Here’s the Toxic GOP/Tea Party Agenda That Koch Industries Purchased

November 9th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

Wonk Room has published some of the legal challenges that Koch Industries has brought against the finally functioning EPA of the Obama administration.

A sampling of some of the legal battles against the EPA that their lawyers are fighting shows that they just want to keep polluting.

Koch Industries forestry product subsidiary, Georgia Pacific claims that dioxins aren’t really toxic or carcinogenic. [Docket EPA-HQ-ORD-2010-0395]

Koch Industries oil and gas subsidiary Flint Hills Resources which operates six major hazardous air pollutant facilities, is protesting EPA’s proposed national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants from industrial boilers. [Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2002-0058]

Koch Industries oil and gas subsidiary Flint Hills Resources also “supports the elimination of all crude oil data reporting requirements” for greenhouse pollution compliance. [Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0109]

Koch Industries forestry product subsidiary Georgia Pacific, is fighting the EPA’s efforts to tighten water quality standards for stream-dumping. [Docket EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0596]

Koch Industries fertilizer subsidiary, Koch Nitrogen Co. LLC is challenging the disclosure of unit-specific or facility-specific greenhouse pollution, calling it “misguided.” [Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0508]

Koch Industries chemical subsidiary Invista wants to end the monitoring of chemical plant greenhouse pollution. [Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0508]

Koch Industries itself is protesting the EPA’s effort to update the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory. [Docket EPA-HQ-OPPT-2009-0187]

During the Bush administration, the EPA was hostage to polluter interests, and even went as far as to pose a legal challenge of the endangerment finding (that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and should be reduced as a danger to human health), which the Supreme Court overturned.

But even after their lawyers lost the case, the Bush EPA under Johnson stalled till the end of the Bush administration. This is the pollution-friendly kind of administration that the second-largest company in the US, Koch Industries is trying to return to power.

To that end, Koch Industries funded the Tea Party/GOP candidates, and required they pass a litmus test. They had to declare themselves oblivious to the existence of climate change – and by extension, to reject science itself.

Because without science, there is no proof that pollution is a danger.

Susan Kraemer@Twitter

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Tags: endangerment finding, EPA, Koch Industries

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.