ron howell KCH

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</div><div>The Power of Big Oil</div><div>
<div>frontline 4 22<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Feb. 17, 1993<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Our plan does include a broad-based tax on energy, and it is environmentally responsible. It will help us in the future as well as in the present with the deficit.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARC CHUPKA:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I was excited that a fairly bold step had been proposed.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s called a "BTU tax."<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FEMALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The tax is likely to be levied at the producer or distributor level, though consumers would feel it as energy companies passed it along in their prices.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARC CHUPKA:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s a tax policy. You don’t expect everyone to love it. But the opposition to this particular proposal was very strong, very strident, very aggressive.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Koch Industries has been called the biggest company you never heard of. The sprawling giant includes pipelines, petrochemicals, asphalt plants, trading floors. Based in Wichita, Kansas, it sells everything from gasoline to beef.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT, Comms. Dir., Citizens for a Sound Economy, 1993:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I would say that virtually no one in the early 1990s had ever heard of Koch Industries.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Koch's core business is distribution. It owns 37,000 miles of international pipeline.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They can take the heaviest oil, the dirtiest oil, the hardest to turn into a useful product and refine it. And they became the best in the world at doing that. I think it's still probably the second-largest privately held company in the world.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The two brothers who ran Koch Industries were Charles and David Koch. They had their sights set on how they were going to deal with issues that were existential to their industry. It's the heart of what they do, so they're going to fight and hang on to that till the bitter end.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JERRY TAYLOR, Cato Institute, 1991-2014:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Cato Institute was a public policy think tank. It was founded by Charles Koch. And Charles was heavily invested in energy policy discussions back in that time, particularly the emergence of climate change.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Cato Institute position was that climate change is real, but the climate change that we're seeing today is far, far more modest than what the computer models say we should have seen by now. We need to know a lot more before we should be spending trillions of dollars to address it.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So the Kochs had funding directed at the Cato Institute as a libertarian think tank; they also had funding that went to Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was built for a slightly different purpose, which was to be a quote, grassroots mobilizer.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JERRY TAYLOR:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Coming out of the gate, we then get served up with a proposed BTU tax. It was obvious to us at the Cato Institute that once that tax is in place, it's going to be very hard to get rid of.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We walked over from Citizens for a Sound Economy over to the American Petroleum Institute, and we met with the entire leadership of API. And the meeting was all about, let's just knock out the BTU tax in its infancy.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JERRY TAYLOR:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We would be meeting in various locales in Washington with over 100 people in the room. It was a real war room situation.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JERRY JASINOWSKI, President of the National Association of Manufacturers :<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[Archive] This coalition is one of the fastest growing and strongest that I've seen. We will stop the BTU tax and I believe substitute spending cuts in its place. Thank you very much for coming.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">OklahomaRON HOWELL, Former consultant, Koch Industries:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We were known, and I think we made ourselves known that way, as the oil capital of the world. Almost everywhere you'd look had behind it oil industry dollars.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I thought that the tax was a bad idea for America, but predominantly a bad idea for Oklahoma. Oklahoma was not in a good spot at that time at all. Oil wells were being shut. That meant a lot of lost jobs, a lot of lost companies. And this was putting the heel of the boot down hard.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I got a call from Koch Industries telling me the industry is very concerned about this, but we're worried that this word isn't getting out. Our particular goal was to focus on Sen. Boren.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">David Boren was a moderate Democrat who chaired the relevant committee that would deal with the Clinton budget.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RON HOWELL:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We were hearing that he wanted to be left to do his own revising of it behind closed doors.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They basically said if we can get David Boren to flip, we win. So they said, we're going to do whatever it takes.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RON HOWELL:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We set about what I would call a grasstops and a grassroots campaign. The grassroots were encouraged to call Sen. Boren and let him know that you do not want a tax, after seeing an ad that showed "take shower, pay a tax; start your car, pay a tax."<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Everybody was given their marching orders out of this playbook. People would stand up behind politicians with signs about no BTU tax. There were rallies.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ENERGY INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—cost to the average household in Oklahoma is going to be roughly about $500 a year.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RON HOWELL:My main role was what I would call the grasstops. You may be a civic leader, you may be a CEO. Often it would be Mr. Koch would call them, or myself, and talk them through "Did you know it does this, this, this and this?" Encourage strongly Sen. Boren kill it.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What they told the public and what the policymakers were led to believe was that there was an army of folks who were ready to march in the streets. Maybe there were a handful of folks who thought, "Oh, gosh, I should call my senator and register my complaint," but they had no such grassroots army. It was funded and fueled by the corporate interests.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CSE says its work isn’t done yet. It’s joined forces with other lobbying groups, stoking the flames of the prairie fire, hoping they’ll spread and burn the BTU tax for good.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RON HOWELL:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I remember a very late night or early morning phone call, and it was actually Sen. Boren's communications guy. "We want those ads to stop. And we want the CEOs to quit calling us, and in return, Sen. Boren’s going to announce his intentions to vote against it."<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SEN. DAVID BOREN, D-Oklahoma, 1979-94 :<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Our proposal is fairer than that put forward by the administration—that is the BTU tax, which is the tax which is a part of the administration's plan that does hit lower- and middle-income Americans.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He folded right away. It’s like wow, this can really work. We can pick our targets strategically and win, even when we’re not in political power.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NARRATOR:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At the time, David Boren disputed he was influenced by the oil industry. He said he was responding to concerns from the American public, and he opposed the tax because it would hurt consumers and businesspeople.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">President Clinton has pulled the plug on his proposed BTU energy tax.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FEMALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Critics said it would cost jobs and devastate the economy, and there weren't enough votes in the Senate to pass it. Besides, who the heck knew what it was?<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is after all a nation addicted to its cars and to the idea of driving down the open road.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AL GORE:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It was extremely disappointing to not get the votes. It was just the raw power of all the money that they threw into this. But we just decided to regroup and try to skin the cat a different way.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARC CHUPKA:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They never proposed another energy tax. It was just considered radioactive.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I think some of the leadership of the Koch network were really quite excited that it worked so well. So that's how that playbook first began. It was developed right then. What I didn’t know at the time was that it would become the beginning of something much bigger. And that playbook is still in use today.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I don't feel embarrassed or regretful. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that. There's no question I shouldn't have done that. But they were my client. I was a contractor. I was paid, I'm going to do my job. And my job was to do that.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NARRATOR:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles Koch did not respond to questions about the campaign against the BTU tax. In 1994, a top Koch executive said, "Our belief is that the tax, over time, may have destroyed our business."...=<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/2/1876168/-The-Origins-of-the-Koch-Network-s-Disinformation-Playbook">https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/2/1876168/-The-Origins-of-the-Koch-Network-s-Disinformation-Playbook</a>we’ve written <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/21/1859276/-Koch-Network-Adds-A-New-Layer-Of-Propaganda-To-Conceal-True-Intentions" style="letter-spacing: 0.125px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">more</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/7/1762560/-Free-Speech-on-Campus-Under-Attack-By-the-Koch-Bros" style="letter-spacing: 0.125px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">than</a> a <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/20/1782167/-Energy-Lobbying-Outspends-Enviros-10-1-So-Of-Course-House-Anti-Carbon-Tax-Vote-Passes" style="letter-spacing: 0.125px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">few</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/6/4/1862579/-Report-Exposes-Real-Reason-Kochs-Fund-Regulatory-Center-at-George-Washington-University" style="letter-spacing: 0.125px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">times</a> about how the Koch network operates and its success in stopping action to combat climate change. In fact, it's been so successful in doing so that <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/07/24/freedom-drive-coalition-koch-disinformation-playbook-colorado" style="letter-spacing: 0.125px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">other groups are now using the Koch strategy</a> to advance similar aims.But even the Koch network was once new to the game. A new book by Christopher Leonard <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/22/kochland-excerpt-senate-investigation-oil-theft-native-american-tribes-227412" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">excerpted in Politico</a> gives us a glimpse into the origins of the Koch network’s political strategy.leonard explains that Charles Koch felt that the company was being targeted because it was “politically unimportant.” Before this, Charles Koch didn’t play much in the political sphere, as he thought government was fundamentally bad. However, this investigation made him think it would be advantageous to be more politically involved, so “he went to build a political influence machine.”And so began the Koch network’s first foray into a coordinated, political misinformation campaign.First, shortly after the investigation began, Koch Industries president Bill Hanna sent an internal memo emphasizing to employees the importance of keeping internal records secret and instructing them to destroy documents that “would be useful to our competitors.” One employee admitted he was asked to destroy his evaluations of oil gaugers. Later on, when investigators asked for certain documents that would help determine if Koch Industries had committed theft, the company said they had been destroyed.  The next step was to undermine the public narrative that Koch Industries had stolen. The company sent a team to the Osage tribe in Oklahoma, where it did its own “independent” audit. Eventually, Koch claimed it had actually overreported the amount of oil they took, and therefore the tribe owed the company $22,000. At the time, Osage Chief Charles O. Tillman had no way to verify the company’s claims, and considering the Koch Brothers weren’t then synonymous with political corruption, he had little reason to doubt its conclusions. Tillman went on to speak out in favor of the company to the media--something he later regretted after seeing evidence that showed Koch Industries had in fact stole from the tribe.At the same time, Koch Industries became more involved in the political sphere, ramping up campaign donations to Kansas Senator Bob Dole. Dole, in turn, publicly pushed back on the findings of the Senate committee, helping to “delegitimize the issue of oil theft.”But their biggest move, Leonard explains, was to start developing their now <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/03/14/593413198/koch-funded-group-focuses-on-lifetime-appointments-of-judges" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">well-known campaign</a> to influence the courts. Ron Howell, a former Koch Industries employee who the company hired to help combat the oil theft story, started a nonprofit called “Oklahomans for Judicial Excellence.” Leonard explains how the group graded judges based on “their fealty to free-market economic theory” and published those scores in op-eds in local papers to try and embarrass the judges. The Koch network then paid for judges to attend seminars at luxury resorts that emphasized the importance of free-market ideas and warned about the use of “junk science.”Today, the Koch network operates the Law and Economics center at George Mason, which hosts similar seminars for state and federal judges from across the country.Now, thanks to a civil suit filed by Bill Koch, the estranged brother of David and Charles, Koch Industries did eventually admit they earned up to $10 million annually from the practice of oil theft, and ended up paying an undisclosed amount of money to settle.However, the company arguably gained something much more powerful from this experience: a playbook for spreading misinformation and a strategy for controlling the political and judicial sphere. One that the Kochs have successfully used for years to protect their own fossil fuel interests.</div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><div>How an Oil Theft Investigation Laid the Groundwork ... - Politico https://www.politico.com › story › 2019/07/22 › kochla...</div><div>Jul 22, 2019 — A former Koch Industries employee named Ron Howell helped lead Charles Koch's efforts to combat the investigation through politics.</div><div>
</div><div>The Origins of the Koch Network's Disinformation Playbookhttps://www.dailykos.com › story ›</div><div>Aug 2, 2019 — Ron Howell, a former Koch Industries employee who the company hired to help combat the oil theft story, started a nonprofit called ...</div><div>
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</div><div>How Koch Industries Tries To Influence Judicial System - WSJhttps://www.wsj.com › articles</div><div>Aug 9, 1999 — While he knows Ron Howell, the Tulsa political consultant who developed Oklahomans for Judicial Excellence, Mr. Butler says his Law and ...</div><div>
</div><div>Koch Federal Direct Lobbying Expenditures - Greenpeacehttps://www.greenpeace.org › usa › koch-industries › k...</div><div>Koch Industries has spent $79 million on federal lobbying since 1998, ... Koch's lobbying expenses are outspent only by a few oil and gas industry.</div><div>Missing: ron ‎howell</div><div>
</div><div>The Power of Big Oil - Transcript | FRONTLINE - PBShttps://www.pbs.org › wgbh › frontline › film › transcript</div><div>It was the chief lobbying organization for the petroleum industry and had representation from some of ... RON HOWELL, Former consultant, Koch Industries:.</div></div><div><div class="yuRUbf" style="line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwL8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=ron+howell+koch+lobby&source=bl&ots=MZIiWBYfQ2&sig=ACfU3U0XAI96TqZmWJuWmEmxcp4GemWJAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;" /><h3 class="LC20lb MBeuO DKV0Md" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.3; display: inline-block;"><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwL8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=ron+howell+koch+lobby&source=bl&ots=MZIiWBYfQ2&sig=ACfU3U0XAI96TqZmWJuWmEmxcp4GemWJAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;" /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwL8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=ron+howell+koch+lobby&source=bl&ots=MZIiWBYfQ2&sig=ACfU3U0XAI96TqZmWJuWmEmxcp4GemWJAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;" /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwL8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=ron+howell+koch+lobby&source=bl&ots=MZIiWBYfQ2&sig=ACfU3U0XAI96TqZmWJuWmEmxcp4GemWJAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;" /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwL8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=ron+howell+koch+lobby&source=bl&ots=MZIiWBYfQ2&sig=ACfU3U0XAI96TqZmWJuWmEmxcp4GemWJAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;" /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwL8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=ron+howell+koch+lobby&source=bl&ots=MZIiWBYfQ2&sig=ACfU3U0XAI96TqZmWJuWmEmxcp4GemWJAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;" /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwL8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=ron+howell+koch+lobby&source=bl&ots=MZIiWBYfQ2&sig=ACfU3U0XAI96TqZmWJuWmEmxcp4GemWJAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;" /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwL8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=ron+howell+koch+lobby&source=bl&ots=MZIiWBYfQ2&sig=ACfU3U0XAI96TqZmWJuWmEmxcp4GemWJAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" data-ved="2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ6AF6BAgUEAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;">Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and ...</a></h3><div class="B6fmyf" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; height: 0px; visibility: hidden; white-space: nowrap;"><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; text-size-adjust: none;"><cite class="iUh30 qLRx3b tjvcx" role="text" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 1.3; padding-top: 1px;"></cite></div><div class="eFM0qc" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; padding-left: 2px; visibility: visible;"><div class="IsZvec" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="fG8Fp uo4vr" style="line-height: 1.58;"><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Christopher+Leonard%22&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-p52B5cH3AhVEm2oFHVIHAUMQ9Ah6BAgUEAY" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;">Christopher Leonard</a> · 2020 · ‎Business & Economics</div>Nickles had previously spoken about the case with Koch's lobbyist Ron Howell, who remembered pulling Nickles aside at a luncheon to discuss the case.</div></div><div></div></div></div></div></div>