Tag Archives: americans for prosperity

Tea partiers involved in IRS scandal have ties to Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity

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10 out of 11 Tea Party spokespeople quoted in major news outlets regarding the IRS scandal have ties to the Koch funded Americans for Prosperity.

The Internal Revenue Service, not the most popular government agency to begin with, has been in the midst of a scatological squall for the past 3 weeks over their treatment of tea party groups. According to an agency spokesperson, organizations garnered additional scrutiny of their applications for non-profit status for having “Tea Party, Patriot, or 9/12” in the application materials. Non-profit status is granted by the IRS for “social welfare organizations” and federal law puts legal limits to the amount of overtly political things you can do if you are applying to be a non-profit, and thus tax-exempt. Continue reading →

BREAKING: North Carolina legislators reject ALEC’s fossil fuel funded attack on clean energy

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Today, those employed by North Carolina’s clean energy industries and anyone concerned about global climate change can celebrate the apparent downfall of an attack on renewable energy incentives.

NC Representative Mike Hager, a former engineer for coal-burning utility giant Duke Energy and a member of the fossil fuel-promoting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) watched members of the NC House utilities committee vote down his bill to freeze incentives for clean energy 18-3. While the bill technically isn’t dead yet, it will be tough for Rep. Hager to recover this fumble.

The incentive targeted by Rep. Hager is North Carolina’s renewable portfolio standard, or RPS. The NC RPS requires utilities to generate increasing amounts of electricity from cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar (ideally–the law is far from perfect but has been an important policy in helping North Carolina’s rapid growth of wind and solar energy projects). Continue reading →

Koch Bros Tribune Co? Climate change denial in Koch-friendly media

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Brothers Charles and David Koch have spent decades and millions of dollars to influence the news we read in newspapers, see online and watch on TV. The Kochs regularly convene high security meetings with high society attendees, many of whom work in the media, influence it, or own it.

  

Now reporters across the country are eyeing the Koch’s first attempt to directly own media themselves. Last weekend’s New York Times confirmed Koch Industries’ bid for the Tribune Company as a way for the Kochs and their allies to “make sure our voice is heard.” Tribune’s newspapers reach tens of millions of U.S. citizens, an ideal captive audience for Charles Koch’s self-serving philosophy to promote “economic freedom,” and to end “crony capitalism,” an ironic choice of words for the one of country’s most infamous corporate political manipulators.

Tribune Co. owns eight newspapers and 23 TV stations across the country including the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune and Hoy, the country’s 2nd largest daily Spanish newspaper, a clear asset for conservative politicians still reeling from their underwhelming rapport with the U.S. Hispanic population in the 2012 election.

Reaching Hispanic and Latino voters will be a major topic at the Kochs’ secretive “billionaires caucus” next week, which was delayed three months so the Kochs could audit the results of their 2012 electioneering activities, bolstered by hundreds of millions of dollars raised at previous Koch meetings. Continue reading →

Koch Brother Fronts Flood into Kansas to Attack Wind Industry – REPORT

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Correction: this post listed KS Sen. Julia Lynn as a supporter of the RPS freeze–she is not and her name was removed below.

A recent flood of Koch-supported think tanks, junk scientists and astroturf groups from inside and outside of Kansas are awaiting the outcome of a bill this week that could stall progress on the growth of clean energy in Kansas.

States around the country, including Texas, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina are poised to cut back on government support for clean energy jobs using model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC, which brings companies together with state lawmakers to forge a wish list of corporate state laws behind closed doors, is coordinating this year’s assault on state laws that require a gradual increase of electricity generated by clean energy sources.

ALEC and a hoard of other Koch-funded interests operating under the umbrella of the State Policy Network have hit Kansas legislators hard with junk economic studies, junk science and a junk vision of more polluting energy in Kansas’ future. Koch Industries lobbyist Jonathan Small has added direct pressure on Kansas lawmakers to rollback support for clean energy.

This fossil fuel-funded attack ignores the good that wind energy has done for Kansas, a state known for its bipartisan support for its growing wind industry (see key report by Polsinelli Shughart). The state now has 19 operating wind farms that have brought millions to farmers leasing their land and millions more to the state, county and local levels (NRDC). The American Wind Energy Association says that Kansas wind industry jobs have grown to 13,000 with the help of incentives like the renewable portfolio standard.

Unfortunately, clean energy is not palatable to the billionaire Koch brothers or the influence peddlers they finance. Continue reading →

Dirty Front Groups’ Secret Piggybank: Donors Trust & Donors Capital Fund

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For those familiar with the effort of ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers to bankroll a network of organizations denying basic climate science, a new article in the Guardian offers some revelatory information on the secret funding network that outweighs even top denier sugar daddies like Koch and Exxon.

Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, based out of the DC suburb of Alexandria, VA, have sent $118 million to the ‘climate denial machine‘ from 2002-2010, according to a Greenpeace analysis featured in the Guardian. The graph above, from the article, illustrates the significance of this money as compared to giants like Koch and Exxon.

Of course, the Koch brothers are part of the Donors Trust network, using the DONORS groups to hide their own giving to a variety of corporate front groups. Because of the obscurity provided by DONORS, we don’t know exactly who is getting exactly how much of the Koch payments to Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Continue reading →

Meet the Network Hiding the Koch Money: Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund

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Earlier this year internal documents from the Heartland Institute, a major hub of climate change denial and right-wing extremism, were publicly leaked. The documents exposed the Heartland Institute’s funders and strategies for attacking climate science, and led to a mass exodus of Heartland’s corporate funders.

Today, a newly updated report based in large part on Heartland’s internal documents has revealed two new insights into the way in which the anti-climate science movement has been supported and financed over the last decade.

  1. A billionaire named Barre Seid is the Heartland Institute’s main sugar daddy. He is the “Anonymous Donor” listed in Heartland’s fundraising plan who finances climate science denial operations to confuse children, the general public and policymakers over global warming. Seid has been the biggest booster behind Heartland’s attacks on climate science, donating millions of dollars to keep the Heartland Institute’s anti-science work afloat.
  2. The Koch brothers and other ultra-wealthy industrial ideologues are now hiding much of their donations to conservative political outlets through an obscure group of foundations that specialize in secrecy.

In total over $311 million has been put through twin organizations known as Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund which share an address in Alexandria, Virginia. Continue reading →

Koch Brothers Produce Counterfeit Climate Report to Deceive Congress

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The octopus has a remarkable ability–it can blend seamlessly with its surroundings, changing its appearance to mimic plants, rocks or even other animals.

Similarly deceptive is an upcoming junk study from a Koch-funded think tank that has taken on the format and appearance of a truly scientific report from the US Government, but is loaded with lies and misrepresentation of actual climate change science. The false report is a tentacle of the Kochtopus–with oil and industrial billionaires Charles and David Koch at the head.

UPDATE: Climate scientists at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science lambast the counterfeit Cato report for mimicking the scientific report they authored:

“As authors of that report, we are dismayed that the report of the Cato Institute, ADDENDUM: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, expropriates the title and style of our report in such a deceptive and misleading way.  The Cato report is in no way an addendum to our 2009 report.  It is not an update, explanation, or supplement by the authors of the original report.  Rather, it is a completely separate document lacking rigorous scientific analysis and review.”

The report’s disgraced author, Patrick Michaels, has made his largely undistinguished career shilling for fossil fuel interests, including his stay at the Cato Institute, which published the counterfeit report. After admitting to CNN that 40% of his funding is from the oil industry alone, even Cato was embarrassed enough to clarify that “Pat works for Cato on a contract basis, not as a full-time employee. Funding that Pat receives for work done outside the Cato Institute does not come through our organization.” Continue reading →

Heartland Institute’s Achy Breaky Climate Denial Machine

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No one would argue that Heartland Institute is in turmoil. The Guardian summed it up pretty well last night .

The historic Joe Bast backfiring blunder of a billboard campaign featuring Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, the non-apology that followed, corporate funders running for the exits, the collapse of the Heartland DC office, former friends and colleagues jumping Bast’s ship in his “hour of need”…

Desperate times indeed for climate denial central….

Continue reading →

Koch Brothers Exposed: Fueling Climate Denial and Privatizing Democracy

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UPDATE 6/20/2012: Updated Koch funding to climate science denying front groups is $61,375,781 from 1997-2010, over $37.7 million of which was spent from 2005-2010. Numbers in this blog have been updated to reflect the most up-to-date data.

Greenpeace is partnering with Brave New Foundation to promote its newest film, Koch Brothers Exposed. Check out the movie trailer, pick up a copy of the movie and register your own local premier to help expose how Charles and David Koch’s money impacts the lives of all Americans.

The new numbers are in, ladies and gentleman: since 1997 the billionaire oil brothers Charles and David Koch have dumped over 61.3 million dollars into front groups that attack climate science and policies designed to solve global warming. According to the 2010 IRS records of their private foundations, the latest year available, the Koch brothers funneled another $4.38 million into the Climate Denial Machine from their private foundations.

Despite overwhelming consensus among climate change researchers and scientific institutions worldwide—including all the Academies of Sciences in industrialized countries, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NASA and all other major US scientific institutions—recognition of global warming among Americans remains startlingly low. Fueled by Koch money, the Climate Denial Machine has executed an unceasing, anti-scientific and anti-regulatory public relations campaign that mirrors the tactics used by tobacco companies to deny the health consequences of smoking. Continue reading →

Why the Koch brothers are cannibalizing the Cato Institute

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The Cato Institute, a subsidiary of Koch Industries

Cato, now part of Koch Industries

A quick look at the very public clash between the Cato Institute, a well known libertarian think tank based in Washington DC, and the Koch brothers – the infamous right-wing oil billionaires – leaves many people confused.  They’re supposed to be on the same team right?  The Cato Institute, originally called the Charles G Koch Institute when it was founded by Charles G Koch in the 70s – is in danger of a hostile takeover…by Charles G Koch?  Why would Charles Koch try to take over his own think tank?

The short answer – power, of course.  As it turns out, the Koch’s influence at Cato has waned over the last few decades due to a falling out between Ed Crane, the current president of Cato, and Charles Koch, who hand-picked Crane for the job shortly after founding the think tank.  Starting in the early nineties, the Kochs all but abandoned Cato, exerting little control over the group’s activities and steadily reducing Cato’s Koch funding (down to $0 in 2011).  Charles even left the board of directors (though he was replaced by David Koch). Continue reading →