Americans For Prosperity, a political advocacy network funded a the Koch brothers, recently launched a campaign to support President Trump’s efforts to roll back fuel efficiency and automobile emissions standards.
Through social media feeds of the many AFP state chapters, the group is promoting a petition to “Repeal Costly Obama-era Fuel Standards.”
Continue reading “Americans for Prosperity Launches Campaign to Crush Fuel Economy Standards”
Life: Powered is a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation designed to “ensure that Americans continue to benefit from abundant, reliable, safe, and clean energy.”
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a conservative think tank based in Austin, Texas that is listed as a “partner organization” in the Charles Koch Institute‘s Liberty@Work program. The TPPF has received at least $1.1 million from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and nearly $5 million from Donors Capital Fund and DonorsTrust.
According to its 2017 annual report, Life: Powered was originally TPPF’s “Fueling Freedom” project, which launched in 2015 “to combat the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.”
The annual report explains how Life: Powered will expand on the scope of the original “Fueling Freedom project:
“In 2018, we’ll be taking the project to a new level, expanding it to cover every aspect of the policies that promote abundant, reliable, and affordable energy to power modern life.”
TPPF’s Kathleen Hartnett-White was director of the Fueling Freedom project and co-authored the “Fueling Freedom” book with Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore. White is now listed as a senior fellow of the Life: Powered project.
Though there isn’t yet much public presence for the project, TPPF is currently hiring a Project Coordinator and Policy Analyst for “Life: Powered.” The organization also has a “Life:Powered” playlist on Youtube.
Given their recent history of attacks on clean energy and electric vehicles, it should come as no surprise that the Koch brothers have put mass transit in their cross-hairs. Last week, the New York Times exposed the breadth and depths of their efforts, run through the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, to undermine bus and rail projects across the country. Continue reading “Koch vs Mass Transit: How Americans for Prosperity is Fighting Bus and Rail Projects Nationwide”
A coalition of conservative groups, many with close ties to the Koch brothers, are calling for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt to strip California of its right to set stricter greenhouse gas limits for personal vehicles.
Not satisfied with Pruitt’s decision to rewrite the Obama-era emissions standards — which had been written cooperatively with the automakers, state of California, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and EPA — the American Consumer Institute (ACI) organized a letter to Pruitt calling “for the revocation of California’s waiver from the Clean Air Act, which allows the state to decouple from federal policy and impose strict emission standards on automobiles.” Continue reading “Koch vs. California: These Groups Are Pushing Pruitt to Undo the State’s Right to Regulate Auto Emissions”
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry, representing over 600 corporate members “from the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry.” Continue reading “American Petroleum Institute”
Back in August at the Red State Gathering in Denver, Fueling U.S. Forward President Charles Drevna revealed that one of the campaign’s major strategies would involve targeting minority communities. A remarkable article just published by The New York Times reveals how the group is enacting this strategy, hosting and supporting events in minority communities while promoting the “importance of domestic oil and natural gas to making people’s lives better,” as Drevna put it.
Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, called the Fueling U.S. Forward campaign “an exploitative, sad and borderline racist strategy.” Continue reading “New York Times Examines Fueling U.S. Forward, the Koch-Funded “Exploitative, Sad and Borderline Racist” Campaign”
Hamilton Place Strategies, a Washington, D.C-based public affairs firm, ran the now-defunk “Fueling U.S. Forward” campaign.
As Congress and the Administration seek ways to increase our energy security, economic security, and national security, AFPM urges policymakers to weigh the full spectrum of trade-offs. While weaning the U.S. off oil is a good talking point, artificially forcing the market to adopt expensive new technologies that rely on the fair trade practices of China could bring a new set of challenges. In the meantime, the U.S. can instead develop its own abundant supply of energy, which can increase our energy, economic and national security. The U.S. can do so without subsidies or mandates, all our industry needs is the room to do it. As we look to diversify our energy sources, we must not turn our back on petroleum-derived fuels that we will continue to depend upon for decades to come. To do so would simply disadvantage the consumer, harm our national economy and erode our energy security.”
The American Energy Alliance (AEA) is the “advocacy arm” of the Institute for Energy Research, and describes itself as a “not-for-profit organization that engages in grassroots public policy advocacy and debate concerning energy and environmental policies.”