Tag Archives: Proposition 23

California

Billionaire Polluters Pay a Million to Foul California’s Air-Who’s Behind Prop 23?

By Ann Notthoff

Originally posted on The MarkUp.

Of one thing you can be certain: when the Koch Brothers ride into town, dirty money follows. This is particularly bad news for California as the Koch Brothers arrived last week to join other out of state polluters paying big bucks to sully the air of the Golden State.

The two billionaire siblings, David and Charles Koch, own Koch Industries, a Wichita-based oil conglomerate that maintains refineries in three states and 4,000 miles of pipeline.

As energy companies go, Koch Industries is something of a stealth entity. The Center for Public Integrity recently completed a major report on the company, noting that “Koch Industries could be the biggest oil company you have never heard of.” While it is little known to the public, its estimated revenues in 2009 were about $40 billion, making it bigger than AT&T, Microsoft or Merrill Lynch.

Koch Industries has been named as one of the country’s top ten air polluters in a University of Massachusetts / Amherst report. As reported by the New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times, the Koch (pronounced “coke”) brothers are strident in their denial of climate science findings, opposing any and all attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and move the nation to a sustainable energy path.

Moreover, they’re giving millions of dollars to groups fighting environmental protection and the dissemination of accurate, peer-reviewed climate data. Koch Industries is also the biggest oil industry contributor of campaign money to federal and state candidates.

Now the Kochs have set their sights on AB 32, California’s landmark clean energy legislation.  A bipartisan bill supported by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders, AB 32 will create thousands of clean energy sector jobs, fund alternative energy R&D, cut global warming pollution and establish California at the cutting edge of the clean energy revolution that is transforming the global economy.

That doesn’t sit well with the Kochs, of course. They make their money in dirty high-carbon fuels and they, and they perceive any shift toward sustainable energy as a threat to their bottom line. Along with Valero and Tesoro Corp., the Kochs have funded Proposition 23, a Trojan horse of an initiative that would derail AB 32. Proposition 23 is a bald-faced attempt to assure the continued dominance of the fossil fuel industry. If passed in November, it will effectively kill AB 32.

So far, more than $8 million has been pumped into the Proposition 23 campaign. Of that amount, 97 percent has come from oil interests, and 89 percent came from out-of-state companies. Last week, the Kochs kicked another $1 million into the Proposition 23 kitty, as did Tesoro.

Proposition 23, therefore, is not a simple state proposition. It has national ramifications, and it could well determine the direction of the country’s energy policy. California has a history of being America’s evolutionary engine for technology: witness Apple, Intel, Google, the thousands of other firms that have shaped the way we work, play, interact – even think.

Clean tech is no exception. Through AB 32, we have established a template that the rest of the world can follow.  

Luckily Californians know better than to buy the snake oil these out-of-state dirty energy companies are selling. People from all over the political spectrum are lining up to fight the measure.

For example, San Francisco investor Tom Steyer and President Reagan’s former Secretary of State George Shultz are co-chairing of the No on 23 Campaign, which aims to keep oil industry carpetbaggers out of California’s public policy. But they can’t do it alone – we need everyone’s help. Join us at: http://www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com/.

And show up at the polls on November 2 to send the Kochs and their cronies packing. In the process, we can send a message to Dirty Oil that the clean energy economy is here to stay.  

Election 2010

A Match Made in Smoggy Toxic Hell: Koch and Prop 23

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The secretive, many-tentacled Koch Industries has just donated a million dollars to the Yes on 23 campaign.  Tesoro Industries, another Texas oil business, has matched that amount.  Scorecard:

Total Contributions to date:                    $8,221,096

Contributions from oil interests:              $7,987,995 (97% of the total)

Contributions from out of state:              $7,307,995 (89% of the total)

Valero, Tesoro & Koch Industries:           $6,575,000 (80% of the total)

Were you ever on the fence?  Did you really think that a measure to “suspend” California's landmark global warming law, bankrolled by out of state dirty energy interests and opposed by Californians from Silicon Valley tycoons to Small Business California to Latino families deserves a yes vote? The oil companies who've given 97% of the money to Proposition 23 don't give a rat's a$$ about California jobs.  They certainly don't care about the existing 500,000 clean energy jobs that Proposition 23 would kill.  For them, it's their out-of-state bottom line.  

Koch has been operating in the shadows, bankrolling tea party activists, denying the existence of climate change, for too long.  Only now, with a lengthy New Yorker piece entitled Covert Operations: the Billionaire Brothers who are Waging a War Against Obama, have they been exposed to sunshine.  “From 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.” Shorter, from the LA Times

“If you combined BP’s approach to safety with Enron’s greed, you would have Koch.”

Koch operates refineries in Alaska, Minnesota, and Texas.  Why are its long, slimy tentacles reaching into California?  Now that a climate bill appears dead in the Senate, the battle over the future moves to California.  Proposition 23 presents California voters with the stark choices of building the future or burning the planet.  It's also now a battleground in the war for the soul of America: Koch and its fellow polluters vs the future.

If you're in California, speak up.  Tell your neighbors.  Write a letter to the editor.  Even if you're not in California, please get involved.

Join the No on Prop 23 Campaign

Add your name as a citizen endorser to Stop Texas Oil — Hell No on Prop 23

If on Twitter, be among the first to follow @StopKoch campaign, run by @StopBeck.

California

Prop 23: California’s Future Fights Back Against Oil Money

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This fall, California voters will vote on Proposition 23, officially termed a “suspension” of California's global warming law (AB32) “until unemployment reaches 5.5%” and named by its supporters a “jobs initiative.”  

The battle should play out exactly as similar battles over federal climate policies: conservatives claim it'll destroy jobs, raise taxes, and increase family energy costs; environmentalists valiantly-yet-unsuccessfully try to set the record straight, only to be ignored by middle class voters worried about pocketbook issues.

But a funny thing is happening.

The narrative is shaping up to be quite different.  The shadowy interests behind Prop 23 are being exposed to the light.  And Prop 23 is being opposed by clean technology investors who see a stark choice: build the future or burn the planet.

Consider it evidence of hope.

In 2006, California passed the California Global Warming Solutions Act, commonly known as AB32, which established the first-in-the-world comprehensive program of regulatory and market mechanisms to achieve real, quantifiable, cost-effective reductions of greenhouse gases. Conservatives have been whining about it ever since it passed; hence, Proposition 23.  Officially, it's been placed on the ballot by Assemblymember Dan Logue, who calls it a “jobs initiative.”  But calling it a jobs initiative doesn't make it true, and calling it Logue's proposition only conceals the out of state dirty energy interests behind Proposition 23.

  1.  Behind Proposition 23: Out-of-State Oil and Coal

Who's really paying for Prop 23? Short answer: Valero Energy of Texas, Tesoro of Texas, and Koch Industries of oil/gas/coal/Americans for Prosperity fame.  

Valero has given over $4 million of the nearly $6.2 million received by the Yes on 23 campaign, and Tesoro is in for $525,000.  A shadowy Missouri conservative group with ties to coal whose spokesman criticizes “liberal politicians” in California with “crazy radical ideas” has donated $500,000, even though last December it only had $109 in its bank account.  A ThinkProgress blog post links Koch Industries to the “yes on Prop 23” forces.

A Sunlight Foundation investigation of donations 1998-2008 found that Big Oil's money at the state level goes mostly to influence public, not politicians; money is spent on elections, not contributions.  Prop 23 fits that mold.

  1.  Opposing Proposition 23: The Future

ca-print-map-lgOf course, environmentalists are appalled by any effort to roll back AB32.  However, serious money is coming from other sources.  Venture capitalist John Doerr has given $500,000 to the “No” campaign; Farallon founder Tom Steyer has pledged $5 million. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla states: “Proposition 23 will kill markets and the single largest source of job growth in California in the last two years.  Not only that, it'll kill investment in the long term for creating the next 10 Googles.”  Small wonder that the cleantech industry opposes Prop 23.

In 2009, 40 percent of cleantech venture capital went to California, where some 12,000 companies are working on ways that could help businesses and consumers reduce energy consumption. More than 500,000 people work in the industry, including 93,000 in manufacturing and 68,000 in construction. Clean energy jobs are growing in California at 10 times the statewide average.  For job-related reasons, the San Jose Mercury News editorial page urges a no vote.

Big Oil may be meeting its match in Google.

Perhaps sensing a loser, Meg Whitman is waffling on Prop 23.

The fall campaign season hasn't yet started, and optimism may be premature.  However, a Proposition 23 defeat would be the first sign of optimism on the climate front I've seen since the climate bill died.  The good clean energy jobs are already here in California.  Investors know it.  Our economy will not only survive regulation of greenhouse gases, it'll flourish.  Let's hope the climate peacocks of the United States Senate listen.  In the meantime, courtesy of Climate Progress, here's five actions to take:

1.Visit the “No on 23″ website, learn the facts & sign up:  Stop Dirty Energy

2.Educate yourself on how California’s climate & energy laws have created companies & jobs: CABrightSpot

3.Tell your friends by email, on Facebook, at work, & everywhere else.

4.Participate in the debate. Write letters to the editor and post comments on blogs & websites.

5.Contribute here. The other side’s leader, right-wing California Assemblyman Dan Logue, has publicly said he expects the oil companies to spend $50 million.