By Ben Jervey 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 on DeSmog’s KochvsClean project — helping fund and coordinate a decades-long attack […]
By Dana Drugmand Electric buses are replacing existing diesel-fueled fleets at an accelerating rate, and the transition to battery-powered buses is outpacing even the most optimistic projections. In this light, it should come as little surprise that commentators and organizations with ties to the Koch network and the oil industry are attacking a transportation option […]
By Andy Rowell The disconnect could not be greater. As wildfires raged across the U.S. last week, inflamed by climate change, Trump officials attended the America First Energy Conference, where delegates heard age-old fossil fuel arguments that, amongst others, carbon dioxide makes the planet greener and could not be creating a climate crisis. The conference […]
The Koch brothers are pouring money into grassroots state efforts to defeat public transit proposals, The New York Times reported. Local chapters of Koch advocacy group Americans for Prosperity have worked in at least seven states since 2015 to sway voters against public transit proposals, with some notable successes: the group was partially responsible for […]
By Ben Jervey A coalition of conservative groups, many with close ties to the Koch brothers, is calling for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt to strip California of its right to set stricter greenhouse gas limits for personal vehicles. Not satisfied with Pruitt’s decision to rewrite the Obama-era emissions standards—which had been […]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is being sued for its “unlawful and unreasonable delay” in responding to requests for information about the agency’s communications with the Heartland Institute, according to a complaint by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The Heartland Institute is an Illinois-based think tank that […]
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday morning that he is nominating CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace Rex Tillerson as U.S. Secretary of State. “We got along actually quite well, but we disagreed on things,” Trump said today. The president noted that the Iran nuclear deal was a point of contention, but there were other issues […]
By Steve Horn A leaked memorandum published by The Intercept and Documented Investigations shows that a Koch Industries’ donors network, known as the Seminar Network, has taken credit for Donald Trump approving the permits for both the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines during the first months of his presidency. The memo also applauded efforts […]
Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke is the winner of the Center for Biological Diversity’s 2017 Rubber Dodo award. The statue is awarded each year to the person or group who has most aggressively sought to destroy America’s natural heritage or drive endangered species extinct. “Ryan Zinke seems to wake up every day wondering how he can […]