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IS THIS REALLY SEP?

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In an embarrassing attempt to undermine renewable energy, Fox host Jesse Watters platformed a fossil fuel industry-funded envoy flimsily disguised as an “ocean advocate” for Protect Our Coast NJ. Watters hosted self-described “Jersey Shore Lifer” Mike Dean, although he was misidentified on-screen as Mike Davis. Dean’s Twitter account demonstrates opposition to climate science, frequently retweeting Big Oil shill Steve Milloy and “#climatescam” posts.

dean – without evidence – blamed recent whale deaths in New Jersey on wind development and claimed, “The harms with these projects and the costs are limitless, and it’s really hard to find any benefits at all.” (While the cause of the deaths are not known yet, factors including oceanic plastic pollution, the presence of an anomalously large whale population in the area for this time of year due to warmer waters, and underwater sonar use by the military could all lead to these “unusual mortality events.”)

While Protect Our Coast NJ’s website boasts the group as “residents, homeowners, business owners, fishermen and visitors of the New Jersey coastal communities,” reporting has indicated that other interests are playing a part in the group’s activities. Popular Information’s Michael Thomas reported that the donation page redirects to a PayPal page for the Caesar Rodney Institute. The website also links to content from right-wing media’s favorite climate contrarian Michael Shellenberger. The Caesar Rodney Institute is a part of the State Policy Network, a network of conservative and libertarian think tanks.

The Caesar Rodney Institute has a history of hostility toward government environmental regulation and climate change mitigation policies. In 2021, the Caesar Rodney Institute’s Energy and Environment director, David Stevenson, a former member of the Trump EPA transition team, established the American Coalition for Ocean Protection (ACOP), a legal defense fund for groups to file lawsuits to fight offshore wind developments on the Eastern Seaboard. In 2022, the ACOP announced a partnership with Marc Morano’s Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Heartland Institute to fend off a coastal Virginia offshore wind project.

As reported by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, the Caesar Rodney Institute has received funding from the American Energy Alliance, which in return was funded by fossil fuel insiders like the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Stand Together Chamber Commerce, a Koch Industries business trade group.

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in 2021, a fleet of 27 organizations controlled by Charles Koch and other Koch Industries executives spent a combined net total of $656.8 million on political and charitable causes. 

This represents another consecutive year of record-breaking spending by Koch-affiliated nonprofit organizations, outdoing total net spending amounts of $524.9 million in 2019 and $639.4 million in 2020. These net totals account for expenditures between the groups, without double counting.

In this three-year period, Koch groups that are primarily focused on influencing American policy and politics accounted for more than 93% of the spending. Only 6% came from Koch foundations that predominantly support genuinely charitable causes—those that do not explicitly align with Charles Koch’s own economic interests or ideological policy goals. 

An examination of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings compiled by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) indicates that gross expenditures by Koch-controlled political and policy-focused organizations totaled $2.1 billion in the past three years of available records compared to $138 million in gross expenditures during the same period by organizations primary focused on charitable giving.

In 2021, the most recent year of IRS filings available, spending by groups CMD categorizes as charitable plummeted to a new low, accounting for only 4.4% of Koch’s overall nonprofit expenditures....

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koch’s fleet continues to expand as well. Last year, staff members at Charles Koch’s organization Stand Together Chamber of Commerce founded a new 501(c)(4) organization called the Stand Together C4 Fund.

According to its IRS tax-exemption application, the new fund expected to raise $96 million and spend $78.2 million in the final quarter of 2022. The filing estimated that it would continue to raise between $90 and $100 million in both 2023 and 2024, and spend over $80 million each year.

Even before the advent of the Stand Together C4 Fund, Koch’s organizations continued to expand significantly. At the close of 2021, organizations that are ultimately under Charles Koch’s control had combined assets of $4.1 billion. This represents an increase of $1 billion over the previous year, and an increase of $2.7 billion since late 2019.

This marked expansion of Koch-controlled nonprofit organizations indicates that they are being positioned to be ever more major players in the realms of politics and policy.

Methodology

Revenue, Expenditure, and Asset Totals...

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grassrootbeer connor g cmd 5 25 email gmail

Charles Koch’s fleet of organizations spent a combined net total of $833 million in 2023 to influence public policy, elections, and certain charitable causes — marking its highest spending total to date.

As with previous years, the vast majority of the Koch fleet’s spending came from organizations that are predominantly focused on politics and policy.

And as in the past, the lines between policy influence efforts and genuine philanthropy remain blurred. Charles Koch’s significant university funding fuels his political influence apparatus, while his charitable contributions share the same “Stand Together” branding as his policy-focused organizations.

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has conducted a comprehensive financial analysis of Charles Koch’s network of nonprofit and political organizations based on IRS tax records and U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings for the last six years available, 2018–23. Our most recent analysis for 2023 found:

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Koch-Controlled Organizations Combined Financial Data

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CMD’s analysis is based on the most recent IRS tax filings for 27 nonprofit organizations, in addition to the relevant disclosures of seven political action committees published by the FEC. The data builds upon similar investigations conducted in previous years and makes use of the same methodology previously disclosed.

Koch Begat Koch

While most of these organizations do not reveal their donors, grants that are disclosed show that the Koch fleet is relatively insular:

On paper, 53% of the Koch fleet’s gross revenue came from other Koch-controlled groups. It is possible that additional funding ultimately came from Koch, Inc., or from wealthy business people and corporate heirs who coordinate their spending with the Koch family. The tax filings of key nonprofits do not disclose their donors, including the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, which took in over $250 million in 2023, mostly from undisclosed sources.

Dark Money Grants

Koch continued to send millions of dollars to the National Philanthropic Trust (NPT), a multi-billion dollar donor-advised fund that serves to obscure the relationship between specific donors and grantees. A total of $3 million was granted to the trust in 2023 between two separate grants disclosed by the Stand Together Trust and the Knowledge & Progress Fund. Koch organizations have granted a total of $102.1 million to the NPT since 2019, representing 86% of Koch foundation grants to donor-advised funds in that timeframe.

Since 2005, Koch foundations have given a grand total of $138.2 million to donor-advised funds. 2019 was the first year the Koch fleet began passing grants through donor-advised funds like the NPT and the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund instead of DonorsTrust. Previously, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund received a combined $20.1 million from Koch foundations between 2005 and 2019.

Koch Grants to Universities

As with previous years, one of the larger net spenders within the Koch fleet was the Charles Koch Foundation, which focuses most of its grantmaking on higher education. In 2023 it granted $90.8 million to dozens of universities.

The Koch fleet has granted over $788 million to more than 500 universities since 2005, according to a recent analysis by CMD, in combination with older tax filing data. As CMD has previously reported, universities have long represented the foundation for Charles Koch’s overall policy influence strategy, prompting student and faculty resistance on many campuses.

The Mercatus Center and the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University -– two organizations that have been controlled for decades by Koch, Inc.’s top executives -– continue to be major spenders within the Koch fleet. Mercatus, founded by Charles Koch and Richard Fink, acts as a strategic bridge between Koch’s university investments and its larger policy influence strategy, often advocating against policies and regulations that Koch, Inc. and other Mercatus sponsors seek to dismantle. The IHS serves as a key recruitment and training hub for the “talent pipeline” that Koch continues to prioritize.

George Mason University, Mercatus, and IHS have received over $305 million from Koch foundations since 2005, in addition to tens of millions in grants to GMU, IHS and Mercatus dating back to the mid 1980s.

Americans for Prosperity Priorities

Koch-controlled organizations were busy advancing a number of priorities in the realms of policy, lawsuits, and social issues in 2023. Much of this was conducted through AFP and its affiliated 501(c)(3) foundation and super PAC, which spent a combined total of $207 million that year:

Stand Together Trust Grantmaking in 2023

Koch’s advocacy activity was complemented by grantmaking activity run out of the Stand Together Trust, which has become the fleet’s primary funder of external policy influence groups in recent years. The Stand Together Trust spent $157 million in 2023, most of which was granted to other Koch-controlled organizations, as well as external organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the Cato Institute, and the TPFF. The trust also gave large grants to charitable organizations such as the Edward Charles Foundation -– which is itself a grantmaker -– and The Phoenix, an exercise-based drug rehab charity.

K–12 School Privatization

A combined $11.6 million was spent by Yes Every Kid (YEK) and the Yes Every Kid Foundation. YEK was founded on vague aspirations to “transform public education” by promoting school “choice,” evoking strong skepticism from teachers’ unions. YEK has a notable absence of educational professionals among its leadership, most of whom have backgrounds in politics, lobbying, and public relations.

Charles Koch has opposed unions of all kinds for decades, including teacher’s unions specifically. His fleet of organizations have long supported efforts to funnel money away from public to private schools. Some of Koch’s groups, such as the Bill of Rights Institute and Empowered (formerly “Youth Entrepreneurs”), work to inject controversial material into school curricula such as texts whitewashing the history of slavery in the U.S.

Philanthropy and Stand Together Music

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