fueling US fwd

Koch brothers have landed yet another of their trusted fossil fuel think tank veterans in the Trump administration’s Department of Energy (DOE). Alex Fitzsimmons was Manager of Policy and Public Affairs at the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), while also working as a “spokesman” and communications director for Fueling US Forward (FUSF), the Koch-funded campaign to bolster public opinion of fossil fuels.

Fitzsimmons will be joining former IER colleagues Daniel Simmons and Travis Fisher at the DOE.

Simmons now serves as the head of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), an office that AEA called for eliminating in 2015, under Simmons’ guidance, as then-Vice President of Policy. Fisher is currently working on the controversial grid study ordered by DOE Secretary Rick Perry. While at IER, Fisher wrote a similar report in 2015, which called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat” to the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability than cyber attacks, terrorism, or extreme weather.

While there have been many IER veterans to land in the Trump administration (and even more known Koch affiliates), the arrival of Fitzsimmons at the DOE marks the first time that someone directly involved with Fueling U.S. Forward has taken a job at one of the agencies or in the White House.

The Koch network reportedly had big plans for the Fueling U.S. Forward campaign when it first launched in late summer of 2016, when Charles Drevna announced that it would make the “pro-human” case for fossil fuels, highlighting the “positives” of oil and gas to American consumers.

As the head of communications for Fueling U.S. Forward, Fitzsimmons wrote a handful of blog posts singing the praises of fossil fuels, work that echoes his contributions to the IER and AEA sites.

The Obama White House, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the DOE were all frequent targets in his articles for IER and AEA. On display in one such post, which contrasts DOE and Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections of wind power penetration in the U.S. energy system, is a casual dismissal of the department’s energy modeling and a blatant misunderstanding of how the EIA forecasts actually work.

(Basically, Fitzsimmons claims that the EIA’s numbers are model-based projections, but in reality they are forecasts based on current levels of deployment and “business-as-usual” trends. The EIA has also been rightly criticized for underestimating renewable energy growth year after year, a tradition that had become so absurd that the agency had to publicly address it and make plans to correct it.)

Fitzsimmons will doubtlessly bring his pro-fossil fuel talking points to the DOE, though it is unclear what the communications specialist will be tasked with as a “senior adviser.”

At the Red State Gathering in August 2016, during which Charles Drevna announced the launch of Fueling U.S. Forward, Fitzsimmons interviewed Drevna. On top of his archives of IER and AEA posts, the interview provides a good a sense of Fitzsimmons’ perspective on energy:

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Fitzsimmons liked to write about “green energy cronyism” repeatedly over his years at the Institute for Energy Research and Fueling U.S. Forward. And he did so with no apparent sense of irony that the two organizations he received checks from were funded (all or in part) by the Koch brothers and their donor networks, nor that the organizations were led by two long-time Koch confidants: Tom Pyle and Charles Drevna. Fitzsimmons’ appointment is proof again that fossil fuel cronyism is alive and well in the Department of Energy and throughout Trump’s White House.

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Koch Brothers Launch Attack to Kill Electric Cars

By Ben Jervey

Fueling U.S. Forward, the Koch-funded campaign to "rebrand" fossil fuels as "positive" and "sustainable," has released a new attacking the Dirty Secrets of Electric Cars, signaling a possible strategic pivot from straightforward fossil fuel cheerleading to electric vehicle (EV) and clean energy bashing.

The video and accompanying Dirty Secrets of Electric Cars web page feature blatant factual errors, misleading statements and glaring omissions (all of which will be debunked thoroughly below), while essentially attacking electric cars for using the same materials needed to manufacture cell phones, laptops, defense equipment and gas-powered cars, and which are even a critical component of the very oil refining processes that form the foundation of the Koch fortunes.

When Fueling U.S. Forward launched last August, the organization's president Charles Drevna described the campaign as an effort to rebrand fossil fuels by focusing on the "positive" aspects of coal, oil and gas. This:{ }:{ }::{seems to further confirm investigative journalist}::{ }:Peter Stone's reporting from last spring:{that the Kochs were "plotting a multimillion dollar assault on electric vehicles."}:

How do we know that Fueling U.S. Forward is this Koch-funded campaign? First, Charles Drevna, who is leading the effort, developed the concept while serving as a distinguished senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, a pro-fossil fuel think tank that was partially founded by Charles Koch and that is run by a longtime lobbyist for Koch Industries. Second, and more concretely, Drevna told DeSmog's Sharon Kelly that he was working with Koch Industries' board member (and longtime Koch brothers' confidant) James Mahoney on the campaign and that it was funded by "one of the brothers."

Echoes of America Rising Squared

Fueling U.S. Forward and America Rising Squared (or AR2) have no public affiliation. Yet within a few weeks in June, both groups launched attacks on electric vehicles using the same misleading arguments and nearly identical language. While the former group is a known Koch-funded campaign to promote fossil fuels, the latter has close ties to the GOP establishment, and has invested heavily in promoting alleged hypocrisy among climate action advocates, even paying "trackers" to follow around the likes of Tom Steyer and Bill McKibben.

In June, as DeSmog reported, AR2 published a white paper that purports to reveal the "human and environmental costs of 'clean energy,'" taking electric vehicles and solar panels to task for their reliance on rare Earth metals. As we wrote at the time:

Here's what the white paper doesn't mention: many of the very same rare Earth minerals that the AR2 report bashes are critical components of cell phones, computers, cameras, military and defense equipment, and even traditional gas-powered vehicles. What's more, the petroleum refining process is critically dependent on some of the same rare Earths that AR2 lambasts in this white paper.

The new video from Fueling U.S. Forward echoes the AR2 talking points, almost to the word. (For a closer analysis of the AR2 report, see the original DeSmog article).

Debunking the New Fueling U.S. Forward Electric Car Attack Video

The Fueling U.S. Forward video (which is still unlisted on Youtube, but available to be shared and viewed by anyone with the link) is short enough that we can walk through it line by line.

"This is an electric car/ Car companies say it's a clean alternative/ But electric cars are more toxic to humans than average cars."

This depends on an exceedingly narrow definition of "toxic." If you only consider the materials that go into the batteries of electric cars versus the batteries of "average" cars, then this is maybe defensible. But if you consider the materials that go into the entire vehicle, as well as the fuel used to power the vehicle, than EVs are far cleaner and less toxic.

First, there's the fact that gas-powered vehicles require some of the same "toxic" rare Earth metals that the video criticizes. (More on that below). Then there's the even bigger issue that tailpipe emissions—including ozone, particulate matter and other smog-forming chemicals—are the dominant source of ground level air pollution, and nearly one half of all Americans live in areas that don't meet federal minimum air quality standards. In fact, emissions from road transportation cause roughly 53,000 premature deaths every year in the U.S., according to MIT researchers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/business/energy-environment/koch-brothers-fossil-fuels-minorities.html

The crowd that thronged a gospel concert last month in Richmond, Va., was in for an unusual Christmas treat.

“Your energy bill’s paid!” the M.C. declared between soaring numbers from recording artists like VaShawn Mitchell and Charles Jenkins, calling to a young woman from the audience, who shrieked and started twirling on the floor.

Though few in the crowd knew it, the concert had a powerful sponsor: Fueling U.S. Forward, a public relations group for fossil fuels funded by Koch Industries, the oil and petrochemicals conglomerate led by the ultraconservative billionaire brothers David H. and Charles G. Koch. About halfway through the event, the music gave way to a panel discussion on how the holidays were made possible by energy — cheap energy, like oil and gas.

The concert flier was adorned with a red car bearing Christmas gifts. “Thankful for the fuels and innovation that make modern life possible,” it read. The Kochs, whose use of their fortune to promote climate-change denial research has angered environmentalists, are quietly courting new allies in their quest for a fossil fuel resurgence: minorities.

Since its start in the spring of 2016, Fueling U.S. Forward has sent delegates to, or hosted, at least three events aimed at black voters, arguing that they benefit most from cheap and abundant fossil fuels and have the most to lose if energy costs rise.

Fueling U.S. Forward is “dedicated to educating the public about the value and potential of American energy, the vast majority of which comes from fossil fuels,” the group says on its website. “We’ll talk to people of diverse backgrounds — industry employees, small-business owners, community leaders and low-income families — and share their stories.”

The group has seen early results from its outreach.

“Policies that subsidize electric vehicles and solar panels for the wealthy raise energy prices and harm the black community,” read recommendations adopted by delegates at the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Ind., in August. The event brought together African-American political groups and counted Fueling U.S. Forward among its sponsors.

“We’re standing up for poor, underserved communities,” said Linda Haithcox, executive director of the National Policy Alliance, which organized the convention. She said her group’s funding from Fueling U.S. Forward and other energy groups had not affected its position on energy.

In a statement, Charles Drevna, president and chief executive of Fueling U.S. Forward and a former vice president at Sunoco, the company behind theDakota Accessoilpipeline, confirmed that the group was supported by Koch Industries, among other backers. “I am proud to help Fueling U.S. Forward promote the importance of domestic oil and natural gas to making people’s lives better,” he said.

A Koch Industries spokesman, David Dziok, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Kochs’ public relations drive takes a page from minority outreach by other industry lobbies, like those representing tobacco and soft drinks. Those industries have long argued that stiffer regulations or taxes on cigarettes or sodas would disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities.

Photo

Charles Drevna, president and chief executive of Fueling U.S. Forward, a public relations group for fossil fuels. Koch Industries supports the group financially.

It also adds a new dimension to the Kochs’ more traditional approach to climate and the environment, which has mainly involved financing research skeptical of climate change, backing pro-oil politicians and ballot initiatives, and fighting incentives for renewable energy, all through a network of charitable and political organizations.

Fueling U.S. Forward is a more emotional campaign. “How do we start winning hearts and minds?” Alex Fitzsimmons, the Fueling U.S. Forward spokesman, wondered in a Facebook Live broadcast he hosted with Mr. Drevna in August at the **RedState**Gathering in Denver.

Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, a nonprofit that works with low-income and minority neighborhoods on environmental issues, called the campaign “an exploitative, sad and borderline racist strategy.” He pointed to the falling costs associated with renewable energy, which he said made shifting away from reliance on fossil fuels a winning proposition for everyone.

In seeking to change hearts and minds, Fueling U.S. Forward addresses a greater conundrum for the Kochs, their private empire — which generates an estimated $100 billion in sales a year — and the wider fossil fuel industry.

In recent years, the industry has increased its sway among Republicans, supporting a rightward shift toward sharp cutbacks of Social Security and Medicare and the rollback of environmental protections. And the Kochs find themselves well positioned to influence the Trump administration, with many allies in important cabinet and transition posts.

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma, has received contributions from Kochpac, the political action committee of Koch Industries. Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Pruitt after entrusting the agency’s transition to Myron Ebell, who is a director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an advocacy organization that has received funding from the Kochs’ charitable foundations, and who has been hostile to the work of the E.P.A.

But numerous polls show that a majority of American voters continue to support many environmental regulations, including those that govern carbon dioxide emissions. And there is significant support among voters, even in red states, for renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which the Kochs have long worked to quash.

Fueling U.S. Forward seeks to narrow that schism by courting public support. The group is set to air ads in Virginia and Indiana, the news site Environment & Energy reported in September. The ads portray fossil fuels as the driver of human progress.

“This moment we’re in didn’t just happen. We didn’t just arrive here by luck — a world where billions of people have greater opportunities came about through years of progress,” a posted on the group’s site states. In the backdrop is video of people driving, turning on lights and plugging in appliances.

We got here, the ad says, by “harnessing the power of the earth and the natural fuels of soil and rock.”

It remains unclear who else, apart from the Kochs, is financing Fueling U.S. Forward. It is registered as a nonprofit business association, a designation that allows its involvement in both lobbying and political activities. But because it is so new, it has not yet made public filings detailing its financial and other activities.

Fueling U.S. Forward’s outreach to minorities builds on work by two Koch-funded organizations, the Libre Initiative and Generation Opportunity, that have focused on Latinos and millennials. The Kochs have also previously reached out to black organizations on issues related to criminal justice reform.

Photoimg

The group has even experimented with outreach to the kind of left-wing audience that has long vilified the Kochs. In his Facebook Live broadcast, Mr. Drevna specifically addressed those critics, inviting them to see fossil fuels as part of a progressive worldview.

“Energy security means economic security,” Mr. Drevna said. “Economic security means an increased, progressive lifestyle.”

On Dec. 14, Mr. Fitzsimmons, the Fueling U.S. Forward spokesman, got an article published on The Atlantic’s website that promoted fertilizers made from natural gas, a product made by a Koch subsidiary. Mr. Fitzsimmons, who wrote the article, was initially described only as an energy policy analyst based in Washington.

After being contacted by The New York Times, The Atlantic said that though Mr. Fitzsimmons had disclosed his affiliation with the group, it had not been aware of his role as spokesman, and it appended an editor’s note to the article. Fueling U.S. Forward has featured the article prominently on both its Facebook page and Twitter feed, emphasizing that it appeared in The Atlantic.

The group’s outreach to African-Americans has been more overt, and involved multiple members of the Kochs’ network.

Mr. Drevna attended the August conference in Gary alongside Horace Cooper, a fellow at the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research, who gave a speech on energy policy, organizers said.

Later that month, Mr. Drevna gave a speech on fossil fuels at an annual training forum in Atlantic City organized by Blacks in Government, a national organization for black Civil Service employees that the Koch-funded group now sponsors. Mr. Drevna was accompanied by James Mahoney, a Koch Industries board member, and the two appear in a photo taken at the event.

The Richmond gospel concert was organized by Fueling U.S. Forward, the nonprofit Reaching America and Radio One, which caters to black listeners.

Representing Fueling U.S. Forward was Hubbel Relat, a former vice president at the American Energy Alliance, which has received funding from Freedom Partners, a central group in the Koch network.

He discussed what high energy costs could mean for households in Richmond, which has a large African-American population. And he encouraged audience members to contact their legislators to lodge concerns about energy costs, said Clovia Lawrence, a local journalist and radio personality who helped host the show.

Then four lucky people picked from the crowd of about 300 were told that their latest monthly electricity bills would be paid, up to $250, she said.

“Everyone was so excited,” she said. “Everyone was dancing.”

Correction: January 5, 2017

An earlier version of this article, using information provided by the American Energy Alliance, misstated Hubbel Relat’s position with the organization. He is a former vice president; he does not currently hold that position.

ref

The fossil fuel industry’s effort to “start winning hearts and minds” arrived at a Baptist church in North Carolina recently in the form of three $1,500 scholarships for local high school students and a talk by Hubbel Relat, a Fueling US Forward representative,at a summit hosted by the Roanoke ValleySouthern Christian Leadership Conference.

The $1,500 scholarships, which local news reports said were aimed to help the students pursue careers in the energy industry, were a part of a broader effort by Fueling US Forward to tout the “positives” of fossil fuels and to bring that message specifically to black communities.

That effort has gotten off to a rocky start. Last month, a front page New York Times feature profiled Fueling US Forward’s efforts to promote fossil fuels by getting an article published in The Atlantic (while failing to acknowledge the author’s job as a spokesperson for the group, causing the magazine’s editors to pen a public apology and add it to the top of the piece), running TV ads, and organizing feel-good events in black communities where attendees could win up to $250 off their utility bills.

ref

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/business/energy-environment/koch-brothers-fossil-fuels-minorities.html

Alex Fitzsimmons, Author at American Energy Alliance

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Alex Fitzsimmons Credentials B.A. in political science from The George Washington University. [1] Background.

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Senior Director at American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM)

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ALEX FITZSIMMONS

Will Humans Run Out of Fertilizer?

It helped people spread and multiply. Now critics worry it's destroying the planet. An Object Lesson.

Editor’s note: This article originally failed to disclose that the author is an analyst and spokesperson for Fueling U.S. Forward, an organization that advocates for the use of domestic oil and natural gas. We've updated the article to reflect that affiliation and regret the error.

“Nobody adores fertilizer,” the writer Shellen Lubin once mused. Lubin isn’t entirely correct. Bill Gates, for example, has admitted to being “a little obsessed with fertilizer.” Yes, fertilizer. The stuff you sprinkle, spray, and spread over plants to help them grow. Not the “all natural” kind that originates in the guts of farm animals, but human-made fertilizer derived from natural gas, a fossil fuel.

Most people don’t think about fertilizer, but few innovations are as central to modern life. In the 20th century, human-made fertilizer helped avert catastrophe on a massive scale. With population growth outstripping the food supply, experts predicted millions of people would starve. Fertilizer helped farmers grow more food on less land and feed a growing population, proving the experts wrong...

In case still had faith in the political media machine's integrity, several big outlets have cleared that misconception right up for you. They’ve decided to offer news interviews up for sale at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

This means these outlets not even trying to hide their sleaze anymore. As Lee Fang wrote in a July 1 article for The Intercept, which broke the story:

“For high-rolling special interests looking to make an impression at the presidential conventions next month, one option is to pay a lot of money to a media outlet. Lobbyists for the oil industry, for instance, are picking up the tab for leading Beltway publications to host energy policy discussions at the convention, including The Atlantic and Politico.

And for the right price, some political media outlets are even offering special interviews with editorial staffers and promotional coverage at the convention.”

The Hill newspaper, for example, is sponsoring events at both party conventions and is promising its sponsors who pay $200,000 convention interviews with The Hill editorial staffers for “up to three named executives or organization representatives of your choice,” according to a brochure obtained by The Intercept. “These interviews are pieces of earned media and will be hosted on a dedicated page on thehill.com and promoted across The Hill’s digital and social media channels,” the brochure promises....

http://www.ecowatch.com/koch-brothers-fueling-us-forward-2304352692.html

Jervey desmog

Religious leaders and environmental justice activists in Richmond, Virginia, are "pushing back" against the Koch-funded Fueling U.S. Forward campaign's efforts to target minority communities while promoting the "importance of domestic oil and natural gas to making people's lives better."

One element of the strategy to win the "hearts and minds" (as Alex Fitzsimmons of Fueling U.S. Forward put it) of minority communities was on display in Richmond, Virginia, last December, when the groupthrew a gospel concertthat included pro-fossil fuel propaganda and a surprise award payment of four attendees' electric bills.

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As the New York Times described:

The concert flier was adorned with a red car bearing Christmas gifts. "Thankful for the fuels and innovation that make modern life possible," it read.

At the time, commenting on the event and the campaign to the New York Times, Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, called it "an exploitative, sad and borderline racist strategy."

Many local environmental advocates from minority communities felt the same. Last week, the region's congressional representative, A. Donald McEachin, hosted an environmental justice roundtable at a Baptist church in Petersburg, Virginia, a suburb of Richmond with a strong majority of residents that are people of color.

As reported in the Progress-Index, a daily newspaper from Petersburg, Virginia, a manager of the Virginia Conservation Network—a diverse group of conservation organizations that among other issues supports clean energy—said that the roundtable with Rep. McEachin was an effort "to push back against the Koch brothers."

Conservation organizer Mariah Davis, also with the Virginia Conservation Network, described the Fueling U.S. Forward event as "a distasteful effort by Koch to sway low-income communities away from clean energy."

According to the Progress-Index, Rep. McEachin himself, speaking of the Fueling U.S. Forward concert, "equated the group's payment of citizens' electric bills with the '30 pieces of silver' Judas took to betray Jesus."

As Fueling U.S. Forward works to purchase the hearts and minds of minority communities with electric bill payments and college scholarships, the campaign promotes oil and gas as necessary and cheap sources of energy. Not factored into their definition of "cheap," however, are the multitude of public health and environmental costs that are inflicted upon the lower-income communities the campaign is targeting.

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“Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, a nonprofit that works with low-income and minority neighborhoods on environmental issues, called the [Fueling US Forward] campaign ‘an exploitative, sad and borderline racist strategy,'” The Times reported. “He pointed to the falling costs associated with renewable energy, which he said made shifting away from reliance on fossil fuels a winning proposition for everyone.”

The Koch Approach to Education: Offer Small Scholarships, Slash Federal Support

The campaign’s missteps seem to have continued in North Carolina. Fueling US Forward is funded by Koch Industries, and Hubbel Relat, the Fueling US Forward representative who presented the $4,500 worth of scholarships, is the former associate director of another Koch-backed nonprofit, The Center for Prosperity and Freedom Foundation.

That center’s mission is to promote “limited government,” in part by slashing government programs — and it has repeatedly pushed to end student financial aid.

In one relatively recent example, the co-founder of the center, Relat’s ex-employer, called for the shutdown of the Department of Education.

According to its website, the Department of Education provides roughly “$150 billion a year in grants, work-study funds, and low-interest loans to more than 15 million students.”

On a small scale, Fueling US Forward’s handful of $1,500 scholarships seem to repeat a broader pattern that has caused scandals for the Kochs in the past.

The Koch network, critics argue, makes headlines for offering students millions of dollars in aid — while working to take billions of dollars away from students behind the scenes.

In 2014, the Kochs sparked controversy after the deeply conservative brothers gave $25 million to the United Negro College Fund(one of the biggest donations in the fund’s history, to be used to distribute $5,000 scholarships) — while continuing their other efforts to slash federal programs.

“Programs such as Pell Grants, student loans, Head Start and others have helped countless Americans, of all races and ethnicities, [Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher education and director of the Center for Minority-Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania] said,” according to Inside Higher Ed at the time. “And these programs — endangered by the Koch political agenda of shrinking government — ‘have built the black middle class’ and will contribute to the advancement of black students who are still impoverished, she said.”

This January, the Charles Koch Foundation and Koch Industries reignited that controversy when they announced a $25.6 million gift to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund — to be used to create something called the Center for Advancing Opportunity — which plans to launch think tanks at historically black colleges and universities, make grants to faculty members, and fund student scholarships.

The strings attached to that gift have students worried. “When they give the donor control, the trade-off is academic freedom,” Ralph Wilson of Tallahassee, co-founder of a group called UnKoch My Campus, told the Washington Post.

The Kochs have a long-standing pattern of funding American colleges and universities — while sometimes requesting control over classroom curriculums, access to students’ names and email addresses, and even once, that a school change its very name. An investigative report published this month by PR Watch found that from 2005 to 2015, the Kochs’ foundations made donations to almost 400 schools, valued at over $141 million.

Relat himself is a graduate of George Mason University‘s law school. GMU was the biggest recipient of those donations, accepting a total of $95 million from the Charles Koch Foundation — not including an additional $10 million grant to the law school. That donation prompted the school to change its name to the Antonin Scalia Law School.

As of press time, Koch Industries had not responded to a request for comment from DeSmog. The Koch network has defended its funding of colleges and universities in the past. “Like many charities, the Charles Koch Foundation recognizes the importance of supporting a diversity of ideas so scholars and students can continue to push the frontiers of knowledge and help people discover new and better ways to live fulfilling lives,” a statement sent to the Atlantic read.

The Koch Family’s Troubling Record on Race

The Koch family itself has a long and troubling track record on race — a record that makes their network’s efforts to reach out to black communities about fossil fuels through vehicles like Fueling US Forward (and their other efforts examining mass incarceration) an uphill battle.

Charles and David’s father, Fred Koch, was a well known leader of the virulently racist John Birch Society. Charles Koch himself “was an active member of the controversial right-wing John Birch Society during its active campaigns against the civil rights movement,” the Progressive reported in 2014, before he left the organization in 1968, the year after his father’s death. In 2014, one of their secretive donor retreats featured a dinner talk by Charles Murray, the white supremacist author of the widely-debunked and notoriously racist book, The Bell Curve.

More recently, the Kochs have funded efforts aimed at criminal justice reform, attracting some limited support from community advocates who hope that bringing left and right together can propel forward movement on ending mass incarceration.

But while they’ll work with the Kochs when they offer to reform racial disparities in the criminal justice system — so severe that a black man born in 2011 has a one in three chance of winding up locked up while the ratio is one in seventeen for white men, according to the Sentencing Project — that support doesn’t extended into fossil fuel advocacy, some of those working with the Kochs have said.

“We are going to fight the Koch brothers tooth and nail on every aspect of their environmental agenda where we don’t agree,” Van Jones, a former Obama advisor turned political commentator, told the Atlantic in 2015, “and we are going to fight alongside them on every piece of criminal justice legislation where we agree.”

The Koch’s overall stance on education funding — handing out relatively small sums while working to undercut larger programs — has left organizations large and small confronting similar tensions. By sending Relat, the former associate director of an organization that promotes limited government and cuts to government programs, to announce a handful of $1,500 scholarships, Fueling US Forward highlighted exactly how close to the surface those tensions lie.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/10/06/fueling-u-s-forward-president-calls-fossil-fuels-sustainable

While Charles Drevna was unveiling the Koch-funded Fueling U.S. Forward campaign to attendees at the, he used a curious term to describe nonrenewable resources with limited reserves and wide-reaching environment impacts:

“We need a sustainable energy to ensure the future of the country. Folks, that's of course the fossil fuels.”

As Sharon Kelly reported first for DeSmog, Drevna then proceeded to refer to fossil fuels as “reliable, abundant, efficient and sustainable fuels.”

The rhetoric provides a glimpse of how Fueling U.S. Forward organizers hope to “rebrand” oil and gas in their effort to bolster public opinion of the fossil fuels. Stay tuned to KochvsClean.com as we track the Koch-backed efforts and counter the fossil-funded PR campaign.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/14/new-koch-back-campaign-rolled-out-red-state-gathering-aims-promote-positives-fossil-fuels

A long-awaited campaign to rebrand fossil fuels called Fueling U.S. Forward made its public debut at the Red State Gathering 2016 on Saturday, where the organization's President and CEO Charles Drevna gave attendees the inside scoop on the effort, and confirmed that the campaign is backed financially by Koch Industries.

Back in February, Peter Stone first reported in the Huffington Post that a $10 million-a-year effort was proposed by a Koch Industries board member, James Mahoney, and Mr. Drevna, aiming “to boost petroleum-based transportation fuels and attack government subsidies for electric vehicles.” In early August, the Fueling U.S. Forward website launched, and on Saturday, the first public comments were made about the campaign by Mr. Drevna, and they revealed a lot about how the Koch-backed initiative is working to re-frame fossil fuels.

“We need a sustainable energy to ensure the future of the country,” Mr. Drevna told the audience.

The source of that energy? That which Mr. Drevna labeled “reliable, abundant, efficient and sustainable fuels.”

“Folks, that's of course the fossil fuels,” he immediately added.

Never mind that fossil fuels don't align with any dictionary definition of “sustainable,” as oil, gas and coal reserves are limited to what's buried in the ground, unlike renewable sources of energy. Technically speaking, fossil fuels are the opposite of sustainable energy sources — but that fact did little to slow Mr. Drevna down as he made what he called the “pro-human” case for burning fossil fuels.

The top line takeaway from Mr. Drevna's comments is that the Koch-funded Fueling U.S. Forward is an effort to rebrand fossil fuels, focusing on the “positive” sides of oil, gas and coal.

The new initiative comes at a time when the impacts of climate change are becoming more difficult to ignore. 2016 is already on track to be the hottest year ever recorded, a mid-year climate analysis from NASA reported, and unusual storms, like the torrential rainfall that struck the Gulf Coast over the past few days causing historic flooding, have become more frequent.

For its part, Fueling U.S. Forward wants to talk not about statistics, facts and figures, but to reach people's emotions.

“We've got to take this to the emotional and personal level,” Mr. Drevna, a former D.C. lobbyist and Sunoco executive, told the crowd. “Oil and natural gas, they're not the fuels of the past and maybe the present or a necessary evil. They are the future.”

In Peter Stone's investigation for Huffington Post, many familiar with the early workings of the project that would grow into Fueling U.S. Forwarddescribed it as an effort to bolster public opinion of fossil fuels and to combat electric vehicles.

Charles Drevna's new organization appears for now largely focused on the first half of that equation. Asked after his talk if Fueling U.S. Forward planned to campaign against electric vehicles, Mr. Drevna said that his organization was focused on the positives of fossil fuels. Drevna confirmed that he was working with Mr. Mahoney and that Fueling U.S. Forward had indeed received funding from Koch Industries.

Koch Vs. Clean

Koch Vs. Clean, a DeSmog microsite launched today, takes a closer look at the Koch network's efforts to promote the continued burning of fossil fuels and undermine clean energy innovations and electric vehicles, and the role that Mr. Drevna and a handful of others are playing in that offensive.

Throughout the day at Red State Gathering, panelists from Koch-linked organizations repeatedly cited Tesla Motors as an example of government subsidies gone awry, a talking point that seemed aimed to resonate with fiscal conservatives at the RSG 2016.

There's good reason for the oil industry to fear the rise of American electric vehicles. “Volkswagen AG, in an attempt to recover from its emissions-cheating scandal, has said it will create 30 new electric models within a decade,” E&E News recently reported. “General Motors Co. has invested $500 million in Lyft, the ride-hailing service, and intends for Lyft's drivers to pick up passengers in GM's new electric compact, the Chevrolet Bolt.”

The Kochs' newest effort doesn't openly oppose electric vehicles or renewable energy technologies, but tries to frame them as uniquely dependent on government subsidies (despite the fact that the fossil fuel industry benefits from quadruple the amount of government subsidies as the renewable energy industry, according to the International Energy Agency).

And Fueling U.S. Forward is an effort to paint fossil fuels as good for people because they're cheap — a gamble that Americans have already forgotten how prices have fluctuated wildly for the past decade, when repeated price spikes saw average US gas prices rise as high as $4.10 a gallon, roughly double current prices.

That said, the argument that everyone benefits from cheap fossil fuels could be dangerously appealing at a time of historic economic stratification in the U.S.— a staggeringly large gap between the ultra-rich like the Koch brothers and the rest of us.

But supporting fossil fuels to aid the poor is a message that the Kochs have also paired with campaigns that will keep people poor, including opposing minimum wage hikes (at a time when the Fight for 15 movement, which supports more than doubling the current federal minimum wage is gaining credible political traction) or calling for the minimum wage to be repealed altogether.

As of press time, Koch Industries had not responded to questions from DeSmog about the company's motivation for funding Fueling U.S. Forward.

It's a tension that seemed to trip up Drevna as he talked this weekend, describing how fossil fuels had led to prosperity for the world's people — or at least some of them.

“And we are basically richer than ever before,” Mr. Drevna told the crowd at the Red State Gathering, before catching himself and adding “as a world we are. As a nation we are basically richer than ever before.” In other words, some people have gotten rich because of fossil fuels — and for the rest of us, we better keep using coal and gasoline and hope it stays cheap.

Mr. Drevna also told the crowd that for a long time, the oil industry had “been engaged in asymmetric warfare”—hardly the language of someone who sees themselves as on the side of the masses.

The new tactics that Fueling U.S. Forward plans to bring to the table then?

“We're partnering with other organizations too, especially non-traditional allies like the minority community,” Mr. Drevna told the nearly all-white crowd. “Who in the heck gets hit hardest and fastest when there's an energy crisis and prices go up? They do.”

While Mr. Drevnamay want to research the definition of tokenizing as well as “sustainable energy,” it's worth noting that communities of color also get hit hardest and fastest when climate catastrophes occur (think the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina), and by the day to day impacts of, say, refineries located in black and Latino neighborhoods, where asthma, cancer, and other health problems too often plague residents.

But then again, Fueling U.S. Forward aims to keep attention on the positives. Stay tuned to KochvsClean.com for regular updates about this Koch-funded pro-fossil PR effort.

Video: Charles Drevna Introducing Fueling U.S. Forward at the Red State Gathering

http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/14/new-koch-back-campaign-rolled-out-red-state-gathering-aims-promote-positives-fossil-fuels

A long-awaited campaign to rebrand fossil fuels called Fueling U.S. Forward made its public debut at the Red State Gathering 2016on Saturday, where the organization's President and CEO Charles Drevna gave attendees the inside scoop on the effort, and confirmed that the campaign is backed financially by Koch Industries.

Back in February, Peter Stone first reported in the Huffington Post that a $10 million-a-year effort was proposed by a Koch Industries board member, James Mahoney, and Mr. Drevna, aiming “to boost petroleum-based transportation fuels and attack government subsidies for electric vehicles.” In early August, the Fueling U.S. Forward website launched, and on Saturday, the first public comments were made about the campaign by Mr. Drevna, and they revealed a lot about how the Koch-backed initiative is working to re-frame fossil fuels.

“We need a sustainable energy to ensure the future of the country,” Mr. Drevna told the audience.

The source of that energy? That which Mr. Drevna labeled “reliable, abundant, efficient and sustainable fuels.”

“Folks, that's of course the fossil fuels,” he immediately added.

The top line takeaway from Mr. Drevna's comments is that the Koch-funded Fueling U.S. Forward is an effort to rebrand fossil fuels, focusing on the “positive” sides of oil, gas and coal.

For its part, Fueling U.S. Forward wants to talk not about statistics, facts and figures, but to reach people's emotions.

“We've got to take this to the emotional and personal level,” Mr. Drevna, a former D.C. lobbyist and Sunoco executive, told the crowd. “Oil and natural gas, they're not the fuels of the past and maybe the present or a necessary evil. They are the future.”

In Peter Stone's investigation for Huffington Post, many familiar with the early workings of the project that would grow intoFueling U.S. Forwarddescribed it as an effort to bolster public opinion of fossil fuels and to combat electric vehicles.

Charles Drevna's new organization appears for now largely focused on the first half of that equation. Asked after his talk if Fueling U.S. Forward planned to campaign against electric vehicles, Mr. Drevna said that his organization was focused on the positives of fossil fuels. He confirmed that he was working with Mr. Mahoney and that Fueling U.S. Forward had indeed received funding from Koch Industries.

Koch Vs. Clean

There's good reason for the oil industry to fear the rise of American electric vehicles. “Volkswagen AG, in an attempt to recover from its emissions-cheating scandal, has said it will create 30 new electric models within a decade,” E&E Newsrecently reported. “General Motors Co. has invested $500 million in Lyft, the ride-hailing service, and intends for Lyft's drivers to pick up passengers in GM's new electric compact, the Chevrolet Bolt.”

As of press time, Koch Industries had not responded to questions from DeSmog about the company's motivation for funding Fueling U.S. Forward.

It's a tension that seemed to trip up Drevna as he talked this weekend, describing how fossil fuels had led to prosperity for the world's people — or at least some of them.

Mr. Drevna also told the crowd that for a long time, the oil industry had “been engaged in asymmetric warfare”—hardly the language of someone who sees themselves as on the side of the masses.

The new tactics that Fueling U.S. Forward plans to bring to the table then?

But then again, Fueling U.S. Forward aims to keep attention on the positives. Stay tuned to KochvsClean.com for regular updates about this Koch-funded pro-fossil PR effort.