Utah State
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STUDENT PAPER
Examining the Koch Scholars Program
:{on November 25, 2014
Seventy-five applications sat in a pile on Professor William Shughart’s desk with 75 students all wanting to hear the same words: “Congratulations! We would like you to participate in Utah State University’s Koch Scholars Program.”
The Jon M. Huntsman School of Business website defines Koch Scholars Program as “a select group of intellectually curious faculty and students … who are interested in how politics and economics affect individual freedom and responsibility.”
Each semester, 15 students are admitted to the Koch Scholars Program, funded by the Charles G. Koch Foundation (CGK Foundation).
A businessman and philanthropist, Charles Koch, is chairman of the board and CEO of Koch Industries and co-owns the company with his brother, David Koch.
According to the Forbes list of “The World’s Most Powerful People,” the Koch brothers have built a $43.6 billion empire. Their product interest ranges from the Dixie cup to Stainmaster Carpet.
The Koch Brothers have made frequent appearances in the news lately with headlines like “Animal Rights Groups Claims Abuse by Koch Foods” from CBS Local, “The Koch Brothers Sneak into School” from Huffington Post and “The Koch Network Spent $100 Million This Election Cycle” from the National Journal.
When asked whether he considered their ethics to be in question, Professor Shughart declined to answer.
Another professor, however, did answer.
“I don’t even know who the Koch brothers are,” said Chris Fawson of the economics and finance department. “Do they have names?”
Fawson was a Koch Professor for four years and is an advocate for the program.
“I think it’s one of the best mentoring opportunities on campus for students from across campus. … I loved doing Koch Scholars,” he said.
With Charles G. Koch Professor of Political Economy Randy Simmons, Fawson played a critical role in introducing the Koch Scholars Program to USU.
“The program was founded by Randy Simmons and Chris Fawson,” said Shughart, who is now a Koch Professor. “We are not influenced one bit by the Koch Brothers. They finance this program because they like what we do. We’re not doing what they want us to do. They like what we do. They fund us, I don’t know, probably $80,000 or $100,000 a year. But all the money goes to books, to food and stipends.”
The foundation grant agreement with USU includes a provision that the Koch foundation be involved in reviewing candidates for tenure-tracked professor positions and requires that those hired with Koch funding follow certain objectives and principles, which are outlined in the agreement.
In this instance the CGK Foundation, an outside entity, has the ability to reject or approve the hiring of certain university staff.
Under in Section 2(c)(iii) of Terms of Agreement, it reads, “USU agrees to recruit and maintain the Professors in accordance with the Objectives and Purposes.”
“Many of our best students have participated in (Koch Scholars),” said Michael Lyons of the political science department. “Some have liked it. Some have walked away as critics. And, you know, I don’t think it’s in any sense harming our students.”
The Koch Brothers are characterized by their conservative orientation, Lyons said, and it strikes him as “highly unfortunate” to see its influence at a university in one of the most conservative states in the country, “where the last thing in the world we should be doing is reinforcing conservative ideology.”
“I don’t think ideology belongs in a university,” said Lyons. “The exploration of values does, but … the worst thing you can do is simply conform to the existing cultural environment of the state, to reinforce everything everybody thinks already. That accomplishes nothing in terms of teaching students critical thinking.”
It has been suggested that Koch Scholars impedes on the free exchange of ideas by promoting certain ideologies.
“I think that’s insanity,” Fawson said. “There’s no ideology that’s promoted, other than to think critically about a set of readings.”
Samples of readings for the scholars include “Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith, “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy”by Joseph Schumpter, “Ender’s Game”by Orson Scott Card and “The Hunger Games“ by Suzanne Collins.
“I did not feel manipulated into any schools of thought,” said Joslyn Olsen, a former Koch Scholar. “I will say, however, that my own beliefs about politics and government certainly evolved over the course of the semester. I believe that was a natural progression of new-found viewpoints and insights rather than any form of coercion.”
Many students in the political science and economics departments participate in the Koch Scholars Program.
“Political scientists have a responsibility to explore political ideologies, and economists have a responsibility to explore ideologies of economic systems,” Lyons said. “So it’s a legitimate field of inquiry, but the question is, do scholars make an attempt to present, in good faith, all the possible ideological or value perspectives on questions? Or is there a deliberate attempt to slant things? Discussions about ideology are completely appropriate and, I think, necessary. Advocacy of ideology doesn’t belong at a university.”
Lyons has never participated in the Koch Scholars Program and as such, does not necessarily believe the program advocates for certain ideology.
“It would be fascinating to see what the nature of our agreement with the Koch brothers is,” he said.
Of the allegations in the media against Charles Koch, Fawson said, “I think that humans are complex people that have a variety of virtues and vices. All of us have them, right? So can people write things critical of Charles Koch? Sure. He’s not perfect, right? The mere fact that they use the word ‘Koch brothers’ means nothing to me. That’s not a name. That’s not a person. That’s how you villainize people; you label them a certain way and attack the label that you’ve created.”
Fawson encourages students who are concerned about participating in Koch Scholars to broaden their perspective.
“Follow your own conscience,” said Fawson. “If you’re uncomfortable with what somebody does, don’t associate with them.”
— *brennakelly818@gmail.com
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list no ed
Professor Fawson arrived at Utah State University in January 1990. During his tenure at Utah State University, Dr. Fawson has served as Director of International Programs, Vice Provost for Academic and International Affairs, Department Head, Senior Associate Dean and Executive Director of Partners in Business in the Huntsman School of Business.
Dr. Fawson is passionate about designing and delivering transformational learning experiences for students and has been a program leader for a variety of faculty-led international learning experiences. His research interests cover a broad spectrum of topics within the domain of public finance, the economics of education, healthcare economics, and economic development.
He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A&M University in 1986, preceded by an MS in Economics from the same institution in 1983 and a BA in Economics from Weber State College in 1982.
[Professor Of Economics Utah State University - Jon M. Huntsman School of Business · Full-time
Dec 1989 - Present · 36 yrs 7 mos
Logan, Utah, United States](https://www.linkedin.com/school/15128517/)
In my faculty role at Utah State University I maintain an active commitment to teaching and I am passionate about designing and delivering transformational learning experiences for students.
The Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University produces ideas that transform lives. We do this by exploring the way key institutions in society — business, government, and community — ignite economic growth and increase opportunity for everyone to improve their lives.
Established in 2017 within the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, we connect academic entrepreneurs with today’s most pressing challenges. We are tackling today’s toughest questions and training the leaders of tomorrow.
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Van Orden finds strong evidence that relaxing restrictions on electric utility campaign contributions can lead to the capture of PUCs. In his study, utilities only increased annual contributions by $45,000, but this led to PUCs authorizing additional returns for utilities of approximately $4 million annually.
These findings suggest that policies allowing utilities to donate to political campaigns may harm consumers by incentivizing policymakers to favor utilities over consumers.
[Campus Director and co-PI ASPIRE Research Center · Part-time
Sep 2020 - May 2023 · 2 yrs 9 mos
Logan, Utah, United States](https://www.linkedin.com/company/67085950/)
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guk
Charles Koch gave $25m to our university. Has it become a rightwing mouthpiece?
We are student journalists at Utah State University. Our investigation found an effort to inject universities with conservative thinking
- This story is published in collaboration with the university’s student newspaper, the Utah Statesman
Big money is supported by
Alison Berg and Carter Moore in Logan, Utah
Thu 2 May 2019
At first, Angel Lopez felt honored to have won the scholarship.
In 2017, the marketing student at Utah State University’s business school was named a Koch Scholar, a program sponsored by Charles Koch, the ultra-conservative billionaire. Fifteen students are given a $1,000 stipend and selected to participate in the “reading group”, tasked with reading one book a week.
But Lopez, 23, the son of Latino immigrants who aspired to become a social worker, soon felt the program was promoting a hardline brand of rightwing politics. His required readings, with titles such as Order Without Law and Anarchy Unbound, could often be boiled down to a single idea: Government is bad.
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. Over the last 10 years Koch has given millions to the university, including a $25m gift in 2017 that led to the creation of a thinktank: the Center for Growth and Opportunity.
He is pursuing similar policies at schools nationwide, in what Koch officials themselves describe as a concerted effort to influence the next generation of political and business minds. “Our funding helps [scholars] follow their research wherever it may lead,” the foundation says in public materials. “We are committed to the highest standards of philanthropy.”
We are student journalists at Utah State, and for the past year we have been investigating the Koch donations for the Guardian and our student newspaper, the Utah Statesman. We have interviewed more than 20 of our fellow students and staff, and pulled dozens of public records. What we found paints a picture of how Charles Koch is using his wealth to affect the education of 3,500 students at the business school.
Many public universities depend heavily on private donations, and benefactors of all political stripes, such as Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, donate to universities across the country. But, for Charles Koch, universities are a relatively recent investment – and are part of a grander plan to shift America to the right.
At a 2014 seminar titled Leveraging Science and the Universities, Brian Hooks, president of the Charles Koch foundation, told the audience: “Universities can have a major influence on the national conversation, but it doesn’t happen by accident. Our job is to make sure that we’ve got a strategy for our work to have a disproportionate impact.”
Koch has successfully built educational empires with donations to schools such as George Mason University and Florida State University. At George Mason, where the Koch foundation has donated $95.5m, foundation members have sat on hiring committees tasked with finding professors and were able to suggest students for admission. At Florida State, the Koch foundation donated $1.5m in exchange for the university hiring two faculty members with Koch-approved agendas.
But at USU, spokesman Tim Vitale said there are efforts to prevent undue influence over professors and student admissions. “That is not the case here. We made sure that those mechanisms and oversight controls are clear and in place.”
A Koch foundation official said at a 2014 seminar that, ‘universities can have a major influence on the national conversation, but it doesn’t happen by accident’. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
‘Academic freedom’
Utah State is idyllic in many ways: nestled in the Rocky Mountains north of Salt Lake City, the school is well known for its agriculture, education and space research programs.
The Koch effort here began in 2008, when the Charles Koch foundation agreed to provide USU with money for professors: $25,000 every year for one “Koch professor” and the same stipend for each of four “faculty junior professors”.
Although the agreement mentioned “academic freedom” as a requirement for the donation, the agreement also required USU to involve the Koch foundation in reviewing candidates for the professorships.
Randy Simmons, a researcher who has long been deeply involved with Koch-related organizations, was named as the Koch professor. Simmons has published several reports attacking renewable energy, in addition to his anti-government book Beyond the Roots of Politics: Government Failure. One of his op-eds, in Newsweek, denouncing wind power and suggesting states should not support it, received national attention after Newsweek failed to disclose Simmons’ ties to the Kochs. Simmons declined to comment for this story, though he has been a prominent public voice.
But it was the Koch donation of $25m in 2017 that supercharged their influence on campus.
Based on public documents and interviews with those involved, the university used the money to hire 13 of 19 staff members from a prominent libertarian thinktank that was previously independent of the university, Strata Policy, and place them at the university’s new think tank, the Center for Growth and Opportunity (CGO). Strata has backed conservative positions on issues such as fossil fuel dependence, public land management and signed a letter in support of Donald Trump’s controversial downsizing of national monuments.
Utah State University, nestled in the Rocky Mountains, is well known for its agriculture, education, and space research programs. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
Even though the CGO’s physical building is on university grounds, it shares a legal address with Strata Policy, about two miles from campus, according to tax filings and employee pay stubs.
Its leadership has strong Koch ties. And Randy Simmons, who had been named the Koch professor, became the center’s outreach director.
Since then, faculty at USU have voted to convene a task force to monitor the donation and evaluate its effects on academic freedom.
“From what I have seen, the CGO is falling right in line with what you would expect from a Koch-funded center,” said Arthur Caplan, a professor of environmental economics at USU.
A School of Business professor, who requested anonymity due to fear of retribution from university administrators, said the center’s purpose is to “persuade these policy makers about public lands, anti-green energy and such”, the professor said. “It’s not academically sound research, what we look for in a business school.”
At Utah State’s business school, one professor has denounced the involvement of the new Koch-funded think tank. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
The professor cited articles such as “Reexamining presidential power over national monuments”, published by CGO research director Megan Hansen in The Hill newspaper in 2018. The piece praised a Republican senator for his efforts to prevent future presidents designating national monuments in Utah.
Another example in The Hill, by Josh Smith, CGO’s research manager, criticized an incentive for people who install solar panels.
USU spokesman Vitale said Center for Growth and Opportunity and Strata Policy have no connections to each other, and Strata has never been associated with the university. Randy Simmons declined to comment for this story.
“We are completely independent of our funders in how we select the research we do,” said Parker Jeppesen, communications director at the CGO. “Our donors are completely walled off from the research process.”
‘A libertarian experience’
Some Koch Scholars describe their experience as an attempt at indoctrination of libertarian ideals, such as free markets and little-to-no environmental regulation.
Alison Berg is a reporter with The Utah Statesman. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
Carter Moore is a reporter with The Utah Statesman. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
According to the Koch Scholar’s website, the group’s purpose is to “meet weekly to discuss classic and contemporary literary works for a few hours over dinner”.
“Definitely a majority libertarian experience,” said Savanna Jones, 21, who attended the business school as an economics major and will attend Georgetown University Law School this fall. “The professors all were pretty much of one mind and the majority of the students attracted to the program were as well.”
Jones says the required reading given to scholars simply used different analogies to “tell the same story” of the failures of government, a pillar of libertarian thinking.
“I just felt like we were going in circles,” she said.
Angel Lopez says he usually remains quiet during discussions and regrets the few instances he spoke up to offer an alternative view of more liberal ideals. “The professors have very strong viewpoints and kind of shut yours down. I had that happen to me maybe once or twice,” Lopez said.
William Shughart, a Utah State University professor and a faculty advisor for the Koch Scholars program, disagrees with this assessment. He said the program works to ensure students are receiving a well-rounded education, encourages “a lively discussion”, and has even put Karl Marx on the syllabus.
“We’ve never done anything to prevent students from expressing their points of view,” Shughart said. “I’m disappointed to hear that, but that’s certainly not our intention.”
Lopez had planned to major in both marketing and economics, but after his experience as a Koch Scholar, he changed his mind. Economics just wasn’t that appealing to him anymore.
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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
==
ref2
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:}:
- $2,260,500 from the Charles Koch Foundation, the primary private foundation through which Charles Koch funds higher education programs.
- $183,000 from the Searle Freedom Trust, which consists of wealth inherited from G.D. Searle & Company, a company that created the artificial sweetener aspartame marketed as NutraSweet. The foundation also has funded Americans for Prosperity, the American Enterprise Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Heartland Institute, and many other right-wing groups.
- $165,559 from the Apgar Foundation, a foundation created by the widow of John “Jack” N. Apgar Jr., founder of Somerset Tire Service, an automotive service and tire company based in New Jersey. The foundation was created topromote the teaching of “Western Civilization” on college campuses.
- $93,000 from theInstitute for Energy Research, a right-wing energy think tank funded by groups linked to the Koch brothers.
- $51,600 from the Charles Koch Institute, Charles Koch’s anti-government “educational” arm created from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation in September 2011.
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 efficiencyand 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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Utah State University
Logan
UT
$1,634,500
Charles Koch Charitable Foundation
Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation
Fred C. & Mary R. Koch Foundation
2005
2006
2007
$32,500
2008
$115,000
2009
$547,000
2010
$420,000
2011
$205,000
2012
$170,000
==
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Utah State's Huntsman School
From 2007 to 2009, Utah State University raised more than $700,000 from the Koch Foundation to supplement the salaries of five faculty members at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business (named after the industrialist and philanthropist; his son is the former governor and recently declared Republican presidential candidate). The agreement [8] between the school and Koch contains academic freedom provisions and stated goals and objectives that are similar to those at Clemson.
The hiring processes are spelled out more explicitly, however. After stating that faculty members whose salaries are supplemented with Koch grant money will be subject to the same standards and procedures as those that apply to other faculty, the contract requires that the foundation approve of the person hired. But no one from the foundation had any role in the search committees, said Randy Simmons, professor of economics and finance.
And it was the university’s decision, he said, to focus on hiring faculty members with a common perspective -- which also dovetailed with the goals and objectives set out in the grant agreement signed with the Koch foundation. “The way we sold it to the foundation -- because we were the ones who made the contact -- [was] we want to address fundamental issues of what it means to live in a free society,” said Simmons. “The fundamental question is what kind of financial system enables people to live free and productive lives.”
The result has been a sense of “intellectual vibrancy” that Simmons said has been lacking in other departments in which he has served during his career. At the same time, he said, those whose salaries are being supplemented by Koch money are not reading from the same playbook. For example, one scholar consistently argues for the primacy of computer modeling in forecasting economic behavior; another sees such models as disconnected from the real world.
“You ought to listen to these folks argue with each other,” said Simmons. “Their conclusions are not conclusions in lockstep with Charles Koch.” One of the new faculty members whose salary is supplemented by Koch money is a strong proponent of state-run systems, he said, referring to T. Scott Findley, who last year published a paper [9] on Social Security.
Such deviation from free-market orthodoxy has not been a problem, Simmons continued. “I have never had a requirement from the foundation to do anything or to look at a topic in any particular way,” he said. In fact, he added, the faculty would be offended by that.
The scrutiny of universities with ties to Koch is a byproduct of preconceived notions rather than any real problems with the agreements themselves, Simmons argued. “I think it’s the perception that the Koch Foundation is trying to take over a university,” he said. “And so it’s the perception that I think is the problem, in part because after the piece in The New Yorker and everything that sprung from that there’s now this, ‘How dare you take money from people who rape the environment?’ If you got exactly the same grant from the Ford Foundation I don’t think there’d be the same thing at all.”
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2009
the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks.
And, early next year, Gov. Gary Herbert plans to stage a forum to "debate the
science" on climate change and provide a cost-benefit analysis to guide Utah on
how to handle it. Herbert has said he is not convinced by the science.
Meanwhile,Robert Davies, a Utah State University physicist and climate
scientist, doubts Spencer's work can help Utah policymakers grasp potential
climate-change impacts.
Spencer's computer models have been discredited in the scientific community
and his analysis deemed "completely fringe," Davies said. None of the
established scientific societies has echoed the Alabama scientist's findings.
"The only conclusion I can discern," Davies said, "is that they [lawmakers] are
looking for cover to make decisions that go against what the scientific
community has recommended."
Michael Mielke, a Salt Lake City climate activist, criticized Spencer's
scientific conclusions, along with his belief in creationism and ties to
Exxon-Mobil.
"To say that he is fringe is gross understatement," Mielke said. "Too bad that
too many in Utah have their wallets obscuring the 95 percent likelihood that we
face climate chaos."
fahys@sltrib.com