warming is happening and “humans are almost entirely the cause.”

Based on Dr. Muller’s evidence and the views of virtually all climate scientists, I am writing to inquire about the influence of these findings on your previously expressed skepticism about climate change.

Dr. Muller explained in a recent Greenpeace Radio interview that he spoke directly with you about the BEST project and your personal interest in his analysis:

“I did talk to Charles Koch. He emphasized from the beginning that he was concerned about valid issues in the science. He wanted us to straighten out those issues. He didn’t know what answer we would get. He just wanted it to be put on a solid, firm foundation. That’s what we’ve done.”

For years, you and your brother, David Koch, have directly provided over $61 million to organizations that deny science and cast doubt on global climate change, in addition to millions more in hidden funding through your “Knowledge and Progress Fund.” This includes support for the Heartland Institute, which is currently supporting a project run by the retired TV weatherman Anthony Watts in attempts to discredit the results of the BEST study. You may recall that the Heartland Institute ran the infamous billboard comparing the Unabomber with those who acknowledge the existence of global warming.

Organizations you finance continue to delay action to curb global warming even as the United States is experiencing unprecedented heat records, drought, wildfires, and violent storms. Your own home state of Kansas is at the center of the summer’s extreme drought, which has led to prairie fires and forced ranchers to sell their cattle due to lack of grass and water. Your oil and gas business activities, not to mention the political funding you can afford, have helped ensure that these all-too-real disasters will become more frequent as the global climate continues to warm.

Our country desperately needs to reduce carbon pollution in order to take a lead on the global stage, and you have an opportunity here to stop obstructing such leadership. Please tell us, Mr. Koch: do you now consider anthropogenic global warming to be on a “solid, firm foundation” as Dr. Muller does? Will groups that deny climate science continue to receive support from Koch Industries and its associated foundations? If so, will you urge them to discontinue such unscientific and unproductive interference in policy-making focused on addressing climate change?

We look forward to your response and urge you to take this inquiry seriously. Too much is at stake to continue delaying solutions to civilization’s largest challenge.

Meanwhile, Charles and his brother David say they plan to raise and spend nearly $400 million this election season — with most of those millions going toward ads designed to cut down the clean energy industry.

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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.

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