Today’s House of Representatives hearing on the so-called “”https://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings/hearingdetail.aspx?NewsID=8179">Energy Tax Prevention Act" doesn’t seem to have much to do with MIT. Unlike The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, it doesn’t bear the name of the conservative activist behind it. But, according to several reports, the wealthy founders of Koch Industries are deeply involved in promoting the bill as part of their effort to limit climate change legislation.
The rising influence of the conservative Koch brothers has put MIT in a slightly awkward position. David Koch, who survived a bout of prostate cancer, is a major donor to the university’s cancer research effort. In a few weeks, MIT will cut the ribbon on the Koch Institute’s centerpiece building in Kendall Square.
Not that universities should turn down record-breaking $100 million donations based on the donor’s politics. Still, it is worth noting that the Kochs are global warming skeptics, a position detailed in several recent reports, including one in this week’s LA Times. That story and others detail efforts by the Kochs — whose company runs oil pipelines, wells and refineries — to rein in the EPA and limit climate change regulation. It’s a position that would put them at odds with a good many – not all – of the scientists the working at MIT’s maze-like jumble of environmental and energy research centers and academic departments.
New York Times columnist Frank Rich also suggests the Koch’s politics might put them at odds with some of the people in MIT’s Koch Institute as well.
“While Koch foundations donate to cancer hospitals like Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, Koch Industries has been lobbying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying another product important to its bottom line, formaldehyde, as a “known carcinogen” in humans (which it is). "
The New Yorker, which Rich quotes, went into the detail last summer. The campaign finance watchdog group Common Cause details the Kochs’ efforts and links to other reports on the company, concluding “They have invested millions of dollars in campaigns designed to raise doubts about climate change.”
The La Times offers an update this week in story reports on the Koch’s arrival as players in D.C.
Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the… (House Energy and Commerce Committee)… signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group — Americans for Prosperity — to oppose the Obama administration’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. Of the six GOP freshman lawmakers on the panel, five benefited from the group’s separate advertising and grass-roots activity during the 2010 campaign.
The story goes on to report on Koch-supported committee members pushing a bill that would strip the EPA of its ability to curb carbon emissions
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The legislation is in line with the Kochs’ long-advocated stance that the federal government should have a minimal role in regulating business. The Kochs’ oil refineries and chemical plants stand to pay millions to reduce air pollution under currently proposed EPA regulations.
Koch Industries is the country’s second-largest privately run company, a conglomerate of refining, pipeline, chemical and paper businesses. Their products include Lycra and Coolmax fibers, Brawny paper towels and Stainmaster carpets. Last year, Forbes magazine listed the brothers as the nation’s fifth-richest people, each worth $21.5 billion.