Big Money Fix: Whitman, Koch Brothers

07 September 2010 |permalink | email article

It’s stunning enough that billionaire non-voter and political novice Meg Whitman wants to buy the governor’s office by giving $104 million to her campaign for TV ads, direct mail, a Web presence, scores of outside political consultants and a paid staff of presidential size proportions.

But, overall, Whitman is a pauper compared to the Wichita, Kansas oil company headed by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch. Their annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars and whose combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

David Koch, as The New Yorker noted, is part of the family that has repeatedly funded stealth attacks on the federal government, while waging war against President Obama and his administration. Turns out the Kochs, lifetime libertarians whose beliefs include drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry – notably environmental legislation – have contributed $1 million to the Proposition 23 campaign.

It would suspend California’s landmarks climate change law signed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, or Assembly Bill 32, which aims to reduce carbon emissions to 1990’s level by the end of the decade.

(Mega-millionaire Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, after considerable vacillation, supports Proposition 23; Whitman, facing a more tricky political calculation, is said to be leaning against it.)

Proposition 23 seeks to suspend the law until the statewide employment rate hits 5.5 percent for four quarters in a row – an uncertain reality. Proponents of the climate change law, as the Sacramento Bee reported, say Koch and other oil companies are trying to preserve their profits at the expense of the growing clean-tech industry and health concerns of California residents.

A spokeswoman for Flint Hills Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries Inc., operates refineries in three states – but not in California. – argues that implementing the law means more job losses and higher energy costs. Supporters of the climate change law, including private investors, have pledged nearly $10 million to defeat Proposition 23. It’s a clear cut voter issue: protect big business interests or public health concerns.

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