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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-20140924?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=092414_1601&utm_medium=email&email=heidifrey%40post40productions.com
The enormity of the Koch fortune is no
mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40
billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly
well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered
the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy
Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the
Tea Party and powers today's GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised
some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another
$290 million to elect Republicans in this year's midterms. So far in
this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to
boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.
The volume of Koch Industries' toxic output is staggering. According
to the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Political Economy Research
Institute, only three companies rank among the top 30 polluters of
America's air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power
and Koch Industries. Thanks in part to its 2005 purchase of paper-mill
giant Georgia-Pacific, Koch Industries dumps more pollutants into the
nation's waterways than General Electric and International Paper
combined. The company ranks 13th in the nation for toxic air pollution.
Koch's climate pollution, meanwhile, outpaces oil giants including
Valero, Chevron and Shell. Across its businesses, Koch generates 24
million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.
For Koch, this license to pollute amounts to a perverse, hidden
subsidy. The cost is borne by communities in cities like Port Arthur,
Texas, where a Koch-owned facility produces as much as 2 billion pounds
of petrochemicals every year. In March, Koch signed a consent decree
with the Department of Justice requiring it to spend more than $40
million to bring this plant into compliance with the Clean Air Act.
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