Renewable Revolution

 
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May 1, 2018



With all the fireworks around Pruitt’s neverending scandalrama, and the other uproars over all “the best people” in the Trump administration, the Koch brothers are enjoying a moment of relative obscurity.

But a group of six senators are aiming to change that. The lawmakers sent letters last week the White House and eight regulatory bodies soliciting information about how the Koch network has infiltrated the Trump administration.

Their concerns are certainly well-founded, and they’ve documented multiple employees whose CVs brag about their Koch network gigs, like Doug Domenech. But we’re surprised it’s taken this long to become a concern worthy of a letter...

After all, we raised this flag back in November 2016, pointing to Pence, Pompeo, and Domenech’s Kochnecctions. Then nearly a year later in October ‘17, there was the Jane Mayer profile of Pence’s career as a Koch crony. Then in December ‘17 Public Citizen’s Koch Government report detailed the 44 Kochs in 45’s cabinet, and of course replacing Tillerson with Pompeo was another chance to call out the Kochs.

All the while, the Koch operatives who haven’t (yet) been invited into Trump’s cabinet of puppets continue trying to subvert democracy for their funders profit. Case in point: a collection of Koch groups submitted a lengthy public comment on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan last week. And the Koch-funded Daily Caller was, of course, all too happy to do PR for them, eschewing any funding information and instead calling them “free market groups.” 

Fortunately, the constellation of Koch groups are up against a formidable foe. Beyond the reality of climate change and the Endangerment Finding, last week a group of 27 states, counties and cities announced their support for the CPP and opposition to Pruitt’s “error-filled” attempts to justify the repeal.

And a second coalition of 15 local governments submitted a comment alleging that Pruitt’s repeated criticisms of the CPP, and promises to repeal it, constitute a “lack of due process and fairness” that renders the public comment period moot because Pruitt’s already made up his mind to repeal. They assert that Pruitt’s “involvement has irreparably tainted the current administrative process, and as a result, EPA must withdraw the proposed CPP repeal.”

If Pruitt’s still EPA Administrator, playing in the big league so to speak, by the time the CPP repeal goes through, he’ll be facing some stiff courtroom opposition. As Kamala Harris once pointed out, Pruitt’s record in suing the EPA was… not good, “Baseball fan Pruitt lost 6 of 7 lawsuits against the EPA,” Harris Tweeted last year. “That would be a mediocre .142 batting average.”

Now that Pruitt would be defending the EPA instead of suing it, we’re wondering if he will get sent back down to the Koch’s (coal and oil-) miner league.