Investigating Power
Billionaire Charles Koch’s political network won a major state legislative victory last year when Iowa passed a bill that limits damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. Now, a new court filing claims that an insurance company deliberately lost a major medical malpractice case instead of agreeing to a settlement, with the explicit goal of spurring the Iowa Legislature to take action on the issue.
Georgia-Pacific, announced on September 18 that it would shutter its cellulose factory, known as the Foley mill. The company claimed that the closing had been planned before Hurricane Idalia—for “strategic” reasons—and did not reflect “the hard work and effort of the Foley team.”
In 2022, Stand Together Trust and Stand Together Chamber of Commerce contributed over $176 million to groups in Charles Koch’s “Stand Together” constellation of nonprofits as well as to higher education and right-wing policy, advocacy, litigation and media groups, the Center for Media and Democracy has found.
The rightwing subversion of U.S. democracy is closer than you think.
Americans for Prosperity Action PAC, an outside super PAC largely bankrolled by industrialist Charles Koch and a handful of wealthy donors, has spent $972,000 to date running digital ads and mailing messages to voters warning that, despite his loyal base, former President Donald Trump is not electable in the 2024 presidential race.
Charles Koch contributed $52.6 million in grants to colleges and universities through his Charles Koch Foundation in 2022, an analysis of the personal foundation’s latest IRS filing obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy found.
On October 11, St. James Parish in Louisiana approved giving Koch Industries an 80% property tax break on a $150-million expansion of its local methanol plant, which will save the company $5.9 million over the next decade.
On September 13, 2023, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) fined Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, $1.2 million for abandoning a natural gas pipeline without notifying federal regulators and lying about work already completed once it did notify them.
The American Legislative Exchange Council is where corporations and far-right groups go to buy government policy.
A senior operative in Leonard Leo’s influence network now holds a seat on the Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force of the American Legislative Exchange Council—a task force that is increasingly dominated by anti-woke warriors and leaders in the fossil fuel industry.