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The Koch Brothers Aren't Going Anywhere

Jul 1, 2013 By Charles P. Pierce at 4:30PM


Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images

Portraits of the Koch brothers at a protest in May 2013.

At The New Yorker, the invaluable Jane Mayer tips us to this equally invaluable study of the thoroughgoing involvement .. http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/the_koch_club/story/Koch_millions_spread_influence_through_nonprofits/ .. of the Koch Brothers in almost every aspect of conservative politics and, therefore, every aspect of American public policy, but especially their role in constructing the self-contained and highly disciplined universe within which conservative politics and policy ideas are formed and promulgated. The attempts to get something done within our politics as regards the crisis of climate change, to name only one issue in which they've meddled.

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The House of Representatives voted to slash the EPA budget by 27 percent, one of the biggest cuts since President Richard Nixon and the Congress created the agency in 1970. The Senate subsequently modified the severity of these cuts, and the budget was ultimately cut by nearly 16 percent. What is less known is that more than 100 House members - all Republicans, many tea party members - signed a little-known "pledge" (similar to the Grover Norquist no tax increase pledge) backed by the Koch brothers promising to not spend any federal money to fight climate change without an equal amount of tax cuts. Most of the pledge signers received campaign contributions from Charles or David Koch or Koch Industries. The Workshop has tracked the signing of the pledge by 411 current state and federal politicians nationwide (all Republicans except four Democrats and two Independents at the state level). Among them are such prominent state officials as Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, the Republican nominee for governor in Virginia. The first person to sign the Koch-backed pledge was Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, where Koch Industries is headquartered. Of the 85 conservative Republicans first elected to the House of Representatives in 2010, 76 signed the pledge and, of those, 57 received money from Koch Industries' political action committee. The members of Congress who signed the pledge have also introduced several bills aimed at limiting EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and limiting regulation of the nation's biggest polluters.
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For the love of god, another pledge? What is it with these people?

And they're not going away...

Read More http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/koch-brothers-climate-change-070113

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/