Category: Uncategorized

Groups Funded by Oil Industry Bash Plan to Reduce Northeast’s Dependence on Oil

Last month New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu announced the state would not be participating in the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a regional cap-and-trade program aimed at reducing carbon emissions from vehicles. The program is still in early stages of development, but groups tied to petroleum interests and conservative networks funded by the Koch empire are already fighting it with opposition campaigns.

These campaigns are active in multiple states throughout the Northeast, featuring public events to sway legislators, public letters co-signed by various free market groups, and at least one study produced by a Koch- and oil-industry funded think tank based in Texas. 

Continue reading “Groups Funded by Oil Industry Bash Plan to Reduce Northeast’s Dependence on Oil”

Big Oil Pushes Back Against Minnesota Clean Car Announcement

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced last week that the state would be adopting a pair of clean car standards following California’s lead, even as the Trump administration tries to revoke California’s authority to set stricter standards under federal law. But Minnesota’s move is already prompting pushback from oil industry defenders and organizations tied to the Koch network, which is unsurprising given that fuel-efficient and electric vehicles are a clear threat to the profits of petroleum producers and refiners. It’s a fight that is playing out across the country — including in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Minnesota is now the fourteenth state to join California in developing stronger vehicle standards, a key policy pathway in the fight against climate change. In Minnesota and nationally, the transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Clean car standards are intended to reduce transportation-sector emissions. Continue reading “Big Oil Pushes Back Against Minnesota Clean Car Announcement”

How the Koch Network’s ‘Social Change’ Strategy Is Built to Kill the Electric Car

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.  

If it feels like the oil industry’s attacks on the burgeoning electric car market are well coordinated, that’s because they are. The industry is following a blueprint laid out decades ago, and refined ever since, by Koch network insiders.

In a revelatory article, published in Philanthropy Magazine 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.  Continue reading “How the Koch Network’s ‘Social Change’ Strategy Is Built to Kill the Electric Car”

Wall Street Journal and Senator Barrasso Still Peddling Koch’s Electric Car Myths

Senator John Barrasso and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial board are once again attacking the federal electric vehicle tax credit, and are once again relying on easily debunked talking points born of the Koch network’s influence machine. 

Senator Barrasso has reportedly sent a letter to Republican colleagues in the Senate, advising them not to extend the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit. 

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board cheered Senator Barrasso’s act in an editorial published Tuesday. The deception and falsehoods are so rife in the WSJ editorial that it that begs for rebuttal. So here goes.  Continue reading “Wall Street Journal and Senator Barrasso Still Peddling Koch’s Electric Car Myths”

On David Koch’s Passing and the Koch Network’s Ongoing War on Clean Energy

Billionaire libertarian activist and oil industry tycoon David Koch died on Friday, leaving a toxic legacy that includes helping birth the climate denial movement, fighting against regulations that protect worker and public health, and—critical to our work here—helping fund and coordinate a decades-long attack on clean energy and low carbon energy solutions. We will leave the mourning to his family and friends, and the condemning to those who were immediately impacted by his efforts—a massive group, considering the far-reaching impacts of climate change, which are already being felt across all continents and latitudes. On KochvsClean, our focus is on the Koch network’s ongoing efforts to stall the spread of clean energy and the decarbonization of the global economy. And those efforts will be wholly unchanged by David Koch’s passing. Continue reading “On David Koch’s Passing and the Koch Network’s Ongoing War on Clean Energy”

Documents Show Koch Network’s ‘Structure of Social Change’ in Action

Back in 1996, the president of the Charles Koch Foundation laid out a blueprint for the Koch network’s goals of social transformation — a three-tiered integrated strategy to roll back government regulations, promote free market principles, and, in doing so, to protect the industries that turned the Koch brothers into billionaires. More than two decades later, that blueprint is still being followed in a broad-scale effort to serve the Kochs’ free-market libertarian ideology, to prop up the oil and gas industries that pad their fortunes, and to forestall any political action on climate change that they believe would threaten their bottom line. Continue reading “Documents Show Koch Network’s ‘Structure of Social Change’ in Action”

Bipartisan Group of Governors Pushes Back on Big Oil, Tells Trump Admin to Halt Clean Car Rollbacks

As the Trump administration scrambles to formalize its rollback of clean car standards, 24 governors are telling the President to pump the brakes on the proposed rule. The governors have signed a letter, as reported this morning in The New York Times, Associated Press, and Bloomberg, requesting that the administration reconsider the rollback of fuel efficiency and emissions standards, and to honor California’s authority under the Clean Air Act to write its own standards, which other states are allowed under the law to sign onto. Continue reading “Bipartisan Group of Governors Pushes Back on Big Oil, Tells Trump Admin to Halt Clean Car Rollbacks”

Congressional Dems Investigating Why Big Oil Is ‘Only Winner’ in Clean Car Standard Rollbacks

House Democrats in the Energy and Commerce Committee are actively investigating the oil industry’s role in shaping the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards for cars and light duty trucks.

On the eve of today’s joint hearing of two House Energy and Commerce Subcommittees on the proposed rollback, Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. and the chairs of the Subcommittees on Consumer Protection and Commerce and on Environment and Climate Change announced the investigation. Continue reading “Congressional Dems Investigating Why Big Oil Is ‘Only Winner’ in Clean Car Standard Rollbacks”

Another Deceptive Letter Bashing the Electric Car Tax Credit Circulating Congress, Courtesy of FreedomWorks

A West Virginia Republican is gathering signatures from fellow members of Congress for a letter opposing any extension to the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit. Representative Alex Mooney is getting an assist in his efforts from FreedomWorks, the major conservative advocacy center that helped launch the Tea Party movement.

In an email sent Monday to Congressional staffers and reviewed by DeSmog, FreedomWorks’ Vice President of Legislative Affairs, Jason Pye, “urges your boss to sign the letter against an expansion of the electric vehicle tax credit.” The “Draft Anti-Electric Car Tax Credit Letter” repeats a number of easily discredited and false talking points that have been echoed repeatedly by opponents of the tax incentive.     Continue reading “Another Deceptive Letter Bashing the Electric Car Tax Credit Circulating Congress, Courtesy of FreedomWorks”