Charles(L), David(R) |
The Koch brothers are also backing California state proposition 23 with a $1,000,000 donation to undo Assembly Bill 32 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) passed in 2006 to establish state limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The bill is a model for bi-partisan effort to reduced carbon emissions and was supported by a broad array of business, labor and environmental interests. The law has already resulted in the creation of green jobs, prompting 100 economists to sign a letter opposing any changes to AB 32. But according to the hard-line libertarian Kochs[1], the bill is 'bad for business'. Prop 23 seeks to suspend California's global warming law until the state unemployment rate falls below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters, a condition that has only occurred three times since 1976.
The Kochs, through privately owned Koch Industries[2] and numerous non-profit organizations[3] such as Americans for Prosperity Foundation, are the largest funders of climate change denial worldwide. The Prosperity Foundation created by David Koch has connections to the Tea Party movement according to Jane Mayer writing in The New Yorker magazine. Through the Tea Parties the Kochs have morphed their ultra-right private agenda into what the COM portrays to be a popular mass movement. David ran for Vice President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980 to the right of Ronald Reagan, a move that allowed him to spend more than $2 million of his own money espousing a radical anti-government agenda, but the Libertarians received only 1% of the vote.
Tea partier labels Obama |
1. Fred Koch, father of David and Charles helped to found the ultra right-wing John Birch Society in the 1950s. Family history says Fred Koch was blacklisted by the US oil industry for having found a more efficient process to produce gasoline from oil. Fred Koch went to the Soviet Union to work where he helped set up Stalin's oil refineries. He was apparently radicalized by his experience during which several Soviet colleagues were purged. Charles is the recognized head of Koch Industries after an unfriendly struggle to control their father's company in which he and David bought out two other brothers for nearly a billion dollars. David is a prominent New York philanthropist whilst Charles leads a more private life at company headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. Both assimilated their father's ingrained distrust of governments.
2. Koch Industries is rated the 10th worst air polluter in the United States by U Mass. Most of the donated money to oppose AB32 has come from the oil industry. Two Texas companies, Valero Energy and Tesoro Corp. along with Koch Industries have contributed more than $6.5 million of the total $8 million
3. From 1998 until 2008 tax records show the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation spent $48 million on political activity. The Claude R. Lamb Charitable Foundation controlled by Charles and his wife spent $28 million. The David H. Koch Charitable Foundation spent more than $120 million. David also contributes to PBS.