Obama Striving to Put an End to Oil Subsidies

President Obama's proposed 2013 budget seeks to end "unfair' oil subsidies. As evidenced by his State of the Union addresses in 2009, 2010,, 2011, and 2012, the President has repeatedly tried to put an end to oil subsidies.

Resistance to Cuts at Environment Canada

On July 5, nearly 50 civil society organizations sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper decrying the cuts to Environment Canada and outlining serious concerns about the impacts of the cuts.

As reported in rabble.ca, the letter was endorsed by labour, environmental, social justice, women's and First Nations organizations, including the Council of Canadians, Canadian Union of Public Employees, Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Keepers of the Athabasca Watershed Council, Métis Women's Circle, Mining Watch Canada, National Council of Women of Canada, National Network on Environments and Women's Health, Polaris Institute, Public Service Alliance of Canada, and Sierra Club Canada.

Conservatives Cut Budgets and Slash Jobs at Environment Canada

In addition to cuts at the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the NRC the Conservatives are also taking the axe to Environment Canada. Over $200 million is being cut from Environment Canada's budget which is resulting in the loss of services and jobs. Amongst the people being let go are those involved in climate change research and those responsible for contaminated sites. These cuts will result in the elimination of 1211 jobs (full-time equivalents) over the next three years. The 50 employees cut in June, include people working in the areas of water and atmospheric science.

Environment Canada is the leading organization related to the country's environmental agenda. They are charged with  a number of responsibilities including environmental protection and natural heritage conservation. They also provide meteorological information and science that informs the nation's regulations and legislation.

Federal Provincial Energy Conference Sponsored by Big Oil

Earlier this week a coalition of environmental groups revealed that the Canadian Federal Provincial Energy Conference is being sponsored by several energy companies.

Eleven companies and associations are spending an unprecedented $180,000 to pay for nearly a third of the $600,000 price tag. The sponsorship is an attempt by the petroleum industry to influence people who will be making crucial decisions about Canada's energy future. The sponsors have access to key individuals and they are given a high profile on the website for the conference.

The Kochs' War Against Obama and the Democrats

The Kochs' are waging a multi-faceted propaganda war against President Obama and Democratic candidates. The big guns in the Kochs' arsenal include Koch Industries, a network of proxy organizations, popular media, the Tea Party and Republican candidates.

Through organizations like the Cato Institute, the Meratus Center, and Americans for Prosperity the Kochs' they have waged proxy wars against President Obama and the Democrats. Many of these organizations fabricate data which are quoted by candidates and faux media like Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh often cites papers created by Koch fronts and an officer at Americans for Prosperity, Walter Williams, often guest-hosts for Limbaugh. Fox News also has ties to the Kochs' proxy organizations. Phil Kerpen, the vice-president for policy at Americans for Prosperity, is a contributor to the Fox News Web site.

Through their proxys, Koch industries has been undermining the President. A recent poll found that fifty-five per cent of Americans felt that Obama is a socialist and this is only one of the many lies that the Koch's proxys helped to promote.

The Tea Party is a very important addition to the Koch stable because it gives the Koch's the grassroots support they have been seeking for decades.

Many Republican candidates are recipients of Koch funding, and many are predicting that the Kochs' efforts will succeed in helping to elect Republican candidates in the 2010 midterm elections.

However, corporate influence is not foolproof, sometimes common sense triumphs over massive spending. In California despite massive funding from big oil, Proposition 23, which would have rolled back California's environmental progress, is likely to be defeated. Democrat Jerry Brown also looks like he will defeat Meg Whitman and be the next governor of California, even though Whitman set a record for spending the most private money on a political campaign.

Although the Koch brothers may have developed a potent arsenal in their war against progress, as we are seeing in California, not every election can be bought.


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The Kochs' Americans for Prosperity Undermines Cap-and-Trade

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is an astroturf front group started by oil billioniare David Koch and Richard Fink. AFP rallies and misinformation campaigns were pivotal in undermining cap-and-trade.

Because cap-and-trade makes corporations pay for the pollution they produce, Koch Industries is vehemently opposed to the any legislation including the measure.

Misinformation is the primary means used by the AFP to discredit the Democrat's legislative agenda. AFP has held at least eighty events targeting cap-and-trade legislation. Speakers for the group deliberately misled people into believing that even “back-yard barbecues and kitchen stoves“ would be taxed. The truth is the measure would only apply to large companies, neither small businesses nor private citizens would be directly subject to the energy tax.

AFP was also involved in the attacks that successfully brought down Obama’s “green jobs” czar, Van Jones. Like a wolf in sheeps clothing, the AFP went to Copenhagen last year and protested outside the UN conference on climate change. They mislead people into believing that their group was a champion of ordinary workers who would be hurt by environmentalists.

The AFP is part of the reason why we did not see energy and climate legislation in the last two years, it is also part of the reason why cap-and-trade is very unpopular. By staging protests, Americans for Prosperity have dissuaded Republicans who might otherwise have worked constructively with Obama.

The Kochs' dirty oil money funds Americans for Prosperity, which in turn fuels Republican obstructionism in Congress.


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The Kochs' Citizens for a Sound Economy Feigned Grassroots

In 1990, the Kochs created a citizen group that called acid rain and other environmental problems “myths.” Despite being called Citizens for the Environment, the group had no citizen membership. The group was actually an offshoot of the Koch created Citizens for a Sound Economy.

In 1993, Citizens for a Sound Economy successfully defeated Clinton’s proposed B.T.U. tax on energy. During the 2000 election campaign, Koch Industries spent some nine hundred thousand dollars to support the candidacies of George W. Bush and other Republicans. In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy was accused of illegitimately supporting Bush’s reelection.

Citizens for a Sound Economy also supported the 2005 energy bill, which Hillary Clinton dubbed the Dick Cheney Lobbyist Energy Bill. It provided enormous subsidies and tax breaks for energy companies.

Citizens for a Sound Economy demonstrates that long before their success with the Tea Party, the Kochs were looking to create a grassroots movement. The Kochs have no interest in American citizens beyond putting them to work for their oil agenda.


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The Kochs' Mercatus Center and Environmental Deregulation

In the mid-eighties, the Koch family foundations provided millions of dollars to George Mason University to set up a conservative think tank. Now known as the Mercatus Center, it fights environmental regulation, opposes clean energy legislation, and resists effort to curb industrial pollution.

Koch foundations have contributed more than thirty million dollars to George Mason University and $1,442,000 has been given directly to the Mercatus Center.

The Mercatus Center is ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington. Much of their energy is devoted to environmental deregulation and their primary weapon is misinformation. They have also worked to undermine the Obama Presidency. Shortly after the stimulus bill was passed, the Mercatus Center released a report falsely claiming that stimulus funds had been directed disproportionately toward Democratic districts. Although the author was eventually forced to recant, the damage was done.

The link between Mercantus and the Kochs is irrefutable. The founder of the Mercatus Center is Richard Fink, he is currently executive vice president of Koch Industries and the head of Koch Industries' lobbying operation in Washington. Fink also retains a seat on the board of directors at the Mercantus Center.

Although the Mercatus Center promotes itself as “the world’s premier university source for market-oriented ideas—bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems,” it is actually a conservative propaganda machine that serves the Kochs' corporate interests.


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The Kochs' Cato Institute's Climate Denial

The Cato institute is a libertarian think tank that creates and disseminates propaganda designed to undermine environmental legislation and regulation.

David and Charles Koch, the owners of Koch Industries, provided the funds to launch the Cato Institute. According to the Center for Public Integrity, between 1986 and 1993 the Koch family gave eleven million dollars to the institute.

When President Obama, described the science on global warming as “beyond dispute,” the Cato Institute took out a full-page ad in the Times to refute the President's statement. Cato’s scholars have consistently criticized attempts to stop global warming as expensive, ineffective, and unnecessary.

Cato scholars not only deny the science behind climate change they were active promoters of the Climategate scandal. One Cato scholar gave more than twenty media interviews on the alleged scandal. Although the scientists were cleared by five independent inquiries, the Cato institute has managed to cause many Americans to doubt their veracity.

Discrediting the scientific consensus on global warming is an important part of the Cato Institutes strategy of misinformation.


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Koch Industries War with the EPA

Koch Industries has been at war with the EPA for decades. Rather than accept the EPA's science based approach to managing climate change, Koch funds organizations that fabricate their own facts and publish propaganda papers that pose as credible academic information. Armed with a blatent disregard for the facts, Koch industries is fighting the EPA on initiatives ranging from efforts to reduce surface Ozone, to the classification of formaldehyde as a carcinogen.

Some truly absurd statements have come out of the Koch created think tank known as the Mercantus Center. In response to the EPA move to reduce surface ozone in 1997, Susan Dudley, a senior official at the Mercatus Center, argued that smog actually benefits humans because it reduces the incidence of skin cancer.

Koch Industries is taking on the EPA and they are mustering all the support they can buy to divest the agency of their regulatory powers.

Rather than pursue legislation that could force Koch Industries into line with the facts or protect the EPA from the Kochs' assaults, many members of the House and the Senate seem to share the Koch agenda.

Last June, forty-seven of the Senate's 100 senators voted to permanently strip the EPA of its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Some legislators are planning another attempt at passing legislation that would suspend the EPA's regulation of greenhouse gases.

A good illustration of the scope of Koch Industries influence involves their resistance to the EPA's attempt to classify formaldehyde as a “known carcinogen.” Koch Industries has been lobbying to prevent this from happening. It is no coincidence that the company produces formaldehyde in great quantities.

The ownership of Koch Industries is not deterred by the experimental evidence indicating that formaldehyde causes cancer. When you are the owner of one of the world's most powerful corporations you wield tremendous power and you have access to the levers of power.

David Koch, the owner of Koch Industries, disagrees with the science on formaldehyde, and this is a point which he argues from his position on the National Cancer Advisory Board.


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Supreme Court and the Koch Brothers Clandestine War

A US Supreme Court ruling earlier this year is making it easier for large corporations like Koch Industries to influence political outcomes. The ruling is known as the Citizens United case, it struck down laws prohibiting direct corporate spending on campaigns.

Brothers David and Charles Koch are amongst the wealthiest men in America and they are also the owners of Koch Industries America's second largest corporation.

For decades the Kochs’ political network has been executing their ideological war against America, but until recently they have been operating under the radar. Koch industries directly funds Republican candidates across the country, but thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, the Koch brothers now have a covert means of channeling unlimited political influence.

President Obama has issued warnings about the dangers of the Supreme Court ruling. At a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser, in Austin, the President even mentioned a Koch founded and funded organization by the name of Americans for Prosperity. Despite denials from Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity has been instrumental in the rise of the Tea Party.

The President said that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling had made it even easier for big companies to hide behind “groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity.”

Obama said, “They don’t have to say who, exactly, Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation”—or even, he added, “a big oil company.”


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Video Linking the Kochs' and the Tea Party

Koch Industries has tried to distance itself from the Tea Party, but despite the company's denials there is considerable evidence linking the two.

In a carefully worded statement, Rich Fink, executive vice president of Koch Industries, said, “We have not provided funding to the tea party organizations which are being organized throughout the country and, until recently, we had never been approached by a tea party group for funding.‪ ‪We have publicly supported Americans for Prosperity Foundation since 1984 and Americans for Prosperity since 2004. We have never considered these institutions to be tea party organizations. Whether or not they are considered to be tea party organizations will not affect our support of them. We believe the tea party movement is a response to the growing frustration of many Americans to government overspending. We share these concerns and encourage citizens to express their opinions in a respectful and civil manner.”

However, information from a variety of sources indicate that there is a strong association between Koch Industries and the Tea Party. One of the most damning pieces of evidence comes from a new Internet documentary, [Astro]Turf Wars. The documentary includes a speech by David Koch, the owner of Koch Industries, delivered at a gathering of Americans for Prosperity, a group which he and his brother Charles founded. During the meeting, organizers proudly recognized a number of tea party activists.

Koch Industries directly contributes to the campaigns of Tea Party Republicans and through organizations like Americans for Prosperity, they also train Tea Party activists. It should come as no surprise that the same people who lie about climate change also lie about their links to the Tea Party.


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The Koch Brothers' No Climate Tax Pledge

Americans For Prosperity is the Koch founded and funded organization behind a misleading pledge known as the No Climate Tax Pledge. The pledge is designed to marry the unpopularity of tax hikes with efforts to find solutions to the climate change crisis.

Many Senate, House and Gubernatorial candidates have already signed the No Climate Tax pledge. See the list of signatories in the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Gubinatorial, and State/Municipal Officers.

Contract From America's full No Climate Tax Pledge reads as follows: I, ______________________, pledge to the taxpayers of the state of _______________ and to the American people that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue. Click to download a PDF of the Pledge

Contract From America rejects cap-and-trade and resists regulations. "authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves" and "reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs."

Like Contract From America, the No Climate Tax Pledge, uses ideas that have some traction in the public and then they make misleading claims including scare tactics that prey upon people economic anxieties. Its a well known Republican trick that has fooled Americans for generations. Republicans may campaign on fiscal conservatism, but they do not practice it.

Through organizations like Americans For Prosperity, the Koch brothers and their Republican Tea Party candidates resist the very measures needed for America’s global competitiveness.

Koch Industries and the Republican party oppose action to limit global warming pollution and they even question the validity of climate science. When they are not denying the reality of climate change they are arguing that the costs of trying to manage will be too great. However, if greenhouse gases are left unchecked, climate scientists are predicting cataclysmic climatic events that will cripple our entire economic system.

The No Climate Tax Pledge is a popular idea, but it ultimately serves short term corporate agendas.


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The Kochs' Climate Science Denial

The Koch brothers not only fund groups that resist environmental policy, they also work to discredit climate science. The Kochs fund organizations that promote climate science skepticism including the Heritage Foundation.

Through coordinated campaigns of misinformation, denier organizations like the Heritage Foundation have been successful in increasing climate change skepticism in the US.

The reach of the Koch brothers influence extends in many directions including policy and education. Another Koch funded organization by the name of The Independent Women’s Forum, opposes the teaching of global warming in American public schools.

The Koch brothers diverse spheres of influence all serve the common goal of delaying the transition away from the old energy economy as long as possible. Given the overwhelming body of evidence supporting man-made global warming, denial is the only viable strategy to achieve this goal.

As reported in the New Yorker, David Koch said that he was unconvinced that global warming has been caused by human activity. Even if it has been, he said, the heating of the planet will be beneficial, resulting in longer growing seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. “The Earth will be able to support enormously more people because far greater land area will be available to produce food,” he said.

The Koch brothers deserve to be recognized for decades of dedicated environmental hostility. Most recently, their climate denial project's sinister spin has succeeded in introducing uncertainty despite the scientific and empirical certainty of global warming.

Thanks in part to coordinated campaigns of misinformation, a new group of Koch funded climate deniers will soon be defending the lie in the House and the Senate.


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Koch Industries War on Industry Oversight and Environmental Regulation

The Koch brothers are putting their immense resources to work in a clandestine push to realize their libertarian agenda. David Koch and his brother Charles are some of America's wealthiest people and Koch Industries is the second-largest private company in the country, earning approximately 100 billion per year.

This considerable fortune is being put to work to help the Kochs realize an agenda that includes abolishing taxes, eradicating social services, eliminating industry oversight and putting an end to environmental regulation.

It is no surprise that a company that does as much harm to the environment as the Kochs would want to avoid environmental regulation. Their criminal liability in the commission of a spate of environmental crimes dates back over 20 years. A 2010 study by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the US. They are also one of the leading proponents of climate science denial.

The Koch brothers are funding Republicans and a wide range of organizations that fight legislation related to climate change. They are underwriters for a powerful network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Some influential illustrations include the Institute for Justice which files lawsuits opposing regulation; the Institute for Humane Studies which publishes conservative position papers; and the Bill of Rights Institute, an organizations that promotes a conservative interpretation of the Constitution.

Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

Koch money can be found wherever there is organized opposition to Obama, even in "grassroots" organizations like the Tea Party. The Kochs are using all the instruments at their disposal to control policy and advance their corporate interests.


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