Mercantile scum...

The billionaire owners of privately held technology company Koch
Industries funneled nearly $50 million in donations to climate change
denial groups between 1997 and 2008, according to a new report from
Greenpeace International.

"This private, out-of-sight corporation is now a partner to
ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute and other donors that
support organizations and front-groups opposing progressive clean
energy and climate policy," Greenpeace explains. "In fact, Koch has
out-spent ExxonMobil in funding these groups in recent years. From
2005 to 2008, ExxonMobil spent $8.9 million while the Koch
Industries-controlled foundations contributed $24.9 million in funding
to organizations of the ‘climate denial machine’. "

"Charles and David [Koch] have a vested interest in preventing climate
action," the environmental group notes. "They’ve made billions from
Koch Industries, an oil and manufacturing giant that is the second
largest privately-held company in America with tentacles extending
around the globe. It’s time more people were aware of the brothers
Koch and just what they’re up to."

In recent months, the Koch brothers have come under fire from a number
of sources for their funding of a hard-right agenda. Last December,
AlterNet reported that "billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch
are the wealthiest, and perhaps most effective, opponents of President
Obama's progressive agenda. ... At the dawn of the Obama presidency,
Koch groups quickly maneuvered to try to stop his first piece of
signature legislation: the stimulus. ... As their fronts were battling
the stimulus, David's Americans for Prosperity (AFP) spent the opening
months of the Obama presidency placing calls and helping to organize
the very first 'tea party' protests."

Rolling Stone also singled out the Koch brothers in a January article
titled "The Climate Killers," which noted how, "in addition to
fomenting last summer's town-hall brawls over health care reform, AFP
sponsored a 'Hot Air Tour' on climate change, deploying a manned
balloon at 75 events for the purpose of 'Exposing the Ballooning Costs
of Global Warming Hysteria.' At the events, the group's president, Tim
Phillips, grossly exaggerated the costs of climate legislation,
calling it a trillion-dollar tax on American families."

The newly-issued Greenpeace report, however, goes into unprecedented
detail on the network of Koch-backed organizations and politicians
that make up what it describes as a "web of dirty money and
influence."

"The company’s tight knit network of lobbyists, former executives and
organizations has created a forceful stream of misinformation that
Koch-funded entities produce and disseminate," the report states.
"This campaign propaganda is then replicated, repackaged and echoed
many times throughout the Koch-funded web of political front groups
and think tanks."

The report cites "ClimateGate" as one example of this Koch machine at
work, noting, "At least twenty Koch-funded organizations have
repeatedly rebroadcast, referenced and appeared as media spokespeople
in the story, dubbed 'ClimateGate,' of supposed malfeasance by climate
scientists gleaned from a cache of stolen emails from the University
of East Anglia in November 2009. These organizations claim the emails
prove a 'conspiracy' of scientists and casts doubt on the scientific
consensus regarding climate change."

Among the top recipients of Koch funding are Americans for Prosperity,
the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute, which was co-founded
by Charles Koch in 1977. Lesser amounts have gone to such groups as
Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and the Capital Research
Center, which has been the primary source of ACORN-related conspiracy
theories.

Prominent members of Congress to whom Koch has donated generously
include Republicans Eric Cantor (R-VA) and John Boehner (R-OH) and
Democrat Blanche Lincoln (D-AR).

Koch Industries has already issued an official response to the
Greenpeace report. "Koch companies and Koch foundations have worked to
advance economic freedom and market-based policy solutions to
challenges faced by society," it states. "The Greenpeace report
mischaracterizes these efforts and distorts the environmental record
of our companies. ... We have tried to help bring out the facts of the
potential effectiveness and costs of policies proposed to deal with
climate, as it’s crucial to understand whether proposed initiatives to
reduce greenhouse gases will achieve desired environmental goals and
what effects they would likely have on the global economy."