Koch Industries

From SourceWatch

Koch Industries, (pronounced "coke"), is the largest privately owned company in the United States with 70,000 employees and annual sales of $100 billion in the fiscal year ending December of 2008. ^[1] (Cargill comes in second for privately owned companies.)

Contents 1 Overview 2 Affiliations 2.1 Koch Family Foundations 2.2 Cato Institute 3 Mergers & aquisitions 4 Pollution 4.1 Republican Ties 5 Lobbying 6 Political Contributions 7 Koch Industries and Coal 8 Contact information 9 Articles & sources 9.1 SourceWatch resources 9.2 References 9.3 External articles

Overview

Operations include refining, chemicals, process and pollution control equipment, technologies, fibers polymers, commodity and financial trading and consumer products. The company operates crude gathering systems and pipelines across North America. One subsidiary processes 800,000 barrels of crude oil daily in its three refineries. Koch also owns ranches with a total of 15,000 head of cattle in Kansas, Montana and Texas. ^[2] The company was started in 1927 by Fred Koch, a charter member of the John Birch Society, with an oil delivery business in Texas. Though diversified, the company amassed most of its fortune in the oil trading and refining.

Affiliations

Koch Family Foundations

Sons Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch run the company as well as Koch Family Foundations, one of the largest single sources of funding for conservative organizations in the United States. Organizations and think tanks supported by the foundation include Citizens for a Sound Economy, the libertarian Cato Institute, Reason Magazine, the Manhattan Institute, the Heartland Institute, and the Democratic Leadership Council. David H. Koch ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980. Author Thomas Frank wrote in "What's the Matter with Kansas?" that "Koch money flowed through Triad Management Services"^[3], an advisory service to conservative donors groups and candidates, for the 1996 Senate campaign of Sam Brownback.^[4] Other sources only hint at a connection of Koch family members and Triad.^[5]

Cato Institute

Charles G. Koch co-founded the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington DC, with Edward H. Crane in 1977. ^[6] Recently, Koch Industries has become an aggressive opponent of climate legislation and a major funder of climate skeptics, including the Cato Institute. ^[7]

Mergers & aquisitions

During 2003, Koch announced a $4.4 billion cash purchase of Invista, the world's largest fibers company (which owns brands such as Lycra and Teflon) from DuPont. [1] In 2005, Koch purchased paper products giant Georgia-Pacific for $21 billion, acquiring brands such as Quilted Northern, Angel Soft, Brawny, Sparkle, Vanity Fair, and Dixie cups. Internationally, brands include Lotus, Colhogar, Delica, Tenderly, and the Vania brand of personal care products.

Pollution

Koch Industries is also a major polluter. During the 1990s, its faulty pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil spills in five states, prompting a landmark penalty of $35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency. In Minnesota, it was fined an additional $8 million for discharging oil into streams. During the months leading up to the 2000 presidential elections, the company faced even more liability, in the form of a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, a known carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Republican Ties

If convicted, the company faced fines of up to $352 million, plus possible jail time for company executives. After George W. Bush became president, however, the U.S. Justice Department dropped 88 of the charges. Two days before the trial, John Ashcroft settled for a plea bargain, in which Koch pled guilty to falsifying documents. All major charges were dropped, and Koch and Ashcroft settled the lawsuit for a fraction of that amount.

Koch had contributed $800,000 to the Bush election campaign and other Republican candidates.

Alex Beehler, assistant deputy under secretary of defense for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, previously served at Koch as director of environmental and regulatory affairs and concurrently served at the Charles G. Koch Foundation as vice president for environmental projects. [2] Beehler was later nominated and re-nominated by the Bush White House, to become the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General. [3]

Lobbying

The company spent $3,528,750 for lobbying in 2006. $820,000 was to outside lobbying firms with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists. ^[8]

In February 2005, the Hill reported, "Top White House official Matt Schlapp is joining the Washington office of oil-and-gas conglomerate Koch Industries, the latest example of high-level administration and congressional staffers making post-election leaps to the lobbying world." Schlapp had headed the White House’s Office of Political Affairs. At Koch, Schlapp will be the executive director of federal affairs, directing Washington lobbying. [4]

Elizabeth Stolpe, previously in-house lobbyist for Koch Industries, is now Associate Director For Toxics & Environmental Protection at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Political Contributions

Koch Industries is the single largest oil company contributor to both Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress. These contributions total $1,065,750 to the 110th US Congress (as of the third quarter), the largest of which has been to Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) for $42,950. Rep. Tiahrt, for his part, has consistently voted with the oil industry on energy, war and climate bills. [5]

Contributions like this from fossil fuel companies to members of Congress are often seen as a political barrier to pursuing clean energy. More information on oil industry contributions to Congress can be found at FollowtheOilMoney.org, a project created by the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Oil Change International.

Koch Industries gave $948,000 to federal candidates in the 05/06 election cycle through its political action committee (PAC) - 17% to Democrats, 82% to Republicans. ^[9]

Koch Industries and Coal

In 2005 Koch Industries acquired the American pulp and paper company Georgia-Pacific, which now operates as a subsidiary.^[10] Georgia-Pacific owns and operates the following mills^[11]:

• Naheola mill in Pennington, Alabama, which began operations in 1958. Currently, the principle products from the Naheola mill include both plate stock and cup stock for use in the food service market.
• The Crossett mill, located in Crossett, Arkansas, produces bleached paperboard grades, including folding carton, plate stock, bleached linerboard, and various cup stock grades.
• The recently acquired Brewton mill, located in Brewton, Alabama, produces folding carton, blister packaging, and skin packaging grades.
• Fort James Muskogee Mill Power Plant is a coal-fired power station in Muskogee, Oklahoma that provides power to Georgia-Pacific's Muskogee paper mill.

Contact information

4111 E. 37th St. North
Wichita, KS 67220-3203
Phone: 316-828-5500
Fax: 316-828-5739
Web: http://www.kochind.com

Articles & sources

SourceWatch resources

• Charles G. Koch
• David H. Koch
• Koch Family Foundations
• Vernon L. Smith
• Cato Institute
• Penn and Teller
• Oil industry
• Meat & Dairy industry
• Climate change skeptics

References

1. ↑ Hoovers Koch Industries, Inc. Financials, accessed July 2009
2. ↑ Hoovers Koch Industries, Inc. Company Description, accessed July 2009
3. ↑ Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas?, Metropolitan Books, June 2004, pp. 81-82.
4. ↑ "Carolyn Malenick", archived from the website of the Institute for First Amendment Studies, 1998. This bio note on Carolyn Malenick states that she was "President, Triad Management Services, a for-profit business whose purpose is to provide expert services to its clients – conservative political donors."
5. ↑ Ruth Marcus, "Funds Consultant Helped Senator Behind Scenes", Washington Post, December 12, 1997; Page A01.
6. ↑ Greenpeace Fact Sheet: Cato Institute, Exxon Secrets, accessed July 2009
7. ↑ Te-Ping Chen Behind the Climate Skeptisim Curtain: The Koch Family and the Cato Institute, The Center for Public Integrity, April 2009
8. ↑ Koch Industries lobbying expenses, Open Secrets.
9. ↑ 2006 PAC Summary Data, Open Secrets, accessed July 2007.
10. ↑ Company Overview, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, accessed September, 2009.
11. ↑ "Mill Facilities" Georgia-Pacific, September 2009

External articles

• Robert Parry, D(OIL)E: What Wouldn't Bob Do For Koch Oil?, The Nation, August 26, 1996.
• Robert Parry, Petrodollar Scholars (sidebar to the above), The Nation, August 26, 1996.
• Curtis Moore, Money talks, but often hides its sources Journal of the Society of Environmental Journalists, Vol. 10 No. 3, Fall 2000.
• Chris Graham, Invista, Koch announce leadership changes, Augusta Free Press, 24 November, 2003.
• Jeremy Grant, The private empire of Koch Industries (interview), Financial Times, January 30, 2004.
• Koch Industries and the Pollution of the Bush White House, Media Whores Online, accessed April 2004
• Curtis Moore, Rethinking the Think Tanks, Sierra Club website, accessed April 2004
• Bob Williams and Kevin Bogardus, Koch's Low Profile Belies Political Power, Center for Public Integrity, July 15, 2004.
• Josephine Hearn, "Bush aide leaving to join Koch Industries," The Hill February 1, 2005.
• Loren Steffy, "Another BP question surfaces", Houston Chrinicle, August 5, 2006. (This story reports on a lawsuit by Koch Industries over damaged underground pipes at a plant it bought from BP.)
• Judy Pasternak, "Bush again pushes 3 nominees seen as pro-industry: The president could skirt the Senate by using recess appointments," Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2007.