Even Koch-Funded Push Poll Shows Majority Support For Wind Tax Credits

The American Energy Alliance, a virtual subsidiary of Koch Industries, has a new energy push-poll out today. Not only are the questions rigged, the sample is skewed – while only 26% of US population is age 55 or older, 45% of poll respondents are 55 or older. Asked the most pressing issue facing America, this group’s #3 answer is “President Obama.” (???)

But one question contains a revealing result for the strength and bipartisan depth of support for government incentives for wind energy. Keep in mind that by this point in the poll, respondents have already been falsely primed to think tax credits mostly benefit foreign companies and don’t work:

9. Companies that generate electricity using wind power get a tax credit from the federal government which is paid for by taxpayers. In general, do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing?

51 Good thing
37 Bad thing
12 Don’t know/refused

The poll then comically keeps pushing respondents further and further against wind (well what if a turbine fell on your dog, would you support wind tax credits then?), but the poll's damage to the Koch's message is done. It's more proof that, as Joan Walsh wrote for Salon this week, Democrats should fear the Koch machine's money but not its message.

Koch Collective Warns Virginia Republicans to Stop Thinking for Themselves

Remember how Virginia House Republicans took a pass on signing that Tea Party anti-wind energy letter to House Speaker John Boehner this week? Well, the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity has taken notice. The group's Virginia office is telling Virginia House Republicans to pick a side: Are you with Virginia's emerging wind energy industry, or are you with the Koch collective?

It’s time for government to stop meddling in America’s energy markets. New energy technologies should show their value in the marketplace by competing for consumers’ dollars on a level playing field—not by petitioning Washington for favors. Over 72,000 Americans for Prosperity activists call the Virginia home, and they will be watching to see how you vote on this issue. I urge you and your colleagues to oppose extending the wind production tax credit.

Sincerely, Audrey Jackson, Virginia State Director, Americans for Prosperity

Note that AFP's "level playing field" rhetoric doesn't stop it from opposing efforts to end huge taxpayer subsidies for massively-profitable oil companies. AFP, much like the Tea Party movement its Koch dollars have ginned up, is a fiscal fraud.

So which will it be, Reps. Cantor, Forbes, Goodlatte, Griffith, Hurt, Rigell, Wittman, and Wolf? Will they take a stand for Virginia clean energy jobs? Or get in line behind their Koch overlords?

My guess is they collapse by the end of the week. After all, resistance is futile.

Impact Of Polluter Spending On Energy Policy Can't Be Ignored

It's always interesting when reporters try to make sense of politicians' energy positions while ignoring the influence of money in politics.

At the Washington Post's WonkBlog today, Brad Plumer says the Democratic platform is getting more oil- & coal-friendly because ... maybe locking in $4 a gallon gasoline with expensive "unconventional oil" isn't so bad? And jobs or something?

But energy policy isn't created in a vacuum - it's caught in the current of a river of oil money. Oil barons continue pouring ungodly amounts of money into bullying politicians:

The Koch brothers-backed nonprofit Americans for Prosperity and pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future combined to spend about $23.4 million against President Barack Obama during the second half of August.

That’s nearly 10 times the $2.44 million that Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC supporting Obama, spent against Romney, federal records show.

Now, one might think such spending would make Democrats fight for clean energy that much harder. But many Democrats still think appeasement works, and in some ways, that's reflected in the party platform. (Note that climate change is mentioned 18 times in the Democratic platform, so Democrats aren't exactly running away from tackling the climate crisis.)

Since 1990, energy & natural resources industries (mostly Big Oil, electric utilities & mining companies) have combined to give $640 million directly to candidates, a greater majority going to Republicans with each passing year. And in the last 15 years, electric utilities and oil & gas companies have combined to pour $3 billion dollars into lobbying.

All that money doesn't just influence politicians. How many polluter-funded commercials - from Koch-sponsored political ads to BP's image-scrubbing spots - does the average American see in a given week? Dozens?

The New Forbes 400 is Out! Guess Who's #4?

It's the Koch Brothers! They rank 4th in the newest Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, up from 5th last year. In fact, the fortune of Charles and David shot up 14% just from March to September 2011.

What's most interesting - despite the Koch brothers' war on President Obama and crazily overheated rhetoric against him, the Koch brothers' fortune has grown wildly during President Obama's first term. It's up 79%, from $14 each billion in March 2009 to $25 billion each in September 2011.

Wait ... you don't think the Kochs' opposition to Obama is about an extremist political crusade and not sound economic policy, do you? Nahhh.

Vote: Worst Thing Koch Brothers Have Done to America?

Watch this video, then vote here.

The Kochtopus Extends Its Tentacles in California

From the LA Times: "A company owned by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch has contributed $1 million to Proposition 23, a November ballot initiative to suspend California’s groundbreaking 2006 global-warming law."

If You Know Anyone Who Works in Congress ...

... print this article about Koch Industries' perversion of our democracy, write PLEASE FIGHT BACK in big red block letters across the front, and give it to them.

You know I couldn't help but think of while reading this article? Someone who's not even named: Senator Jim Webb. Even though the Koch-funded Club for Growth was George Allen's #2 donor in the 2006 Senate race, Webb hews closely to the Koch line on climate change. So even though their preferred candidate didn't come out on top in 2006, Koch still found itself a winner.

But do you think that will stop Koch from funding an even more anti-science challenger to Webb in 2012? Of course not. He may have been born fighting, but on global warming, Jim Webb allows himself to be a pawn in Koch's game.

Is the Smithsonian Selling Science to a Climate Denier?

Read much more at ClimateProgress.org: