Support the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and Blog

Author Topic: The Koch Watch Thread  (Read 7758 times)

blumenkraft

  • Guest
The Koch Watch Thread
« on: September 27, 2019, 12:34:01 PM »
A collection of articles/videos/infos showing how the general public is a victim of a massive misinformation campaign and how they (erm, he) is doing it.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2019, 12:48:14 PM by blumenkraft »

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2019, 12:34:30 PM »
Yes, America Is Rigged. Here Is What I Learned From Reporting on Koch Industries

Link >> https://time.com/5685528/koch-industries-corporate-power/?utm_source=reddit.com

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2019, 12:36:24 PM »
Americans for Prosperity boosts Schlegel's campaign for Louisiana Supreme Court

Link >> https://louisianarecord.com/stories/513740700-americans-for-prosperity-boosts-schlegel-s-campaign-for-louisiana-supreme-court

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2019, 12:38:14 PM »
Kenney Government Appointed Foreign, Koch-Funded Researcher to Rewrite Alberta’s Education Curriculum

Link >> https://pressprogress.ca/kenney-government-appointed-foreign-koch-funded-researcher-to-rewrite-albertas-education-curriculum/

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2019, 12:39:10 PM »
New Jersey donor disclosure law dangerous, Koch think tank tells judge | The Japan Times

Link >> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/09/18/business/new-jersey-donor-disclosure-law-dangerous-koch-think-tank-tells-judge/
« Last Edit: September 27, 2019, 12:44:20 PM by blumenkraft »

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2019, 12:39:57 PM »
Kochland: The influence of the Koch brothers - Christopher Leonard interviewed with ABC Radio National

Link >> https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/kochland:the-secret-history-of-koch-industries-and-corporate-po/11473792

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2019, 12:43:37 PM »
Inside the Libertarian Holocaust Denial Brought to You by the Kochs (w/ Mark Ames)


blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #7 on: September 27, 2019, 12:48:33 PM »
Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries w/ Christopher Leonard

(Interview starts at ~27minutes in)


Susan Anderson

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 527
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 40
  • Likes Given: 279
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2019, 04:48:55 PM »
Thanks for creating this. I carefully read Jane Mayer's Dark Money which contains much of the same information, and possibly more. Mayer gave the Leonard book a good review. Her materials on the Kochtopus and other forms of corruption in the US are ongoing and contain quite a few offshoots, including their efforts to discredit her.
https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jane-mayer {I've included some - possibly excessive - links to her many articles, which are a record of the downfall of any potential for integrity and fairness in the US.}

The Kochs got an early start by providing facilities for Stalin and Hitler.

They have an inside track to US government through Mike Pence (and also because the leadership at the top is highly disorganized). https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/the-danger-of-president-pence The Danger of President Pence: Trump’s critics yearn for his exit. But Mike Pence, the corporate right’s inside man, poses his own risks.

Myron Ebell was Trumpistan's early point person installing the "bad guys" - fossil lobbyists and other power brokers - everywhere and getting rid of science and honesty.

They are also closely allied to international climate fake skeptics such as UK's Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), and the unchristian "Christians" who wouldn't have anything to do with Jesus or his teachings (per the gospels which are short and repetitive). (I say this as an atheist, so let's not get going on religion: I have great respect for the leadership of compassion and caring for the less fortunate Jesus models.)

Trump vs. Koch Is a Custody Battle Over Congress: Both Donald Trump and Charles Koch appear to think that the Republican Party in particular, and American politics in general, should be theirs to dominate. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-vs-koch-is-a-custody-battle-over-congress

What Happened to Jane Mayer When She Wrote About the Koch Brothers https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/nyregion/what-happened-to-jane-mayer-when-she-wrote-about-the-koch-brothers.html
Quote
“The firm, it appears, was Vigilant Resources International, whose founder and chairman, Howard Safir, had been New York City’s police commissioner under the former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,” she writes in “Dark Money.”

Susan Anderson

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 527
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 40
  • Likes Given: 279
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #9 on: September 27, 2019, 04:54:36 PM »
I thought this one deserved a separate post. This story is only one of many. There are untold riches in the Jane Mayer New Yorker list.

A Whistle-Blower Accuses the Kochs of “Poisoning” an Arkansas Town https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-whistle-blower-accuses-the-kochs-of-poisoning-an-arkansas-town

limited extract, better to check the original, but of course it's paywalled with monthly article limits.
Quote
air-quality monitoring equipment, which he told me showed “deadly levels of hydrogen sulfide,” a foul-smelling, colorless gas that has proven carcinogenic to rats and mice. Guice took measurements in the morning, midday, and evening, and documented them all. When he told the Georgia-Pacific supervisors that he was getting readings so high that they indicated a potential for immediate illness and death, he says the company blamed his equipment. After he protested this, they offered to build a roof over the fields where the waste was being spread, but he told them that this would be like building a toxic gas chamber. “They told me it was my problem. They knew it was dangerous, but their attitude was: keep your mouth shut, do the job, and don’t get in anyone’s business,” according to Guice. Eventually, a company official took her own readings, which he says confirmed his own. At this point, the company decided to build a huge stainless-steel chain-link fence around the perimeter of its property, “so you can’t see where the work is,” he told me. Once he was able to get employment elsewhere, Guice, who had been contacted by the filmmakers behind “Company Town,” decided to blow the whistle.

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #10 on: September 27, 2019, 06:01:04 PM »
Thanks, for contributing, Susan! :)

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2019, 10:50:00 AM »
Alec Energy Task Force Members Uncovered

Quote
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its Energy, Environment and Agriculture (EEA) task force has been the source of a number of “model” bills and resolutions introduced in state legislatures across the country that benefit the fossil fuel industry and weaken environmental protections. A registration list obtained by Documented from a FOIA provides a rare glimpse at the fossil fuel corporations, utilities, industry trade associations, right-wing think tanks and legislators behind many of these policies.

Link >> https://documented.net/2019/09/alec-energy-task-force-members-uncovered/

Susan Anderson

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 527
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 40
  • Likes Given: 279
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #12 on: September 28, 2019, 09:19:54 PM »
Don't know if this video will cross the pond, but it's pretty good. Some of the contents include how in response to action under George HW Bush, Pelosi-Gingrich collaboration, the Waxman-Markey bill, etc., the "Koch Family Foundations spent $127,006,756 directly financing 92 groups that have attacked climate change science". They helped replace Bob Inglis when he said he "believed" in climate change with Trey Gowdy, etc. etc.

Neven

  • Administrator
  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 9470
    • View Profile
    • Arctic Sea Ice Blog
  • Liked: 1333
  • Likes Given: 617
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #13 on: September 28, 2019, 10:09:04 PM »
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10165
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2019, 10:26:11 AM »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

longwalks1

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 204
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 65
  • Likes Given: 19
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #15 on: October 01, 2019, 02:06:39 AM »
Desmogblog.com has followed them for years..

https://www.desmogblog.com/search/google/koch%20connections

They have had some interesting graphics too about Koch connections. 

Off to work. 

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #16 on: October 05, 2019, 07:46:51 AM »
David and Donald in The Hamptons in 2010


blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #17 on: October 05, 2019, 07:48:48 AM »
James Davis, a top aide to billionaire Charles Koch, left the Koch political network on Tuesday, underscoring a series of major changes for a force on the right that has pulled back from its heavy involvement in electoral politics.

Link >> https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/03/top-official-leaves-koch-network-026125

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #18 on: October 10, 2019, 04:35:01 PM »
Bill to Criminalize Environmental Protests in Wisconsin Heads to the Assembly Floor

Link >> https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/10/10/bill-criminalize-environmental-protests-wisconsin-heads-assembly-floor/


blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #19 on: October 12, 2019, 08:23:32 AM »
Students at MIT Extend their Protest to Koch and Demand More Resignations

Link >> https://iblnews.org/students-at-mit-extend-their-protest-to-koch-and-demand-more-resignations/

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #20 on: October 13, 2019, 04:30:05 PM »

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #21 on: November 06, 2019, 07:08:50 PM »
Koch Machine Steps up Lobbying to Stall Climate Action, Fight Donor Disclosure

Quote
Newly released figures show that Koch Industries has spent almost 20 percent more on federal lobbying expenses so far this year than it had at the same time last year. With the U.S. House in Democratic hands, Koch, like other fossil fuel companies, is forced to play defense on energy issues, along with pushing back against Trump trade policies.

Koch spent $9.1 million on lobbying for the first three quarters of 2019, both for the company’s own lobbyists and outside lobbying firms. At the same point last year, the company had spent $7.7 million.

Link >> https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/11/05/koch-machine-steps-up-lobbying-stall-climate-action-fight-donor-disclosure/

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #22 on: November 27, 2019, 07:39:11 PM »
Koch Foundations Increased Media Investments in 2018

Quote
As the political and philanthropic network of billionaire libertarian Charles Koch employs its latest PR strategy, the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) and the Charles Koch Institute (CKI) increased their giving to media organizations by roughly $1 million in 2018.

Koch has generally funded right-wing organizations such as the Daily Caller News Foundation, which funds much of the content on the Daily Caller website, and the Reason Foundation, which publishes libertarian-minded news and opinion on Reason.com. These and other donations continued in 2018, but the two foundations also contracted with conservative media outlet RealClearPolitics and two center-left publications, The Atlantic and Ozy Media.

Overall, CKF and CKI combined to spend nearly $3.5 million on media grants and contracts in 2018. This amount is a small, but growing, portion of the foundations’ annual donations. In 2018, CKF gave out $127.5 million in donations, mostly to fund Koch’s right-wing educational and political infrastructure.

Link >> https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/11/26/koch-foundations-increased-media-investments-2018/

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #23 on: November 28, 2019, 08:04:45 PM »
Climate denial LTE in Oregon cites disgraced "climatologist" Patrick Michaels, one of very few scientists who rejects 97-98% of his peers understanding of climate change. He long worked for Charles Koch's Cato Institute, and recently moved to the Koch- & Mercer-funded "CO2 Coalition."

Link >> https://www.eastoregonian.com/opinion/letters/letter-there-is-no-global-climate-crisis/article_a236deb8-1066-11ea-b0a4-13f8250acf5a.html

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #24 on: December 22, 2019, 05:45:39 PM »
Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reportedly meeting with right-wing activists and billionaire megadonors (Steve Bannon, Charles Koch, and Sheldon Adelson) to discuss a potential run for the Senate

Link >> https://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstreet/comments/ee5wnp/trumps_secretary_of_state_mike_pompeo_is/

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #25 on: January 13, 2020, 07:37:08 PM »

mitch

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 108
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #26 on: January 13, 2020, 09:08:39 PM »
At least Pompeo is out of the Kansas senate race. However, a lot of money are going to other GOP fringe candidates:
https://www.rollcall.com/news/money-flows-to-kansas-senate-campaign-with-pompeo-out-of-the-race

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #27 on: February 03, 2020, 06:39:22 PM »
Truth decay: when uncertainty is weaponized

Link >> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00273-4

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #28 on: February 05, 2020, 10:53:58 AM »
The oil industry vs. the electric car - Electric vehicles could make up nearly half the fleet of passenger cars and trucks by 2040. But oil and gas companies are striking back. Publicly, they support clean energy. Privately, they do everything in their power to destroy it. It's War.

Link >> https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/16/oil-industry-electric-car-1729429

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #29 on: February 07, 2020, 08:05:42 PM »
Love the billionaire bucks flooding the 2020 elections? Thank Charles Koch

Link >> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/07/charles-koch-elections-billions-money-cash

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #30 on: February 12, 2020, 03:40:36 PM »
Quote
A joint investigation from CORRECTIV and Frontal21 reveals how the American Heartland Institute is supporting climate change deniers in Germany with the goal of undermining climate protection measures. We went undercover to meet with the institute’s chief strategist. He told us how the network of climate change deniers works, how donations are disguised and how they intend to use a German YouTuber affiliated with the AfD to reach young people. In the end, he made us a concrete offer.

Link >> https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories-en/2020/02/11/the-heartland-lobby/

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #31 on: February 29, 2020, 07:56:50 PM »
Jane Mayer, "Dark Money"

The influence of extreme libertarians such as the Koch brothers, their ideas about taxation and government regulation and how they furthered an agenda that advanced their own interests at the expense of meaningful economic, environmental, and labor reform.


blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #32 on: April 05, 2020, 03:47:47 PM »
Charlie Kirk Worries Coronavirus Stimulus Shows That Medicare for All Is ‘Perfectly Affordable’

Link >> https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/charlie-kirk-worries-coronavirus-stimulus-shows-that-medicare-for-all-is-perfectly-affordable/

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #33 on: April 06, 2020, 05:34:12 PM »
Heartland Institute Warns Renewables Will Damage The Environment & Harm People — Junk Science For Pollution

Link >> https://cleantechnica.com/2020/04/04/heartland-institute-warns-renewables-will-damage-the-environment-harm-people/

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #34 on: April 30, 2020, 01:47:07 PM »

gerontocrat

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 20378
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 5289
  • Likes Given: 69
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #35 on: April 30, 2020, 01:59:20 PM »
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #36 on: April 30, 2020, 02:13:01 PM »
... the hero image slips a bit ...

The hero image shatters, vaporizes, vanishes.

FIFY ;)

blumenkraft

  • Guest

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #38 on: May 23, 2020, 09:20:18 PM »
US critics of stay-at-home orders tied to fossil fuel funding

Quote
ExxonMobil, Koch and Mercer family are past funders of critics of stay-at-home orders as fossil fuel industry struggles amid lockdowns

Link >> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/21/groups-fossil-fuel-funding-urge-states-reopen-amid-pandemic

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #39 on: June 22, 2020, 08:18:05 PM »
‘Liberate’ Rally Organizers Worked to Criminalize Anti-Pipeline Protests


Quote
The Save Our Country coalition, which supports “liberate” protesters, is deeply tied to ALEC, a conservative group that has helped to pass laws in eleven states ratcheting up penalties for protesting near oil and gas pipelines.

Link >> https://readsludge.com/2020/06/01/liberate-rally-organizers-worked-to-criminalize-anti-pipeline-protests/

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10165
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #40 on: June 25, 2020, 01:12:42 AM »
Climate Lawsuits Are Coming for Koch Industries
https://earther.gizmodo.com/exxon-koch-industries-and-the-american-petroleum-inst-1844153441

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Wednesday that he’s suing ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute because the three firms deceived customers about the climate crisis. This is the first lawsuit of its kind to name API and Koch Industries, and it takes a novel approach by suing them solely for the lies they told.

The consumer fraud lawsuit alleges that the companies engaged in a multi-decade “campaign of deception,” hiding the fact that they understood as early as the 1950s that oil and gas production contributes to climate breakdown and still chose to extract, market, and sell the fuels. It includes claims for fraud, failure to warn and violations of Minnesota statutes on consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices and false statements in advertising. As retribution, it calls for Minnesotans to be compensated for their losses and for the defendants to fund a public education campaign about the dangers of climate change.

“We’re here suing these defendants, API, ExxonMobil and Koch, for hiding the truth, confusing the facts and muddling the water to devastating effect,” Ellison said at a news conference.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10165
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #41 on: July 04, 2020, 01:18:40 AM »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10165
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #42 on: October 10, 2020, 12:51:53 PM »
Trump's Public Lands Chief Refuses to Leave His Post Despite Judge's Order
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/10/william-perry-pendley-bureau-of-land-management-refuses-to-leave

William Perry Pendley says ‘I have the support of the president’ despite court ruling he is serving illegally as head of the Bureau of Land Management

... Pendley has never been confirmed by the Senate to serve as BLM director.

In response to Pendley refusing to vacate his post, the Montana senator Jon Tester accused him of a power grab “in service of his long-held goal of selling off our lands and enriching his corporate allies”.

As a former industry attorney and longtime president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), a litigation organization funded by conservative and industry groups including the Charles Koch Foundation and Exxon Mobil, Pendley boasts a deep background of legal advocacy for extractive resource industries on public lands.

He has made light of killing endangered species. The Guardian obtained a 2017 recording in which he told a group of North Carolina rightwing activists, “This is why out west we say ‘shoot, shovel and shut up’ when it comes to the discovery of endangered species on your property.”
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10165
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #43 on: July 09, 2022, 05:53:43 PM »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

trm1958

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 463
  • Will civilization survive Climate Breakdown?
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 69
  • Likes Given: 216
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #44 on: July 09, 2022, 10:04:57 PM »
I liked that one, vox_mundi. But aren't there as many liberal billionaires in technology and entertainment and sports as there are conservative ones in industry? Why don't they do the mirror image of the Koch brothers?

LeftyLarry

  • NewMembers
  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 259
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 30
  • Likes Given: 1
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #45 on: July 10, 2022, 05:34:27 AM »
I liked that one, vox_mundi. But aren't there as many liberal billionaires in technology and entertainment and sports as there are conservative ones in industry? Why don't they do the mirror image of the Koch brothers?
i knew one of the Koch brothers through a friend and he was a Libertarian, nothing else, no evil agenda, just didn’t like Government and gave plenty of money to the poor nd did plenty of good deeds.

SteveMDFP

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2477
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 583
  • Likes Given: 42
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #46 on: July 10, 2022, 01:44:33 PM »
i knew one of the Koch brothers through a friend and he was a Libertarian, nothing else, no evil agenda, just didn’t like Government and gave plenty of money to the poor nd did plenty of good deeds.

Largely true.  The Kochs have indeed given a lot of money to charities, especially medical ones.  My own family has benefitted.
But their political largess has not only been to advance a Libertarian philosophy.  They've also been hostile to the climate crisis.

KiwiGriff

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1614
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 710
  • Likes Given: 372
Re: The Koch Watch Thread
« Reply #47 on: July 11, 2022, 09:41:32 AM »
HOW CHARLES KOCH PURCHASED THE SUPREME COURT’S EPA DECISION
Decades of contributions aimed at influencing the judiciary bought the fossil fuel billionaire the ruling he’s always wanted.

https://theintercept.com/2022/06/30/supreme-court-epa-climate-charles-koch/
Quote
TODAY’S 6-3 SUPREME COURT decision restricting the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions will benefit power plants and fossil fuel companies throughout the U.S. and profoundly hobble the government’s ability to address the worsening climate catastrophe.

The decision, written by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, finds that the EPA does not have the authority to impose caps on carbon emissions by mandating a shift to cleaner energy sources. The ruling means that Congress, rather than the EPA and its staff of scientific experts, will handle the critical task of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

“Today, the Court strips the EPA of the power Congress gave it to respond to ‘the most pressing environmental challenge of our time,’” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer. “Whatever else this Court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change. Yet the Court today prevents congressionally authorized agency action to curb power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions. The Court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”

A number of energy magnates and fossil fuel trade groups pushed for the case that could kneecap the agency and boost their profits. But perhaps no one did more to bring West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency to the Supreme Court — or ensure that ultraconservative justices would be on the bench to decide in the companies’ favor — than Charles Koch.
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
Robert Heinlein.