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Open in TheBrain

Simmons, D IER AEA

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MERRI OK

IER AEA trumpista

BULB bill

FR RANDY KILLED BEARS EARS

FR KOCHADEMIA UTAH GMU CEI ASPEN MERCATUS

THOS PYLE ROB BRADLEY

PERRY BS GRID STUDY PAL TRAVIS FISHER

PERC

HEARTLAND

TESTIMONY

WEHRUM just in desmog 5 deniers?

BULB

wapo called him “conservative scholar” got gig he wanted to eliminate doe

He is a graduate of Utah State University and George Mason University School of Law.

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dad punked newsweek

Randy Simmons – The Conversation

6 26

Randy T. Simmons emphasizes the importance of economic reasoning to better understand public policy. He believes the study of politics cannot be separated from the study of markets and uses this framework to evaluate environmental and natural resource policies. The real challenge of the social process, as he sees it, is to design institutions that have outcomes that closely represent the wishes of individuals. He believes that markets are often the best way to achieve this objective when they are insulated from political influence. His core filed in political science is Public Choice.

Simmons current environmental research focuses on the Endangered Species Act. He stresses that threatened and endangered species are not simply a biological problem but a social problem, since the threat to their existence is a consequence of economic and political processes. Unfortunately, the solutions presented in the Endangered Species Act have been both costly and ineffective. He believes that positive incentives are more effective than penalties. Instead of creating a burden for private property owners, Simmons proposes measures to reward owners who conserve species and habitat. He also favors decentralizing and depoliticizing conservation programs, because twenty competing answers are better than one, especially when no one knows which is the right answer. He argues this case in is book Endangered Species: Critical Thinking About Environmental Issues and in his soon-to-be finished book manuscript Political Ecology: Politics, Economics and the Endangered Species Act.

His other books include Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare and the Failure of Bureaucracy, a primer on public choice economics co-authored with William Mitchell, and The Political Economy of Customs and Culture: Informal Solutions to the Commons Problems, co-edited with Terry Anderson. Simmons has also written widely on the conservation of African elephants.

Simmons received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon in 1980. He is currently professor of political science at Utah State University, where he has been honored three times by the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences as researcher of the year. Also at Utah State University, he is the director of the Institute of Political Economy. Simmons is a senior scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. and a Senior Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center, Bozeman He is also President and Director of Research at Strata, a research hub on environmental, energy and public land issues.

He makes his home in Providence, Utah, where he served six years on the city council and is now mayor. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Utah League of Cities and Towns and is a member of the Utah Governor's Privatization Commission. He is writing a book on his experiences in local government. In his spare time, Simmons enjoys llamapacking with his wife and three children and boating on Lake Powell.

Experience

Professor of Political Economy, Utah State University

Education

University of Oregon, PdD

Publications

Property and Markets in Elmer Kelton Novels, Public Choice

Green vs Green, Book

Public Choice and Public Life, Public Choice

Beyond Politics, Book

Wilderness and Political Ecology,

April 8, 2015

Wind costs more than you think due to massive federal subsidies

Randy Simmons, Utah State University

Consumers of wind power pay twice: first via their monthly electricity bill and a second time as taxpayers to finance billions of dollars in subsidies.

[ 5, 2014

Wind costs more than you think due to massive federal subsidies

Congress shouldn’t revive the failed policy of subsidizing wind farms

Randy Simmons, Utah State University

Congress passed the wind production tax credit (PTC) more than two decades ago to spur development in an industry still in its infancy. The wind sector has since matured into adulthood, prompting thousands…

[mber 7, 2014

California’s severe drought shows why we need to raise the price of water

Randy Simmons, Utah State University

Last January, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a State of Emergency following projections of severe drought. State bureaucrats and local officials jumped into action and mandated any number of…

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/can-trumps-koch-funded-appointees-stall-clean-energy

huffpo no lnx

pOLITICS

DONALD TRUMP

SUSTAINABILITY

Can Trump’s Koch-Funded Appointees Stall Clean Energy Momentum?

By

Elliott Negin, Contributor

Senior Writer, Union of Concerned Scientists

May. 19, 2017, 09:02 AM EDT | Updated May. 19, 2017

This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and other Koch-funded appointees in his agency plan to put the squeeze on renewable energy.

When The Washington Post reported earlier this month that President Trump appointed Daniel Simmons to run the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the paper called him a “conservative scholar.”

Conservative scholar? “Fossil fuel industry propagandist” would have been more accurate.

A veteran of Charles and David Koch’s climate science denier network, Simmons has spent much of his career disparaging clean energy.His most recent job was at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), where he served as the think tank’s vice president for policy. Prior to joining IER, he was the Natural Resources Task Force director for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporation-funded lobby group that, like IER, has been trying to repeal state standards that require electric utilities to use more renewable energy. 

And before that, he was a research fellow at the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University.All three organizations have received substantial funding from the Koch brothers, owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries, who have spent more than $100 million over the last two decades on dozens of think tanks and advocacy groups to spread climate disinformation.

:{IER and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), are particularly indebted to the Kochs for both funding and staffin:{g. Between 2010 and 2014, they received more than $5 million from Koch-controlled funds. And, like Simmons, top IER-AEA officials are well-entrenched members of the Koch network.

IER founder andCEO Robert L. Bradley, Jr., for example, is an adjunct scholar at the Koch-founded and -funded Cato Institute and the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute. He also has been a featured speaker at the Koch-funded Heartland Institute’s annual climate science-bashing conference.

IER-AEA President Thomas Pyle, meanwhile, is a former lobbyist for Koch Industriesand the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Pyle oversaw the Trump Energy Department transition team, which included Simmons and Travis Fisher, an IER economist who also is now on the DOE staff.}:}:

Given Simmons’ résumé, it’s no surprise that he belittles efforts to address global warming, disingenuously asserting that the “economic damages” of curbing carbon emissions “would be greater than the damage caused by a warming world.” Never mind that if we continue to burn carbon at the same rate, U.S. property losses by 2050 from sea level rise alone would be astronomical, ranging from $66 billion to $106 billion.

Predictably, Simmons also is a staunch opponent of federal support for wind and solar power. He argues that the “government should get out of the business of betting taxpayer dollars on energy projects,” conveniently ignoring the fact that fossil fuels themselves are heavily subsidized.

According to a new analysis by Management Information Services for the Nuclear Energy Institute,fossil fuels have received $666 billion (in 2015 dollars) in federal incentives since 1950, four times what renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, biofuels and biomass, have received. More than 80 percent of that fossil fuel support went to the oil and gas industry, which, according to a 2011 study by DBL Investors, has been receiving an average of $4.86 billion (in 2010 dollars) in federal subsidies every year since 1918.

Perry’s Anti-Renewables Study

Simmons will serve as acting assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy until the Senate confirms someone for the post. He will then settle in as the office’s principal deputy assistant secretary. While it’s too early to find his fingerprints on anything, his former IER colleague, Travis Fisher, has already raised some concerns. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who also has received generous contributions from the Kochs over the years, tapped Fisher to conduct a study to assess if federal support for renewable energy threatens baseload power generators — nuclear and coal plants — and undermines electricity grid reliability.

Seven members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee have questioned the rationale for the study. In a letter to Perry, they complained that the “study, as you have framed it, appears to be intended to blame wind and solar power for the financial difficulties facing coal and nuclear electric generators” and criticized the fact that Fisher, who is clearly biased against renewables, was tasked with leading the study. Historically low natural gas prices are largely responsible for recent nuclear and coal plant closures, the senators pointed out, and several recent studies have found that wind and solar power facilities strengthen grid reliability.

The irony here, of course, is Texas — where Perry served as governor from 2000 until 2015 — is the nation’s leading state for wind energy. Lone Star wind turbines generate enough electricity to power 7 million average U.S. households and provide more than 24,000 jobs. On top of that, 10,000 Texans work in the solar industry and another 70,000 work in the energy efficiency field. By comparison, the coal industry employs only 50,000 workers nationwide.

Regardless, Perry likely plans to use Fisher’s grid reliability study as a pretext for rolling back incentives for wind and solar and boosting coal, one of President Trump’s campaign promises. Likewise, the study could give the Trump administration ammunition to attack state standards requiring utilities to increase their use of renewables.

Clean Energy Progress at the State Level

States are where the action is — and likely will continue to be — given the Trump administration’s aversion to renewable energy and years of gridlock on Capitol Hill.

“There’s a lot of clean energy momentum across the country, including in states where you might not expect it,” said John Rogers, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and lead author of a recent report rating state-by-state progress. “The federal government has been playing an important role in encouraging renewable energy, efficiency and vehicle electrification—at least until recently—but we found that the states that have shown leadership are already reaping economic and environmental benefits, including new jobs, cleaner air and lower public health risks.”

Indeed, the growth of clean energy across the country has been nothing short of stupendous. Wind power generation, for example, increased more than tenfold over the past decade, according to the UCS report, while its cost dropped by two-thirds over the last six years. Wind farms in 41 states now provide enough electricity to power more than 20 million average U.S. households. Solar power capacity, meanwhile, has jumped more than 900 percent since 2011, while the cost of residential solar electric power fell by more than 50 percent since 2009 and large-scale solar costs declined even more.

The public is, by and large, on board. A new Pew Research Center poll found that 83 percent of Americans say expanding the use of renewable energy is a “top” or “important” national priority. Further, 54 percent of the survey respondents agree that “government regulations are necessary to encourage businesses and consumers to rely more on renewable energy sources.”

Renewable energy’s remarkable track record has encouraged a number of states to up the ante. Just a few years ago, ambitious states set a goal of generating 25 percent to 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy. Today, six of the 29 states with renewable energy standards are aiming to generate 50 percent or more of their electricity from wind, solar and other clean sources.

That’s the good news. The bad news is Koch surrogates have been targeting these state standards for years, and now two former IER staff members — not to mention their new boss — are in a position to do something about them. Certainly it would be the height of hypocrisy for an administration that extols states’ rights to try to scuttle state renewable energy standards, but for the Trump administration, hypocrisy is the norm. With so much clean energy momentum in blue and red states alike, the open question is just how much damage Trump’s DOE appointees will be able to do.

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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i dub thee Spats Syndrome

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/26/1845331/-Trump-to-roll-back-Obama-era-lightbulb-standards-will-pollute-more-and-cost-consumers-12-billion

When President Barack Obama took office he announced that, instead of re-inventing the wheel, he would continue to improve upon the national minimum energy efficiency requirements for light bulbs that began under President George W. Bush. The plan is to move away from the over century old technology of incandescent light bulbs into more energy efficient, safer, and cheaper technologies available to us now. Throughout the Obama presidency, new light bulbs were added to the list of bulbs needing higher efficiency standards. Obama’s legacy on this has been pretty successful as more and more Americans have moved towards LED technology(light-emitting diode) for their lighting needs. Seems too good to be true?

The Trump administration’s Department of Energy announced that they plan on rolling back some of the bulbs Obama placed regulations on towards the end of his term. Under Obama, vibration service lamps, rough service lamps, 3-way incandescent lamps, shatter-resistant incandescent, and higher lumen (2,601-3,300 lm) incandescent lamps, would need to reach higher efficiency standard starting Jan. 1, 2020. The NRDC says that the bulbs in question work in over 2.7 billion sockets. The potential costs to consumers in leaving the highly inefficient technology unregulated will be up to $12 billion over the next five years.

Of course, using more energy because of inefficient incandescent and halogen technology is exactly the kind of thing that drives the fossil fuel industry. Critics explain that the more energy needed for light, the more pollution pumped into our atmosphere. But the reality is that LED lighting, which uses 90 percent of its energy to create light (versus incandescent which spends most of its energy creating heat), is the future. It’s a future that even a dummy like George W. Bush knew whether he wanted to admit it or not.

A big part of Obama’s legacy in this department has to do with promoting regulations that allowed new companies promoting cleaner and more efficient light technology a chance to grow into the marketplace. In that he was very successful. The switch over from incandescent to alternative forms has begun to speed up over the past few years as LED technology, found more popularity with consumers because of evolving light quality and cost-savings. LED lights can last up to 12 times longer and save people four times as much on energy costs when compared to their incandescent counterparts. Even more importantly for consumers and the earth is that LED’s individual price points have been dropping consistently over the past couple of years and can now come close to matching incandescent light bulb costs.

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ref regs

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/02/f59/withdrawal-of-gsl-definition-nopr.pdf

... FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Celia Sher, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, GC-33, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, D.C., 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 287-6122. Email: celia.sher@hq.doe.gov.

...With the removal of the Appropriations Rider in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, DOE is no longer restricted from undertaking analysis and decision making required by the first question presented by Congress, i.e., whether to amend energy conservation standards for general service lamps, including GSILs. Thus, on August 15, 2017, DOE published a notice of data availability and request for information (NODA) seeking data for GSILs and other incandescent lamps. 82 FR 38613. The purpose of this NODA was to assist DOE in making a decision on the first question posed to DOE by Congress; i.e., a determination regarding whether standards for GSILs should be amended. Comments submitted in response to the NODA also led DOE to re-consider the decisions it had already made with respect to the second question presented to DOE; i.e., whether the exemptions for certain incandescent lamps should be maintained or discontinued. As a result of the comments received in response to the NODA, DOE re-assessed the legal interpretations underlying certain decisions made in the January 2017

...

The anti-backsliding provision at 42 U.S.C. 6295(o) precludes DOE from amending an existing energy conservation standard to permit greater energy use or a lesser amount of energy efficiency. This proposed rule cannot possibly constitute the amendment of an existing energy conservation standard to permit greater energy use or a lesser amount of energy efficiency, given that: (1) the proposal is considering withdrawing two final rules that DOE stated explicitly were not energy conservation standards; (2) DOE was previously prohibited by the Appropriations Rider from making a determination regarding the need for amending standards applicable to GSILs; and (3) DOE never finalized its March 2016 proposed rule concerning establishing energy conservation standards for GSLs. Moreover, DOE has not yet made a final determination on whether standards applicable to GSILs should be amended, and, therefore, no backstop energy conservation standard has yet been imposed.4

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dan'l r simmons

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ref2

NOT DANL BUT HIS FR

https://thinkprogress.org/kochs-fund-energy-think-tanks-in-utah-482ab143e66d/

When asmall think tank, funded in large part by petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch’s foundations, and a Utah State Universityinstitute began publishing the same research, people started to take notice. Further examination of the relationship is leading critics to question whether the Koch brothers are using the cover of an academic institution to push their anti-renewable energy, pro-fossil fuel agenda to a larger audience.

Strata Policy, an independent think tank founded by Utah State University professor Randy Simmons, is closely tied with a university research group called the Institute of Political Economy. Simmons and the other professors who staff the Koch-funded Institute of Political Economy also hold positions at Strata Policy. Simmons, who previouslyserved as the Charles G. Koch Professor of Political Economy at the university, runs both the on-campus and off-campus groups.

“It seems obvious that they are gleaning the university’s brand and prestige for not only the Institute of Political Economy, but also Strata,” Connor Gibson, a researcher for Greenpeace’s investigations team, told ThinkProgress. Gibson cited a report released earlier this year critical of North Carolina’s pro-renewable energy policy that wasco-branded with the names of both Strata Policy and the Institute of Political Economy.

Charles and David Koch are well-known for bankrolling universities as part of their strategy to bring a conservative worldview to new generations of students. At the same time, the brothers spend millions funding independent think tanks and advocacy groups that work to implement corporate-friendly policies at the federal and state levels.

With both Strata Policy and the Institute of Political Economy, the Kochs have found a way to do both — influence students and policymakers — within the confines of a single university. They are funding an independent think tank staffed by Utah State University professors, while simultaneously giving millions to the university to spread an anti-regulation ideology among its students.

“They are gleaning the university’s brand and prestige for not only the Institute of Political Economy, but also Strata.”

Where Utah State University differs from other Koch-funded schools is that Charles Koch is giving money to both on-campus and off-campus operations, according to Gibson. “It’s all the same people. I don’t know if they even try to determine where the ethical boundaries are and whether they are getting taxpayer money from the legislature or whether they are getting money from Charles Koch and whether the output is coming from the university brand or coming from the Strata brand,” he said. “They really don’t seem to care.”

According to the university, funding that comes to the Institute of Political Economy goes to support faculty salaries and student programming. Money has never flowed from the Institute of Political Economy to Strata Policy, “an off-campus organization unaffiliated with either the university at large or the university’s Institute of Political Economy,” said Tim Vitale, executive director of public relations and marketing for Utah State University.

The Institute of Political Economy has produced research projects that are then shared by Strata Policy via social media and on its website, Simmons said in an email to ThinkProgress, but he maintained that the relationship was purely research-focused.

“On some reports, the authors are listed as affiliated with Strata, because those authors were contributors to the project. While Strata employees sometimes have the opportunity to contribute to IPE projects due to their expertise on a given topic, they are not compensated by Utah State University or the Institute of Political Economy for their contributions,” Simmons explained.

This is how the Kochs’ anti-renewable agenda becomes White House policy

Koch-tied officials “got their wish” with Trump’s attacks on climate action, environment.

Simmons has produced Institute of Political Economy projects as part of his normal research load, Vitale said. The Institute for Political Economy has never promoted Strata Policy, although Strata Policy might have used Institute for Policy research for its own reasons, he explained. “Other organizations — any organization — can access IPE research and use it as they see fit,” he said.

Utah State University, a public university, climbed into second place on the list of Koch-funded universities earlier this year when the schoolaccepted a $25 million donation from the Charles Koch Foundation. Prior to the latest donation, the university’s Institute of Political Economy was already receiving large sums from the Kochs.

The university will receive the Koch money over the next 10 years in increments of $2.5 million a year. George Mason University, a public university in Virginia, is the largest recipient of Koch funding,earning it the nickname “Koch U.”

The Huntsman Foundation, founded by conservative industrialist Jon M. Huntsman Sr., alsodonated $25 million to the university to launch theCenter for Growth and Opportunity and expand the Huntsman Scholar Program. The new center will be located at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, named after the industrialist. The Koch and Huntsman money will allow the school to hire several additional professors.

“The Kochs have extended influence to institutions of higher education, setting up grants at universities to hire professors that teach the Kochs’ anti-tax, anti-regulation business and political philosophies to mold young minds to fall in step with the Kochs’ industrial wishes going forward through the 21st century,” Salt Lake Tribune columnist Paul Rollywrote in 2016.

While Charles Koch gives a substantial amount to Utah State University, foundations and organizations associated with both brothers are also funding Strata Policy to advance many of the same anti-renewable energy, pro-fossil fuel aims. A ThinkProgress review of Strata Policy’s funders (according to data provided by Conservative Transparency, Guidestar, and CitizenAudit revealed that since 2011, its donations included at least:}:

Strata Policy describes itself as the “premier research hub on environmental, energy, and public land issues.” The Institute of Political Economy focuses on similar energy and environmental issues. Both entities have advocated against renewable portfolio standards in states, published anti-renewable energy reports, and sent Utah State University professors to testify in states against renewable energy.

In a 2015report opposing a renewable portfolio standard in Kansas, Strata Policy and the Institute of Political Economy concluded that the standard “will increase fiscal and economic costs significantly between now and 2020” that will include a $171-million “burden” on Kansas electricity ratepayers and a loss of 795 jobs. “When major errors in the study’s methods are corrected, the study’s results actually confirm that state Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (RPS) like those in Kansas create hundreds of jobs and save consumers tens of millions of dollars,” Michael Goggin, senior director of research at the American Wind Energy Association, wrote in ablog post.

The Institute of Political Economy issued a report in 2016 on a renewable portfolio standard report for Pennsylvania — authored by four out of the five researchers who prepared the co-branded Kansas report — that reached similar conclusions. The report found that Pennsylvania’s renewable portfolio standard has contributed to an increase of 10 percent in the unemployment rate.

Synapse Energy Research, in a study released in late 2016, countered that Pennsylvania’s renewable portfolio standard has not harmed the state’s economy. In fact, the study explains that meeting Pennsylvania’s electric power needs entirely with renewables by 2050 is both achievable — and economic. Instead of greater unemployment, Pennsylvania could see a net increase of nearly 500,000 job‐years from 2015 to 2050 under a scenario in which the state moved to 100-percent renewables during this period, the consulting firm found. (One job for one year equals one “job year” and if that job continues for another 12 months, it’s two “job years.”)

In 2015, Ryan Yonk, an assistant professor at Utah State University and executive director of research at Strata Policy, testified before Ohio and Kansas lawmakers, where renewable energy standards were in jeopardy, to lay out his group’s research in opposition to the state renewable energy policies. Utah State University allows faculty to conduct outside consulting work; faculty members are not permitted to “exploit the institution’s name or their relationship to the institution for personal reasons unrelated to their legitimate academic or professional activities” and must avoid “creating the impression that they are representing the institution in public appearances or statements,” according to the university’s faculty code.

Most recently, Strata Policy partnered with the Institute of Political Economy to refocus on North Carolina as lawmakers were once again debating the state’s renewable energy policy. Updated in 2017, the partner organizations’report found that the renewable portfolio standard in North Carolina has faced opposition since its creation, including from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Koch-funded group that drafts model legislation for states. “North Carolina is still where the action is,” Gibson said.

The Koch-funded groups, though, failed in their attempt to undermine North Carolina’s renewable energy policy. A new lawcreated a competitive bidding process that will bring more than 2.6 gigawatts of new solar into service over a three-and-a-half-year period. The Solar Energy Industries Association lauded the bill as one that “will significantly enhance the solar market in North Carolina.”

Strata Policy “waged these state-level attacks” because “they want to drive regulation to the state, where it’s more controllable and because that’s where their dollar really goes the farthest ” Gibson said.

Recently, Strata Policy has begun to expand its portfolio beyond attacks on renewable energy to embrace a Republican-led effort to allow greater use of public lands by extraction companies. Two years ago, the think tank won a public relations contract from the state of Utah to promote its efforts to force the federal government to transfer control of Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands to the state. The Utah Legislatureapproved $2 million in funding in 2015 for Strata Policy and other groups to promote the benefits of turning over federal land to the state.

Utah Republicans believe that allowing the state to control the lands will create more economic value by clearing the way for more oil wells, coal mines, and tree harvests. Public lands supporters fear states would sell off the lands that belong to all Americans, allowing industry to destroy the environment.

Simmons’ Strata Policy “landed the public relations contract for the Utah Legislature’s efforts to wrest control of 31 million acres of public land from the federal government,” Rolly wrote in his op-ed.

Strata Policy has put out several studies on public lands issues. In a 2016 op-ed, Yonkargued that economic activity in Utah and other Western states is “limited by the decisions of federal land bureaucrats.”

In May, Simmonsauthored a report that recommended the Department of the Interior reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah “to more appropriately encompass sites of legitimate historical and scientific interest.” Native American groups pushed for the monument designation for years to protect their artifacts. The position embraced by Simmons is the same as Republican lawmakers in Utah; once Trump won the presidency, the lawmakers immediately began lobbying the new administration to make reducing the size of the Bears Ears monument a priority.

Tribes gear up for major legal battle with Trump over Bears Ears National Monument

Native leaders baffled by Zinke’s claim that they are “very happy” with a potentially reduced monument.

Strata Policy joined other conservative groups, many of them also funded by the Kochs, to thank President Donald Trump for signing anexecutive order calling for a sweeping review of national monument designations. In the Juneletter to Trump, Strata Policy and the other groups said the support the criteria in the executive “to reduce and rescind egregious national monuments where local support exists to do so.”

The American Lands Council, a group formed to gain control of federal lands across the West, has also received funding from Americans for Prosperity, a group founded by the Kochs. TheIdaho Freedom Foundation, which also signed the letter to Trump, has received funding from Koch-affiliated groups and is a partner organization in the Charles Koch Institute’s Liberty@Work program.

Along with significant funding from the Charles Koch Foundation, Strata Policy has received donations from the Institute for Energy Research, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that is also funded in part by the Kochs and their affiliated organizations. Simmons’ son, Daniel Simmons, previously worked at the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research as vice president for policy.

Daniel Simmons now serves in Trump’s Department of Energy as acting assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. Prior to joining DOE, the younger Simmonsalso held a top position at the Koch-funded American Energy Alliance, which advocated for the office he now oversees at DOE to be eliminated.

Josh Israel contributed to this piece.

#CLIMATE, #KOCH BROTHERS, #RENEWABLE ENERGY, #SOLAR POWER

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ref

https://thinkprogress.org/obscure-think-tank-gains-influence-1644feb0b813/

This is how the Kochs’ anti-renewable agenda becomes White House policy
Koch-tied officials “got their wish” with Trump’s attacks on climate action, environment.

MARK HANDJUL 17, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump raised eyebrows late last year when he named the head of an obscure right-wing think tank, with close ties to petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, to lead his energy transition team. Since then, officials from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) have been appointed to high-level positions at the Department of Energy where they are playing major roles in implementing pro-fossil fuel, anti-renewable energy policies.

Thomas Pyle, who serves as president of IER and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), set the tone by drafting a priority list for the new administration; at the top of the list was withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

Soon after Trump took office, newly appointed officials across the federal government started a push to prop up the fossil fuel sector, particularly the coal industry. In the spring, Energy Secretary Rick Perry directed his staff to conduct a study of the U.S. electric grid to determine if renewables were harming traditional baseload generation sources, like coal and nuclear. A former IER official, Travis Fisher, was selected to oversee the study.

A draft of the study leaked last week concluded that renewables pose no threat to the grid. The leaked draft was completed by DOE career staff, and thus is subject to change by Perry and his team of Trump appointees. A DOE spokeswoman told Bloomberg that “those statements as written are not in the current draft.” The report clarifies that the spokeswoman “wouldn’t say they are incorrect, just the draft is ‘constantly evolving.’”

In an April memo, Perry wrote that pro-renewable energy regulations issued by past U.S. administrations “threaten to undercut the performance of the grid” and have caused “the erosion of critical baseload resources” derived from coal and nuclear energy. Since Perry ordered the study, numerous analyses and reports have been published rejecting that notion.

[Rick Perry called out for ‘thinly disguised’ attempt to undermine renewable energy

Former Koch-funded think tank official selected to lead DOE study.]

“From the beginning, all signs pointed to Perry’s so-called study as a piece of coal power propoganda,” Jim Marston, vice president of clean energy for the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote in a blog post.

Fisher has been clear about his disdain for policies that encourage the growth of renewable energy: In 2015, he wrote a report on the nation’s power grid in which he recommended that policymakers eliminate the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and Mercury and Air Toxics Standards; the federal production tax credit for wind energy; state renewable energy standards; and net metering incentives for rooftop solar.

“It’s no coincidence that, now that Donald Trump is in the White House, some of the same clean energy policies that Fisher targeted for attack in his 2015 grid study for IER are now being rolled back,” Dave Anderson, the Energy and Policy Institute’s policy and communications manager wrote in a report.

IER receives funding specifically to produce research papers that attack renewable energy and promote fossil fuels, according to Jesse Coleman, a researcher with Greenpeace USA’s investigations team. Other right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute have a wide array of financial backers; IER’s funding circle appears to be much smaller.

With Koch brothers-linked groups serving as its major funders, IER “can get away with more extreme views, especially on renewable energy, than either Heritage or the American Enterprise Institute does,” Coleman explained.

IER plays “a very valuable and preconceived function within this greater Koch network.”

In May, Trump appointed Daniel Simmons, IER’s former vice president for policy who has questioned the value of promoting renewable energy sources, to oversee the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.Simmons also held a top position at AEA, which advocated for the office he now oversees at DOE to be eliminated.

Simmons is the highest-profile former IER employee to land a job in the Trump administration. Prior to joining IER, he served as director of the natural resources task force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing group that drafts industry-friendly model legislation for policymakers.

Another former AEA staff member, Alex Fitzsimmons, is now a senior adviser in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, E&E News reported earlier this month. While at AEA, Fitzsimmons served as manager of policy and public affairs where he wrote blog posts on “green energy cronyism” and spotlighting Jay Leno’s criticisms of ethanol.

With the financial backing of tax-exempt organizations linked to the Kochs and other right-wing donor groups, IER has been promoting its pro-coal, anti-renewable energy agenda for years. Founded in 1989, IER is a small think tank, but its tentacles spread far and wide among other right-wing groups. AEA was formed in 2008. Between 2010 and 2014, IER and AEA received more than $5 million from Koch-tied funds.

[This Koch-backed group invites you to celebrate fossil fuels on Earth Day

The contest is designed to “showcase the awesomeness of fossil fuels.”]

IER plays “a very valuable and preconceived function within this greater Koch network, which is to provide academic ammunition for the other groups that fight for the Koch brothers and the oil and gas agenda writ large,” Coleman said in an interview.

“While they seem small, they’re part of the much larger Koch network that has always given them an echo chamber and increased their reach,” he continued. “And that’s the reason we see them with such seemingly outsized influence now.”

IER founder and CEO Robert Bradley, Jr. is an adjunct scholar at the Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute and the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute. Bradley previously served as director of policy analysis at Enron, where he wrote speeches for company founder Ken Lay. The company collapsed into bankruptcy in late 2001 with several officials, including CEO Jeff Skilling, serving prison sentences.

A ThinkProgress review of IER and AEA’s funders (according to data provided by Conservative Transparency, Guidestar, and CitizenAudit) revealed that since 2008, its donations included at least:

Institute for Energy Research
American Energy Alliance

Prior to joining IER, Pyle worked as a registered lobbyist for Koch Industries and served as director of federal affairs for Koch Industries from 2001 through 2005. Pyle also worked as policy analyst for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX), who ranked among the top recipients of oil and gas industry funds during his time in Congress.

The Republican Party’s move further to the right, especially on energy and environmental issues, has political observers confused about how to describe its major players. Elliott Negin, a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out that the Washington Post called Simmons a “conservative scholar” when reporting his DOE appointment. As a veteran of the Koch brothers’ “climate science denier network,” the more accurate description of Simmons would be “fossil fuel industry propagandist,” Negin wrote.

Given its small size — it lists just nine current scholars and staff members on its website — IER cannot provide the Trump administration with an endless supply of anti-regulation energy officials. Industry trade groups and other right-leaning research organization are helping to fill the ranks of Trump’s energy and environmental team.

For energy and environment policy, though, IER is playing an important role in the Trump administration. “IER adheres to a very extreme brand of ‘free market’ ideology. As usually happens with other groups in the Koch network, they will specifically attack the enemies of Koch Industries’ profit centers. So… they attack solar and wind,” Coleman said.

During the presidential transition, the IER-AEA memo written by Pyle predicted that the Clean Power Plan would be withdrawn by the Trump administration. “Pyle, IER, and AEA soon got their wish,” Anderson wrote. “Trump signed an executive order that began the process of reviewing the Clean Power Plan during his first 100 days in the White House.”

With Pyle serving as Trump’s energy transition team chief, IER laid the groundwork for the energy policies that are now being amplified by the administration, Coleman said. Blaming renewable energy for a decline in the coal and nuclear industries, for instance, was a talking point that clearly came from IER.

“It’s such a crazy place that [other Republicans] don’t want to be a part of it.”

John Coequyt, global climate policy director for the Sierra Club, contends that the Trump administration is having trouble finding qualified people to fill appointed positions at DOE, which has created a vacuum for a small organization like IER.

“It’s such a crazy place that [other Republicans] don’t want to be a part of it,” Coequyt said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with these [IER] guys or whether they are ultimately going to be successful. It’s hurting them that they’re such zealots.”

Release of the grid study ordered by Rick Perry has been delayed from its original late-June deadline. According to the leaked version of the study released last week, wind and solar power do not pose a significant threat to the reliability of the U.S. power grid, contradicting statements by Perry. The conclusions in the final study, after DOE’s political appointees get a chance to review it, will represent the key first test for IER’s influence on policies related to promoting fossil fuels and undercutting renewable energy sources.

Josh Israel contributed to this piece.

#CLIMATE, #DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, #ENVIRONMENT, #EPA, #KOCH BROTHERS

==

shuck and jive confirmation?

industry mag?

DOE Renewable Nominee Sidesteps Controversy

June 26, 2018

By Rich Heidorn Jr.

President Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program sidestepped controversy in his confirmation hearing Tuesday but was unable to answer several senators’ questions about key legislation and programs.

Assistant Secretary nominee Daniel Simmons, who has been running EERE on an acting basis for the last year, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that his work at DOE is much different than his previous roles at the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and American Energy Alliance — groups backed by the conservative Koch brothers that have supported fossil fuel use and called for Congress to “eliminate” EERE. Simmons also previously worked at the American Legislative Exchange Council, which also backed fossil fuels.

Daniel Simmons DOE Trump

Simmons | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee

In his opening statement, Simmons said his parents’ decision to build “a passive solar double envelope home” sparked his lifelong interest in energy efficiency and renewables. “Since [joining DOE], I have approached this job with an open mind and an eagerness to learn and have focused on following congressional direction while advancing the administration’s priorities,” he said.

Later, Simmons discussed meeting with solar and wind industry representatives in his new role, acknowledging that “we’ve had policy differences in the past.”

Ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) asked Simmons whether he would aid her in convincing the House of Representatives to back Senate legislation increasing energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances. (See House, Senate Conferees Begin Work to Narrow Differences on Energy Bill.)

“I’m not familiar enough with that disagreement to really comment on it; I’m sorry,” Simmons responded.

“O-kayyy … ” Cantwell said incredulously. “This will be a key part of your job, so maybe before we vote on you, you could take a look at that.”

Cantwell also complained that DOE had repeatedly missed deadlines for completing EE regulations. “We had seen a slow walking by some on this, and I’m telling you it’s wrongheaded,” she continued. “ … Our nation is going to be in the manufacturing base very, very competitive on an international basis if we can drive down electricity costs. So, that should be our mantra, and I hope that you will lead that charge.”

“I will … I will not slow walk any of those regulations,” Simmons promised.

Nominees, left to right: Teri L. Donaldson, nominee for inspector general; Karen S. Evans, assistant secretary overseeing DOE’s new Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response; Christopher Fall, director of the Office of Science; and Daniel Simmons, assistant secretary of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program. | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee

In response to a question from Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Simmons also distanced himself from his comments during a 2013 podcast in which he argued that “wind and solar is more expensive and will increase the price of electricity.”

He noted that solar PV costs have dropped sharply in the last five years. “That’s one of the things that [has] changed since I made that statement,” he said.

But Simmons stumbled again under questioning from Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) has led the — mostly unsuccessful — effort to win Congressional approval for tougher EE standards.

Portman asked Simmons his opinion of DOE’s “Tenant Star” program, the result of narrower EE legislation approved in 2015.

“The Tenant Star program, I’m not familiar enough with that to comment on it. But I will look into it,” Simmons said.

The senator asked whether there were more DOE should be doing on EE without Portman and Shaheen’s larger EE bill. “I’m not familiar enough with the legislation to add on to it,” Simmons responded.

Simmons was the only one of four DOE nominees testifying Tuesday to receive pointed questions from the senators. Also testifying were Teri L. Donaldson, nominee to be DOE’s inspector general; Christopher Fall, named as director of the Office of Science; and Karen S. Evans, who would become assistant secretary overseeing DOE’s new Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response.

---

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/02/climate-science-deniers-trump-admin-happer-wehrum-rollins-wynn-simmons

readfearn

here are five folks spearheading the United States government who think that when it comes to climate change, they know better than all of the world’s main scientific institutions.

There’s Donald Trump himself, of course, who famously tweeted that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese, and said that a cold snap in the weather overturns a century or more of scientific inquiry.

Then there’s energy secretary Rick Perry, whose fuzzy logic on the science sees him unconvinced that CO2 is the key driver of climate change.

Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, is similarly confused and non-committal about the impacts of burning fossil fuels, as is former coal-lobbyist-turned-EPA head Andrew Wheeler. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson said in 2015 that climate change was “irrelevant,” that temperatures were driven by natural cycles and, since then, hasavoided questions about the role of human activity in climate change.

OK, so there are more than five (with Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and Jeff Sessions among those who have denied the science in the past), but these five are well positioned to influence the energy and climate policies of the nation.

Wheeler, for example, is driving through cuts to national efficiency standards for motor vehicles and is relaxing pollution rules on coal power plants. Zinke and Perry are aggresively promoting fossil fuel growth with Trump as the climate-wrecker-in-chief. Carson heads an agency that has a role in promoting (or not) climate change adaptation and resilience for homes and properties, particularly after natural disasters.

Remembering not only do these five reject the advice of the world’s major science academies, but also the expertise of the scientists working in their own government agencies.

But while these five might be relative household names with their views well reported, DeSmog presents five lesser-known climate science deniers inside the administration who are also in positions to gut federal action on climate and promote fossil fuel-friendly policies, backed by their own convictions that climate change just isn't much of a problem.

Will Happer

Will Happer, emeritus professor from Princeton University, was once in the running as Trump’s science advisor but has now been appointed to the National Security Council, specializing in emerging technologies.

After news of Happer’s appointment became public, Science, republishing E&E News, characterized the 79-year-old physicist as a “vocal critic of mainstream climate science.”

But Happer is more than a mere critic — he has acted as an enabler and activist against action on climate change for well over a decade.

For years, Happer was chairman at the George Marshall Institute and then, when that was shuttered, he founded the CO2Coalition with former Exxon director, the late Roger Cohen. Both groups took fringe positions on the science of climate change, with Happer claiming that adding more fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere will be good for humans.

In 2015, Happer was caught in a sting by Greenpeace when he offered to write a report on the “benefits” of CO2 for a fake oil client and then hide the funding, which would be directed to the CO2 Coalition. Since then, that group has received funding from the foundation of Trump backer and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer.

In December 2016, Happer attended a conference organized by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin. Now he’s on the National Security Council.

Late in 2017, the Trump administration nixed climate change from a list of global threats to the U.S. in the National Security Strategy.

It's safe to say Happer won't be leading any pushes to add it back in.

Bill Wehrum

Bill Wehrum is the U.S. government’s most senior official on air pollution, as the assistant administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Wehrum is a long-serving lawyer for the coal industry, as well as petrochemical and petroleum industry groups (such as Koch Industries).

Wehrum’s office is also tasked with looking at regulations to tackle power plant pollution and climate change and recently proposed the Affordable Clean Energy rule as a replacement for Obama's Clean Power Plan.

But as the New York Times reported, Wehrum has been delivering big time for his former fossil fuel industry clients by proposing the new rule, which EPA's own analysis shows would increase premature deaths from pollution.

One former EPA director, Bruce Buckheit, told the New York Times: “They basically found the most aggressive and knowledgeable fox and said, ‘Here are the keys to the hen-house.'”

Over a decade earlier, Wehrum was in the same position at EPA as he is now and back then argued against granting California a Clean Air Act waiver to set more stringent pollution standards for vehicles.

Back in power at the EPA, he ran the agency's midterm review of auto emissions standards, which this year recommended rolling back the stricter standards proposed by the Obama administration.

Under question during his confirmation hearings, Wehrum claimed that CO2 emissions as a main driver of climate change, which the government’s own scientists confirm, was to him an “open question." [vid]

Brooke Rollins

Rollins was an aide to Texas Governor Rick Perry before spending 15 years leading the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), which she left in early 2018 to become assistant to the president in the Office of American Innovation (OIA), based in the White House (some wonder what the OIA actually does).

During her time at TPPF, Rollins promoted the work of the organization’s Kathleen Hartnett White, a climate science denier and fossil fuel evangelist whose controversial nomination to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality was ultimately withdrawn.

In August 2018, Rollins appeared at the Heartland Institute’s energy conference alongside that think tank’s new president Tim Huelskamp.

At the conference, Rollins nodded as Huelskamp suggested American schoolchildren’s heads were being “filled with mush” about the dangers of CO2.

When asked if the inner-workings of the White House were as chaotic as some media had claimed, Rollins replied: “Is there chaos? Yes. But I would say it’s like the chaos of my home — having four children in five years.”

Home life was like a “goat rodeo,” she said, and working in the White House wasn’t “much different.”

While at TPPF, Rollins wrote that Trump should exit the Paris climate agreement.

What she's actually doing in her role with OIA remains unclear, but the fact that she appeared at the America First Energy Conference, hosted by a climate science denying think tank, indicates she isn't likely straying from her previous positions on climate and energy.

Todd Wynn

Todd Wynn is director of the Interior Department’s Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs after spending years in pro-fossil fuel industry think tanks, many with Koch network connections.

On Wynn’s CV is his time working at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate bill mill where he led that group’s energy task force.

In that position, he fought against state renewable energy mandates and federal regulation of fracking fluids.

Lisa Graves, co-director of DocumentedInvestigations.org, has described Wynn as an “aggressive fossil fuel insider.”

In his new position with the Department of the Interior, Wynn is responsible for “strengthen[ing] relationships between state and local partners and external stakeholders” with Secretary Zinke's office, which, by the looks of it, has already been quite cozy with fossil fuel stakeholders.

An investigation by HuffPost alleged Wynn may have violated an ethics pledge by continuing to liaise with former associates while in his new job.

“Wynn has been a rising star in the influential network of fossil fuel-funded think tanks that push policies and produce pseudoscientific research to muddle the debate on climate change,” the HuffPost report detailed.

Wynn has himself questioned the role that fossil fuel emissions have on warming the planet, suggesting in 2010 that it was “absolutely ridiculous” to claim CO2 was driving climate change.

Daniel Simmons

Who better to lead the Trump administration's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy than a man who once asked for that same office to be closedwhile barracking for fossil fuels? Daniel Simmons is just that guy.

As reported by DeSmog and others, Simmons spent years working for so-called “free market think tanks,” including the Institute for Energy Research, before joining the Trump transition team and then securing the nomination for the role, located in the Department of Energy.

Simmons has a history of working at organizations that attack programs aimed at encouraging the development of clean energy industries like solar and wind power. But in 2015, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), where he was working, attacked the office Simmons now heads, writing disapprovingly that its role was to “promote and subsidize 'clean energy' as determined by government bureaucrats.”

The office, AEA wrote, “aims to control multiple sectors of the economy, from energy production and transmission to manufacturing and construction.” Cutting the office entirely could “save” the administration more than $9 billion. Simmons himself has claimed that the costs of the Paris climate agreement target of keeping global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius would be greater than any benefits.

Perfect man for the job? In the Trump administration, the answer is yes.

==

==

Testimony of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel R Simmons ...

docs.house.gov/meetings/SY/.../HHRG-115-SY20-Wstate-SimmonsD-20171213.pdf

1.

1. Testimony of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel R Simmons. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. U.S. Department of Energy. Before the. Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Subcommittee on Energy. United States House of Representatives. December 13, 2017. Good afternoon ...

[PDF]Testimony of Daniel R Simmons Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary ...

https://oversight.house.gov/wp.../11/DOE_Testimony_Reg-Task-Forces-Part-III.pdf

1.

Nov 29, 2017 - development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas ... Following the directions in these Orders, DOE formed a Regulatory Reform Task Force. The DOE ... to me, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable.

===2x?https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/05/06/trump-taps-renewable-energy-antagonist-run-renewable-energy-office==ref

Free-market advocate tapped for efficiency, renewables post

Hannah Northey, E&E News reporter

Published: Monday, May 1, 2017

President Trump has picked Daniel Simmons — formerly with the Institute for Energy Research and American Legislative Exchange Council — for a leadership position in the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, according to a memo obtained by E&E News.

...

==

Daniel Simmons**DEPARTED JAN. 15, 2018

Energy (joined: Jan. 20, 2017)

Assistant to the Secretary, Office of the Secretary | Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy | $160,000 | Financial Disclosure »

Task force

TASK FORCE MEMBER

Daniel Simmons was vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research, a conservative think tank that has opposed efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions and that has received funding from the American Petroleum Institute and the Charles Koch Institute. Prior to that, he was a task force director for the American Legislative Exchange Council, an industry-funded model bill organization, and a research fellow at the Koch-funded conservative think tank Mercatus Center. — ProPublica

Bio, via Department of Education:

Daniel served as the Institute for Energy Research's Vice President for Policy, overseeing its energy and environmental policy work at the state and federal level. He previously served as director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council, was a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, and worked as professional staff on the Committee on Resources of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a graduate of Utah State University and George Mason University School of Law.

Former Positions Outside Government

Institute for Energy Research Vice President for Policy

Former Compensation Sources

Institute for Energy Research VP for Policy - Policy Work

Employment Assets

Description Value Income

Institute for Energy Research $275,500

U.S. Bank/Brokerage Cash Account $1,001 - $15,000 None (or less than $201)

:{IER 401k::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

MFS Mass Investors Growth $15,001 - $50,000 $1,001 - $2,500

JP Morgan U.S. Equity Fund (A) $1,001 - $15,000 $201 - $1,000

Columbia Mid Cap Index Fund (A) C $50,001 - $100,000 $5,001 - $15,000

Columbia Small Cap Index Fund (A) $50,001 - $100,000 $5,001 - $15,000

:{Competitive Enterprise Institute Retirement::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

EQ Equity 500 Index $1,001 - $15,000 None (or less than $201)

EQ Common Stock Index $1,001 - $15,000 None (or less than $201)

:{American Legislative Exchange Council 401K:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

Fed Gov Ultra-Short SA14 $1,001 - $15,000 None (or less than $201)

Virginia 529 College Savings Plans - Aggressive Growth $1,001 - $15,000 None (or less than $201)

Other Income/Assets

Description Value Income

US Bank Account #1 Cash $15,001 - $50,000 None (or less than $201)

US Bank Account #2 Cash $15,001 - $50,000 None (or less than $201)

Employment Agreements and Arrangements

Employer or Party City, State Status and Terms Date

:{Insitute for Energy Research Washington, DC There will be no additional contributions by me or my former employer in this defined contribution plan after my separation. 5/2008:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{Competitive Enterprise Institute Washington, DC There will be no additional contributions by me or my former employer in this defined contribution plan after my separation. 3/1999:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{American Legislative Exchange Council Arlington, VA There will be no additional contributions by me or my former employer in this defined contribution plan after my separation. 4/2005:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

Liabilities

Creditor Name Creditor Type Amount Rate Year Incurred

Access Group Inc Student Loan $10,001 - $15,000 3.75% 2002

Spouse's Employment Assets

Description Value Income Type Income Amount

:{IRA::(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

USBESX Cornerstone Moderate Fund $1,001 - $15,000 None (or less than $201)

TIAA $100,001 - $250,000 None (or less than $201)

:{Vanguard Growth Index Admiral Shares $15,001 - $50,000:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{Delware Value Fund Institutional Class Shares $15,001 - $50,000:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{PIMCO Income Fund Institutional Class Shares $15,001 - $50,000:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{PIMCO GNMA Gund Institutional Class $15,001 - $50,000:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{Frontier Phocas Small Cap Value $15,001 - $50,000:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index FUnd Institutional $15,001 - $50,000:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{DFA International Core Equity Portfolio Institutional $1,001 - $15,000:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

:{Federated Institutional High Yield Bond Fund $1,001 - $15,000:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

==

ggl doc aea recover IER

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eMB1IV-iat1DihXXJgmMmS_F2k3_fGav7GAkDUxaiTY/edit?usp=sharing

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trump town

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/can-trumps-koch-funded-appointees-stall-americas-clean-energy-momentum

When The Washington Post reported earlier this month that President Trump appointed Daniel Simmons to run the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the paper called him a “conservative scholar.”

Conservative scholar? “Fossil fuel industry propagandist” would have been more accurate.

A veteran of Charles and David Koch’s climate science denier network, Simmons has spent much of his career disparaging clean energy. His most recent job was at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), where he served as the think tank’s vice president for policy. Prior to joining IER, he was the Natural Resources Task Force director for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporation-funded lobby group that, like IER, has been trying to repeal state standards that require electric utilities to use more renewable energy. And before that, he was a research fellow at the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University. All three organizations have received substantial funding from the Koch brothers, owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries, who have spent more than $100 million over the last two decades on dozens of think tanks and advocacy groups to spread climate disinformation.

IER and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), are particularly indebted to the Kochs for both funding and staffing. Between 2010 and 2014, they received more than $5 million from Koch-controlled funds. And, like Simmons, top IER-AEA officials are well-entrenched members of the Koch network. IER founder and CEO Robert L. Bradley, Jr., for example, is an adjunct scholar at the Koch-founded and -funded Cato Institute and the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute. He also has been a featured speaker at the Koch-funded Heartland Institute’s annual climate science-bashing conference. IER-AEA President Thomas Pyle, meanwhile, is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Pyle oversaw the Trump Energy Department transition team, which included Simmons and Travis Fisher, an IER economist who also is now on the DOE staff.

Given Simmons’ résumé, it’s no surprise that he belittles efforts to address global warming, disingenuously asserting that the “economic damages” of curbing carbon emissions “would be greater than the damage caused by a warming world.” Never mind that if we continue to burn carbon at the same rate, U.S. property losses by 2050 from sea level rise alone would be astronomical, ranging from $66 billion to $106 billion.

Predictably, Simmons also is a staunch opponent of federal support for wind and solar power. He argues that the “government should get out of the business of betting taxpayer dollars on energy projects,” conveniently ignoring the fact that fossil fuels themselves are heavily subsidized. According to a new analysis by Management Information Services for the Nuclear Energy Institute, fossil fuels have received $666 billion (in 2015 dollars) in federal incentives since 1950, four times what renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, biofuels and biomass, have received. More than 80 percent of that fossil fuel support went to the oil and gas industry, which, according to a 2011 study by DBL Investors, has been receiving an average of $4.86 billion (in 2010 dollars) in federal subsidies every year since 1918.

Perry’s Anti-Renewables Study

Simmons will serve as acting assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy until the Senate confirms someone for the post. He will then settle in as the office’s principal deputy assistant secretary. While it’s too early to find his fingerprints on anything, his former IER colleague, Travis Fisher, has already raised some concerns. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who also has received generous contributions from the Kochs over the years, tapped Fisher to conduct a study to assess if federal support for renewable energy threatens baseload power generators — nuclear and coal plants — and undermines electricity grid reliability.

Seven members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee have questioned the rationale for the study. In a letter to Perry, they complained that the “study, as you have framed it, appears to be intended to blame wind and solar power for the financial difficulties facing coal and nuclear electric generators” and criticized the fact that Fisher, who is clearly biased against renewables, was tasked with leading the study. Historically low natural gas prices are largely responsible for recent nuclear and coal plant closures, the senators pointed out, and several recent studies have found that wind and solar power facilities strengthen grid reliability.

The irony here, of course, is Texas — where Perry served as governor from 2000 until 2015 — is the nation’s leading state for wind energy. Lone Star wind turbines generate enough electricity to power 7 million average U.S. households and provide more than 24,000 jobs. On top of that, 10,000 Texans work in the solar industry and another 70,000 work in the energy efficiency field. By comparison, the coal industry employs only 50,000 workers nationwide.

Regardless, Perry likely plans to use Fisher’s grid reliability study as a pretext for rolling back incentives for wind and solar and boosting coal, one of President Trump’s campaign promises. Likewise, the study could give the Trump administration ammunition to attack state standards requiring utilities to increase their use of renewables.

Clean Energy Progress at the State Level

States are where the action is — and likely will continue to be — given the Trump administration’s aversion to renewable energy and years of gridlock on Capitol Hill.“There’s a lot of clean energy momentum across the country, including in states where you might not expect it,” said John Rogers, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and lead author of a recent reportrating state-by-state progress. “The federal government has been playing an important role in encouraging renewable energy, efficiency and vehicle electrification—at least until recently—but we found that the states that have shown leadership are already reaping economic and environmental benefits, including new jobs, cleaner air and lower public health risks.”

Indeed, the growth of clean energy across the country has been nothing short of stupendous. Wind power generation, for example, increased more than tenfold over the past decade, according to the UCS report, while its cost dropped by two-thirds over the last six years. Wind farms in 41 states now provide enough electricity to power more than 20 million average U.S. households. Solar power capacity, meanwhile, has jumped more than 900 percent since 2011, while the cost of residential solar electric power fell by more than 50 percent since 2009 and large-scale solar costs declined even more.

The public is, by and large, on board. A new Pew Research Center poll found that 83 percent of Americans say expanding the use of renewable energy is a “top” or “important” national priority. Further, 54 percent of the survey respondents agree that “government regulations are necessary to encourage businesses and consumers to rely more on renewable energy sources.”

Renewable energy’s remarkable track record has encouraged a number of states to up the ante. Just a few years ago, ambitious states set a goal of generating 25 percent to 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy. Today, six of the 29 states with renewable energy standards are aiming to generate 50 percent or more of their electricity from wind, solar and other clean sources.

That’s the good news. The bad news is Koch surrogates have been targeting these state standards for years, and now two former IER staff members — not to mention their new boss — are in a position to do something about them. Certainly it would be the height of hypocrisy for an administration that extols states’ rights to try to scuttle state renewable energy standards, but for the Trump administration, hypocrisy is the norm. With so much clean energy momentum in blue and red states alike, the open question is just how much damage Trump’s DOE appointees will be able to do.

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

==

President Donald Trump has reportedly tapped a longtime renewable energy antagonist with ties to the Koch brothers to lead the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

According to an internal memo first reported by E&E News, the president has picked Daniel Simmons to lead the Department of Energy's office that focuses on supporting and developing renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. EERE's work currently includes investments in electric vehicles; solar, geothermal and wind energy; and technologies to reduce energy use in U.S. buildings. Read more.

Daniel Simmons' Longstanding Ties to the Kochs

Before Simmons joined the then President-elect's transition team to the DOE in January, he served multiple roles at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), most recently as Vice President for Policy. IER is a Koch-affiliated non-profit think tank that focuses on “energy analysis and free-market energy and environmental policy,” offering reports and analysis criticising plans to lower emissions and attacking renewable energy.

Simmons is also currently listed as a Policy Expert on the Heartland Institute's website.

Before joining IER, Simmons was Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council **(ALEC), the Koch-tied organization designed to link state legislators with corporations and create templates for state legislation.

Simmons' old boss at IER, President Tom Pyle, served as the head of then President-elect Trump's energy transition team.

Daniel Simmons' History of Attacks on Renewable Energy

A quick review of Simmons' commentary and publications while at IER, Heartland, and ALEC leaves little doubt about how he feels about the office he is now set to run.

In a blog post for IER, Simmons criticized one of the federal government's most effective energy efficiency measures—efficiency standards for light bulbs. “Does the federal government think we are dim bulbs,” the post asks. Simmons calls the efficiency standards a “bulb ban” and encourages readers to order as many incandescent bulbs as possible from Amazon before the regulation kicked in.

Simmons regularly criticized any federal support for wind power, as he did in this 2013 op-ed for U.S. News and World Report:

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama pledged to eliminate federal programs that are “excess weight.” If the president still wants to keep this promise, he could start by tackling federal subsidies for wind energy.

He went on to directly criticize the Department of Energy's investments in wind:

DOE and USDA are important to highlight because they were responsible for almost half of the initiatives (36 of 82) in FY 2011, while DOE led all agencies with 22 initiatives. Additionally, these agencies have more discretion than other agencies to decide which projects to support.

As such, GAO recommends DOE and USDA formally assess and document whether the success of a project depends on federal support. That would be a start, but ultimately the federal government should get out of the business of betting taxpayer dollars on energy projects and instead let the American themselves people vote with their pocketbook on which projects should succeed.

*img

In a blog post for IER, Simmons slams wind power for hurting farmers. This despite the fact that rural landowners are benefiting the most from wind power—it's already paying rural landowners roughly $222 million per year, and that figure is expected to rise to nearly $1 billion annually by 2030—and farmers are calling wind development “our financial future.”

In yet another post, Simmons calls wind turbines “cuisinarts of the sky.”

Though Simmons critiques wind power above all else, he has always found scathing words for solar as well. In a blog postcalled “Greengate,” Simmons compared the failure of solar company Solyndra, which cost the DOE $528 million in loan guarantees, to the historic Enron collapse. (The DOE program that administered the loan to Solyndra is actually on track to net taxpayers $5-6 billion in profits, according to Bloomberg.)

Simmons has been particularly vocal about the DOE's loan guarantee programs, which he mis-characterizes regularly as direct spending, despite the fact that the program has, again, earned taxpayers money.

There are dozens more instances of Simmons directly criticizing the value of projects that are run by the very office he is set to lead. In this way, his appointmnt follows one particular Trump pattern, echoing the selection of longtime EPA critic Scott Pruitt to run that agency.

An official announcement has not yet been made about the Simmons appointment, and the position will require Senate confirmation. Until then, Simmons will serve as acting assistant secretary.

*A version of this article is cross-posted on KochvsClean.com

==

Utah State University

:{:{Utah State University collected over $1.3 million from the Charles Koch Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute in 2015. The foundation supports tenure-track professors at the business school's its Institute of Political Economy and has donated heavily to a new addition to the school. Current faculty at the Institute include Chris Fawson, who is on leave and working at the Koch Foundation "on business school and faculty research initiatives sponsored by the Foundation"; Randy Simmons, director of the Institute, who is also a fellow at the Koch-funded Property and Environmental Research Center and a scholar at the climate-change-denying, Koch-backed Competitive Enterprise Institute; two others who received their PhDs from GMU; and another who has taught there. The Charles Koch Foundation also offers a paid Koch scholar program, a Koch associates program and Koch internships through the school of business.In 2015, $335,000 went to Strata Policy—an affiliate of the Institute of Political Economy run by three Utah State professors, including the Institute's Simmons—employs student researchers, co-hosts events with the Charles Koch Institute and lists the Koch scholars program on its website. The center initially worked out of Utah State office space, and its founders incorporated it in 2012.University of Texas at Austin

==

bsDaniel Simmons is IER’s Director of Regulatory and State Affairs. He oversees our energy research and outreach at the state level. Before joining IER, Simmons served as the Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).Prior to working for ALEC, Simmons was a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He analyzed proposed federal regulations and wrote comments to federal agencies during the rulemaking process. He also drafted law review articles based on a current regulatory and legal issues.Previous to working at the Mercatus Center, Simmons served as Legislative Staff for the Committee on Resources in the U.S. House of Representatives where he handled endangered species and forestry issues.Simmons holds a B.A. in Economics from Utah State University and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar.

==

2013Staffers from some Koch-funded nonprofit groups have continued to testify before Congress, sowing doubt about climate change in spite of scientists’ consensus that global warming exists, that it warrants concern and that it is tied to human behavior.Recent 2013 testimony includes:• On Feb. 5, Mary Hutzler, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that research shows America has an abundance of fossil fuel reserves that could power the nation for nearly 600 years.Hutzler urged lawmakers to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, off the coast of the southern United States and in the Green River that runs through Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.“Our economy needs the lasting stimulus that robust energy development on federal lands and waters would provide,” she said, according to the committee transcript.•

On Feb. 14, her colleague, Daniel Simmons, director of Regulatory and State Affairs at the Institute for Energy Research, told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that environmental regulation of the oil industry is to blame for the rising cost of gasoline. He also suggested opening up the same federal lands to oil and gas drilling.• A month later, on March 13, Hutzler testified during a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that federal subsidies of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources had failed to make America energy independent. She argued that the fuels receiving the most government money produced the least amount of energy.• On April 24, an energy policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, testifying before the House Oversight and GovernmentReform Committee, criticized federal incentives for companies that make fuel-efficient cars.• On April 25, Simmons urged members of the House Committee on Natural Resources to support a bill that would allow companies to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, in waters belonging to the United States and Mexico.

At the same hearing, research fellows at the Heritage Foundation also testified in favor of the bill.• On May 7, Paul Knappenberger, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, told members of House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that carbon dioxide emissions from the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline would have an insignificant impact on climate change. He also challenged the notion of a scientific consensus linking carbon dioxide emissions to climate change.“The more we learn, the less responsive it seems that the earth’s average temperature is to human carbon-dioxide emissions,” Knappenberger said.And testimony last year included this:•

On Sept. 11, 2012: David Kreutzer, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, emphasized uncertainty about carbon dioxide’s role in global warming during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Kreutzer criticized the EPA’s funding of environmental programs in developing countries, adding that “the magnitude of carbon dioxide’s impact on global warming is, in fact, not settled.”Other Koch-funded groups whose staff and researchers have testified in recent years against federal environmental regulation are the George C. Marshall Institute, the American Council for Capital Formation, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

GP 2010  ALEC publishes its own materials as well, including a "Climate Change Overview for State Legislators" which downplays the science and risks of global warming and exaggerates the costs of addressing it. The Overview was written by Daniel Simmons, who moved from ALEC to become AEA's Director of State Affairs. Simmons was at the Mercatus Institute before ALEC and is a graduate of the George Mason University School of Law.  Daniel Simmons.300 Former Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Simmons is now AEA’s Director of State Affairs.  Simmons was at the Mercatus Institute before ALEC and is a graduate of the George Mason University School of Law. ALEC, which also receives funding from the American Petroleum Institute, was critical of President Bush’s climate proposals. GP 10}:

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Koch Industries Climate Denial Front GroupAmerican Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)On this page}:

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[### Suspicious relationship between the Koch brothers and ...

ThinkProgress

https://archive.thinkprogress.org › kochs-fund-energy-t...](https://archive.thinkprogress.org/kochs-fund-energy-think-tanks-in-utah-482ab143e66d/)

Aug 17, 2017 — Simmons and the other professors who staff the Koch-funded Institute of Political Economy also hold positions at Strata Policy. Simmons, who ...Read more

[### Newsweek: We didn't vet wind power op-ed

Politico

https://www.politico.com › blogs › media › 2015/04](https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/04/newsweek-we-didnt-vet-wind-power-op-ed-205940)

Apr 22, 2015 — “The author of this piece, Randy Simmons, is the Charles G. Koch professor of political economy at Utah State University. He's also a senior ...Read more

Missing: Institute ‎| Show results with: Institute

[### The Far-Right Campaign to Destroy Our National Monuments

Center for Biological Diversity

https://www.biologicaldiversity.org › news › tru...](https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/media-archive/a2018/trump_monuments_nation_12.20.17.pdf)

PDF

Dec 20, 2017 — Strata's co-founder and president, Randy Simmons, is a professor at. Utah State University (USU), where he served as the Charles G. Koch ...Read more

[### USU students protest $25 million donation from Charles ...

The Utah Statesman

https://usustatesman.com › sold-usu-students-protest-25...](https://usustatesman.com/sold-usu-students-protest-25-million-donation-charles-koch-foundation/)

Jun 10, 2017 — Critics accused Simmons, researcher Ryan Yonk and his colleagues at Logan-based Strata Policy, a Koch-funded libertarian think tank, of using ...Read more

[### How Charles Koch Is Buying Credibility With Academic ...

DeSmog

https://www.desmog.com › 2020/09/12 › charles-koch-a...](https://www.desmog.com/2020/09/12/charles-koch-academic-george-mason-utah-state-university/)

Sep 12, 2020 — ... Institute for Political Economy (IPE), and also the president of Strata. Simmons publicly denies Koch involvement in the affairs of Utah ...Read more

[### Utah State's Ryan Yonk: Same Soup as Randy Simmons ... Checks and Balances Project

https://checksandbalancesproject.org › utah-states-ryan-y...](https://checksandbalancesproject.org/utah-states-ryan-yonk-same-soup-different-bowl/)

Jul 16, 2015 — As I mentioned earlier, Randy Simmons, the Charles G. Koch professor of political economy at USU, was recently involved in a scandal that ...Read more

[### Charles Koch gave $25m to our university. Has it become a ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › charles-koch-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/02/charles-koch-gave-25m-to-our-university-has-it-become-a-rightwing-mouthpiece)

May 2, 2019 — Critics say the Koch Scholars program is one example of how Charles Koch has sought to transform the Utah State business school into a libertarian mouthpiece.Read more

Missing: Institute ‎Economy

[### Rolly: Firm hired by Legislature for Utah lands fight has ties ...

The Salt Lake Tribune

https://archive.sltrib.com › article](https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2669342&itype=CMSID)

Jun 29, 2015 — A Logan-based think tank hired by the Utah Legislature to promote the state's legal efforts to wrest control of 32 million acres of public land ...Read more

Missing: Institute ‎| Show results with: Institute

[### Koch Foundation to fund new research institution at USU

The Utah Statesman

https://usustatesman.com › koch-foundation-fund-new-...](https://usustatesman.com/koch-foundation-fund-new-research-institution-usu/)

Jun 4, 2017 — Similar accusations have been levied at Logan's own Strata, a Koch-funded public policy research center which relies on research conducted ...Read more

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