Heck, Joe Rep

=<div>=even worse:http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/28/koch-fund-portman-heck/Billionaire oil barons Charles and David <a href="https://ecowatch.com/?s=koch" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Koch</a> are reaching into their deep pockets to fund Republican candidates in the tight Senate races in <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/01/kasich-renewable-energy/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Ohio</a> and <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/10/money-politics-kill-rooftop-solar-nevada/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Nevada</a>, two states that have seen powerful political and corporate interests block progress in <a href="https://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">renewable energy</a>.<figure id="attachment_386154" aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_386154" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; line-height: 25.2px; max-width: 760px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><figcaption id="figcaption_attachment_386154" class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.1875rem 0.4375rem 0.1875rem 0rem; line-height: 1.103rem;">The Koch brothers’s Super Pac is spending millions in ads to help Ohio Senator Rob Portman (top left) and Nevada Representative Joe Heck (bottom left) win their respective Senate races.</figcaption></figure>According to <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/koch-backed-group-spends-millions-ohio-nevada-senate-races-n598706" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">NBC News</a>, the Koch Super PAC Freedom Partners Action Fund has announced it will buy $2.7 million television and digital ads to help Ohio Republican incumbent Sen. Rob Portman defeat Democrat Ted Strickland in the key swing state. The candidates are currently<a href="http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/06/rob_portman_ted_strickland_tie.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">locked in a dead heat</a> with each polling at 42 percent.This news comes after the Super PAC’s <a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/politics/election-2016/conservative-pac-funds-ad-critical-senate-candidate-catherine-cortez-masto" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">announcement</a> last week that it is spending $1.2 million on advertising to boost Nevada Republican Rep. Joe Heck’s race against Democrat and former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto to replace Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. That race is also pretty much <a href="http://www.senatemajority.com/2015/07/news/releases/new-senate-majority-pac-poll-cortez-masto-leads-heck-42-41-in-nevada-senate-race/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">tied</a>.The Koch brothers have notoriously dumped wild sums of money on conservative causes and campaigns, with <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/22/koch-defends-exxon/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">more than $88 million</a> in traceable funding to groups attacking <a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">climate change</a> science, policy and regulation. According to NBC News, the two latest $3.7 million ad buy brings the Super PAC’s spending to $19.3 million in an effort to control the Senate.So who are the Koch-approved Senate choices for Ohio on Nevada?Rob Portman, who has been in office since 2011, is a pro-business conservative who has a prominent track record of choosing fossil fuel interests over environmental protection. As<a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/03/27/portman-climate-change-vote-hinges-one-word/70534216/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Cinncinati.com</a> reported, he was a vocal opponent to the Obama administration’s regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and has introduced an amendment that would let states opt out of those clean power rules.While he doesn’t completely deny global warming, he has played the “<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/08/colbert-climate-deniers/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">not a scientist</a>” card when it comes to whether or not human activity causes climate change, saying, “I’m not going to quantify it because scientists have a lot of different views on that.” In March 2015, when Democrats tried to pass an amendment that specified that human action contributed “significantly” to climate change, Portman voted no because of the single word, “significantly.”And, if this tells you anything, George W. Bush will <a href="http://wkbn.com/2016/06/27/george-w-bush-to-campaign-in-ohio-for-senator-rob-portman/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">stump for Portman</a> later this summer and Portman’s name has been floated as a <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/rob-portman-no-trump-vice-president-222848" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">potential VP pick</a> for Donald Trump (FYI: Portman isn’t interested in running with Trump, who the Kochs have <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-megadonors-koch-222825" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">basically rejected</a>).The Sierra Club’s Ohio branch <a href="http://content.sierraclub.org/coal/ohio/update/7-mar-2016/portman-wrong-climate-out-step-ohio" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">observed</a> that “over the course of his career, Portman has received more than $1.7 million from the energy and natural resources sector, including $761,000 from oil and gas, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Marathon Petroleum, FirstEnergy and American Electric Power were among his Top 20 contributors in 2013-14.”The Koch’s non-profit foundation Americans for Prosperity has given Portman an 89 percent score for 2015-16 for his support of Senate Joint Resolution 24 to disapprove of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, a plan supported by over two-thirds of Ohioans, the Sierra Club said.The League of Conversation Voters (LCV) on the other hand has <a href="http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/rob-portman" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">given Portman</a> a mere 8 percent for 2015 for his anti-environment voting record on the LCV’s National Environmental Scorecard. He has a lifetime score of 20 percent.As for Joe Heck, who has represented Nevada’s 3rd congressional district since 2011, the LCV has <a href="http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/joe-heck" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">given him</a> a terrible lifetime score of just 8 percent and a lower score of 6 percent for the year 2015. The group has even named Heck as <a href="http://www.lcv.org/media/press-releases/LCV-Names-Joe-Heck-as-Debut-Member-of-2016-Dirty-Dozen.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">the first member</a> of its trademark Dirty Dozen program for the 2016 cycle.“Joe Heck is a poster child for the Dirty Dozen, a climate change denier who would rather fight the expansion of clean renewable energy than protect the health of our families,” said Nevada Conservation League executive director Andy Maggi. “Nevadans know how critical it is that our next senator prioritize protecting our clean air and water and help make Nevada a solar energy leader, and Joe Heck just doesn’t fit the bill—he would rather represent big polluters, no surprise when they have funded his campaigns to the tune of over $400,000 dollars.”You’d think that Nevada, <a href="http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2011/11/21/the-10-sunniest-places-to-retire" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">which enjoys nearly 300 days of sunshine</a>, would lead states on solar energy generation. However, in December 2015, the Republican-appointed Public Utilities Commission overhauled a net-metering program in favor of the state’s utilities (such as <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=Buffett" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Warren Buffett</a>’s NV Energy) and effectively <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/14/solar-energy-nevada/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">killed Nevada’s rooftop solar</a> industry. Solar providers SolarCity and Sunrun Inc. have since left the state.The Americans for Prosperity have rated Heck with a 77 percent lifetime score and a current score of 85 percent.Additionally, NBC News reported that the Koch’s Super PAC is now aiding Florida’s Sen. <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=rubio" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Marco Rubio</a>‘s reelection campaign and has reserved television airtime beginning Aug. 31. <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/10/27/koch-brothers-solar-florida/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">As it happens</a>, the Koch brothers are <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/09/12940/koch-brothers-backing-misleading-anti-solar-campaign-florida" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">leading the efforts</a> to stifle solar energy in Florida as well.<div>=<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="line-height: 24px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">The Koch brothers have fired their first salvo--that the public knows about--in the 2016 election year.The Koch-funded <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Concerned_Veterans_for_America" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Concerned Veterans for America</a> is beginning to air a <a href="http://cv4a.org/concerned-veterans-for-america-launches-ad-campaign-highlighting-u-s-rep-joe-hecks-support-for-va-reform/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">$700,000 broadcast and digital advertising buy</a> throughout Nevada supporting U.S. Representative Joe Heck's candidacy for Senator Harry Reid's seat. Senator Reid will be retiring at the end of his term and Rep. Heck's bid for the vacant Senate seat will be contested by Reid's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/us/harry-reid-hopes-to-ensure-democrats-success-as-tenure-winds-down.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">preferred successor</a> ex-Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.The advertisement can be found <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TpEVs6fiuM" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">here</a>.Koch Industries has been one of Rep. Heck's <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00031244&type=I" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">top contributors throughout his career</a>, and Heck voted with Koch-held positions <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/joeheckafp_scorecard.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">nearly 90 percent of the time in 2015</a>. In 2014, the Koch-funded <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Prosperity" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Americans for Prosperity</a> also ran a $200,000 advertisement in support of Heck.<div class="clearfix">The Concerned Veterans for America ad appears to be the first political ad aired in 2016 by a known Koch front group, although the shadowy Koch network may also be funding election activities without public disclosure. Concerned Veterans for America <a href="http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-score/2015/10/rga-back-up-in-kentucky-koch-backed-vets-group-goes-after-four-senate-democrats-210821" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">also began an advertising campaign</a> in October 2015 against Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly, Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, and North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp.Concerned Veterans for America and its related organizations have received nearly $21 million in funding from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Freedom_Partners" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Freedom Partners</a>, which Politico has described as the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/behind-the-curtain-exclusive-the-koch-brothers-secret-bank-096669#ixzz2hj4y5I8o" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Koch network's "secret bank,"</a> and has received nearly $2 million from the Koch-linked <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/TC4_Trust" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">TC4 Trust</a> since 2011. The Koch brothers' donor network has pledged to spend close to a billion dollars in the race for the White House in 2016 and has already <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/267641-koch-network-spent-nearly-400-million-in-2015" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">spent nearly $400 million in 2015</a>. The details of this spending may not be known for years it at all.</div></div></div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Freedom Partners" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">Freedom Partners Action Fund</culink>, a group at the center of <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Charles Koch" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">Charles Koch</culink>'s conservative political network, unleashed its first political ad of the 2016 campaign Wednesday, launching a $2 million campaign in Ohio's closely watched Senate race.The ad targets Democrat <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Ted Strickland" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">Ted Strickland</culink>, Ohio's former governor who formally captured his party's nomination Tuesday night. The 30-second commercial features a man identified only as "Joel," a former employee of the international shipping giant DHL, which closed its hub in <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Wilmington, Ohio" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">Wilmington, Ohio</culink>, during Strickland's tenure as the state's chief executive."When he should have been in there fighting, we lost 400,000 jobs in the state of Ohio," Joel says in the ad. "His track record is not there. There's no reason to go back to Ted Strickland."The ad argues that Strickland's policies created an environment that encouraged employers to move jobs to other states with more business-friendly tax policies.Strickland is seeking to oust a Republican incumbent, Ohio <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Rob Portman" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">Sen. Rob Portman</culink>.Strickland spokesman <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/David Bergstein" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">David Bergstein</culink> defended his boss' record. "Washington power brokers and wealthy, shadowy special interests are spending millions to prop up Sen. Rob Portman because he’s pushing their agenda at the expense of Ohio’s working families," he said in a statement.The new ad is a sign the Koch network is gearing up to play a big role in federal races, even as its leaders insist they are not trying to shape the <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Republican Party presidential primaries" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">Republican presidential primary</culink>dominated by billionaire Donald Trump, who notched five wins Tuesday night. Earlier this month, a Koch-affiliated group, Concerned Veterans for America, began a $700,000 ad campaign in Nevada that featured military veterans voicing support for Rep. <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Joe Heck" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">Joe Heck</culink>, the Republican hoping to fill Senate Minority Leader <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Harry Reid" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">Harry Reid</culink>'s seat when the Democrat retires this year.Republicans face a challenging election season as they fight to retain their majority in the U.S. Senate and defend GOP-held seats in seven states, including Ohio, that <culink class="culinks" culang="en" href="http://curiyo.com/en/topic/Barack Obama" title="" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; cursor: help; z-index: 9000; display: inline !important; float: none !important; padding: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 151, 247) !important;">President Obama</culink> won both in 2008 and 2012.Party insiders have begun to openly fret that a Trump nomination will endanger other down-ballot contests on Election Day.</div><div>=</div></div></div></div>