Uncategorized Archives - Koch Vs Clean

Fossil Fuel Plant Run by William Koch at Heart of EPA Investigation into Racism in Texas’s Environmental Oversight

There are over 2,600 people living within three miles of Oxbow Corporation’s industrial plant in Port Arthur, Texas, a community that’s almost entirely people of color. And for 85 years, the Oxbow Calcining’s 112-acre plant has been processing oil and gas products into “petroleum coke,” which is commonly used to make steel and aluminum — all the while releasing sulfur dioxide into the air of Port Arthur. From 2016 to 2019, the plant pumped an average of over 22 million pounds of sulfur dioxide, which can cause lung disease, coughing, and eye irritation, into the air each year.

Oxbow’s founder and CEO is billionaire William “Bill” Koch, a member of the Koch family who has historically maintained a lower profile than his politically active brothers Charles and David, who passed away in 2019. Charles and David notoriously poured fortunes into funding organizations and projects designed to prevent fossil fuel regulation, often by obscuring the role that fossil fuels play in causing climate change. The Koch Family Foundations, which are linked primarily to Charles and David, have spent more than ExxonMobil in that effort, DeSmog’s database shows.

EPA Admin Announces New Rule to “Reward Polluters” at Heritage Foundation Event

During a virtual event on Wednesday, December 9 hosted by the Heritage Foundation — a conservative free market think tank backed by polluters like the petrochemical Koch empire — the outgoing head of the Environmental Protection Agency (and former coal lobbyist) Andrew Wheeler announced the finalization of a new rule that critics say is a gift to polluting industries opposed to federal regulations.

The rule is specifically about an accounting process used in rulemaking called a cost-benefit analysis. According to EPA’s announcement, the rule is supposed to increase consistency and transparency when EPA develops regulations under the Clean Air Act. But leading environmental organizations and a former EPA official say the new rule is redundant and dangerous, as it would allow polluters to tie up any new EPA regulations in legal challenges based on claiming the cost-benefit analysis for a given regulation is inadequate.

Koch-Connected Climate Deniers Are Claiming EVs Are Bad for the Environment — Again. Here’s Why They’re Wrong.

A new paper published Tuesday, November 17, by the conservative think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), raises environmental concerns with electric vehicles in what appears to be the latest attempt by organizations associated with fossil fuel funding to pump the brakes on the transportation sector’s transition away from petroleum and towards cleaner electricity.

In the U.S., the transportation sector is the largest contributor to planet-warming emissions. Climate and energy policy experts say electrifying vehicles is necessary to mitigate these emissions.

In fact, scientists recently warned that if the country has any hope of reaching the Paris climate targets of limiting warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), 90 percent of all light-duty cars on the road must be electric by 2050.

But the Competitive Enterprise Institute — a longtime disseminator of disinformation on climate science and supported by petroleum funding sources including the oil giant ExxonMobil and petrochemical billionaire Koch foundations — dismisses this imperative and instead tries to portray electrified transport as environmentally problematic in a paper titled, “Would More Electric Vehicles Be Good for the Environment?”

The Koch Operatives Behind the Trump Energy Department’s Renewables Research Censorship

Two Trump Energy Department appointees with deep ties to Koch Industries and the Koch donor network have been burying reams of agency research that looks favorably on renewable energy, according to an in-depth investigation by Grist and InvestigateWest. Published October 26, the investigation reveals how the appointed high-ranking officials mandated political review of research, watered down reports, and slow-walked or shelved scientific findings and studies when they favored renewable deployment over continued reliance on fossil fuels.

Faculty and Alumni Demand that University of Arizona Kick Koch Money Off Campus

This week, Kochs Off Campus!, a grassroots organization of faculty members and alumni at the University of Arizona and local Tucson residents, staged aday of action to highlight the encroachment of corporate influences on public institutions and public educational facilities in Arizona.

The event, co-hosted by Unkoch My Campus and held on Tuesday, October 28, focused on “state capture” through education, highlighting how billionaires and corporations attempt to use their donations to academic institutions to advance their private interests.

How the Koch Network Influences Minnesota’s Transportation Policy

In 1996, an executive vice president of Koch Industries named Richard Fink laid out a three-tiered integrated strategy for promoting libertarian ideals and free-market principles, and, in doing so, protecting the Kochs’ sprawling petrochemical refining and shipping businesses. Called “The Structure of Social Change,” Fink, who also led the Charles Koch Foundation, described the strategy for investing the Kochs’ fortunes through grants and financial support to organizations and individuals at different stages of policy development and implementation, from universities to think tanks to advocacy groups.

As the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency takes on clean car standards through rulemaking processes, the Koch network’s “structure of social change” is in place to push back against the policy. Below is a network map showing how Koch influence reaches through think tanks and advocacy groups to reach the public and policymakers on the ground in Minnesota.

Koch Academic Influence Returns to Massachusetts With New Tufts University Think Tank

When a new Massachusetts think tank housed at Tufts University launched earlier this year, Boston-based media described it as a “CBO-like center” (referring to the Congressional Budget Office) that would offer an “independent analysis” of proposed state policy and legislation.

But one of the main funders of this think tank, called the Center for State Policy Analysis, is a program tied financially to the petrochemical billionaire Koch family. This apparent Koch-linked funding raises questions about just how independent the center’s policy analyses may be.

Fossil Fuel Industry and Koch Network Fighting Pennsylvania’s Move to Join Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

As Pennsylvania took a significant step this week towards joining a regional climate initiative to curb carbon pollution from power plants, newly revealed email records show how fossil fuel interests campaigned to oppose this initiative in a state that has the fifth most polluting electric power sector in the nation.

The Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board, part of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), voted on September 15 to adopt draft regulations limiting carbon emissions from power plants as part of the state’s process of joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-invest program designed to slash emissions from the electric power sector. An ongoing battle has been brewing over Pennsylvania joining this program. Its Republican-controlled legislature is opposed to the state participating, while Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has taken executive action to start the process of joining.

Oil Industry and Allies Look to Pump Brakes on Democrats’ Plans to Move Transportation Off Petroleum

This week Congressional Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives put forward policies, including passing a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill on July 1, aimed at cleaning up the number one source of carbon pollution in America — the transportation sector. The oil and gas industry and its supporters quickly weighed in, framing “the critical role” of the industry in addressing climate pollution and in some cases outright attacking these plans’ efforts to move away from petroleum-powered transport.

The infrastructure bill comes on the heels of a new climate action plan released June 30 by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. That plan offers a roadmap for mostly eliminating globe-warming greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. by 2050. Achieving zero emissions from the nation’s transportation sector is a key priority in this plan.

Minnesota Attorney General Sues Exxon, Koch and API for Climate Deception

Minnesota has officially joined the climate accountability movement with the announcement on Wednesday, June 24 of a groundbreaking lawsuit against fossil fuel behemoths such as ExxonMobil and Koch Industries and the nation’s largest oil and gas lobbying group for alleged deception on climate change.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced the lawsuit at a press conference Wednesday. The lawsuit names as defendants ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute (API), and Koch Industries as well as Koch subsidiaries Flint Hills Resources LP and Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend. The lawsuit claims these organizations violated Minnesota consumer protection laws for orchestrating a campaign of deception around climate science and the danger of fossil fuels.