Dear Editor:

Two stories in your January 25 issue by Steve Connor were predictable in repeating tired and debunked partisan accusations about Koch Industries and its shareholders, Charles Koch and David Koch. The approach starts with a reporter working hard to “prove” his theory about the Kochs and climate change, thus offering readers just one side of the story. This is called advocacy journalism.

The pieces are littered with language intended to demonize the subjects of the stories and rally activists by using loaded words such as “secretive,” “anonymous,” “billionaire,” “undermine,” “closet skeptics,” and so on.

The reporter asserts that much of the Kochs’ funding given to a wide variety of organizations is tied to “promote skepticism towards climate change.” He states this with no evidence, only innuendo to support his theory. Quite to the contrary, Charles and David Koch believe it is important to understand the primary and secondary effects that proposed costly initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases will have on the earth’s overall climate and public health, relative to the cost of implementation.

Are Charles Koch and David Koch secretive? No.  Like the owner of The Independent, they own and operate a private company. If the reporter had done some research, he could easily find that the Kochs have openly advocated for free-market principles for 50 years, including in Charles Koch’s 2007 book, The Science of Success.  Recently, too, Charles Koch and David Koch have done in-depth interviews with Forbes magazine, the Weekly Standard magazine and other media outlets. Not exactly secretive.

Moreover, the Kochs are advocates of the critical review that is the foundation of sound science, as everyone interested in furthering discovery should be. Climate science is a complex and ever-changing issue.

We end by reminding the reporter of his own words written on June 3, 2011: “Science is a messy business. We like to think that it can give us clear-cut answers to difficult questions, but like any human endeavour it can frequently lead us up the wrong path.” Clearly, Mr. Connor’s story led him up the wrong path.

To learn more about Koch, a company that employs 60,000 people throughout the world, I encourage your readers to do their own research at www.kochind.com and www.kochfacts.com.

Sincerely,

Thomas Dubois
International Government & Public Affairs
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC
Geneva, Switzerland

Yet, when we subsequently contacted Mr. Stuart directly, he said he had never cited Koch and declared “I am making no connection between Koch and the Keystone XL project.”  We will be requesting a formal correction from Reuters along with an explanation for why they continue to permit an agenda-driven activist to masquerade as an objective reporter.

Koch Presence in Canada – The Facts

Koch companies have had a presence in Canada for decades.  Our businesses – including Flint Hills Resources, Koch Fertilizer, Georgia-Pacific, Koch Exploration, Koch-Glitsch, Koch Heat Transfer and INVISTA – employ more than 2,000 people in manufacturing, trading, marketing and sales throughout Canada.  This publicly available Canada fact sheet provides information about Koch’s diverse operations, safety and environmental commitment, and community stewardship in Canada.

Our Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend Refinery in Rosemount, Minn., was built in the 1950s specifically to handle heavy Canadian crude oil. Koch purchased controlling interest in the refinery in 1969. Today, Pine Bend is one of the safest and cleanest refineries operating in theUnited States and in the top quartile for energy efficiency.  Pine Bend is also among the top processors of Canadian oil in the U.S. and a leader in providing cleaner-burning fuels including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, propane and butane as well as other petroleum products such as asphalt. The Canadian oil we process is shipped to the refinery via pipeline systems that have been in operation for decades.

Canadian oil is a critically important resource for the United States. A stable and friendly trading partner, Canada is the United States’ number one supplier of imported oil, and has about 15 percent of the world’s oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia. Canada’s oil sands will be developed – if not for the U.S., then for other countries.  The U.S. is the most efficient and environmentally responsible transportation destination for Canadian oil.

Finally, with regard to the Keystone XL pipeline, Koch Industries has no financial stake in the proposed project and we are not party to its design or construction. We are not a proposed shipper or customer of oil delivered by this pipeline. This was verified by TransCanada’s CEO in a November 2011 statement.

Occupy Koch Town recently attracted about 40 organizations and more than 350 people from Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Iowa, Oregon and Washington, D.C. We were all non-millionaires.

We could take Ms. Cather at her word, or we could rely on news accounts and photographs of the event that indicate there were several dozen participants at Koch headquarters, not hundreds.

We felt the media did not report on the issues the marchers represented, instead slanting their coverage to reflect the unfounded view expressed by the Koch brothers that such a public display of citizen rights to free speech was somehow illegitimate and dangerous.

Local broadcast affiliates put Ms. Cather on the air to explain her position and she has been quoted accurately, so far as we can tell.  If her views are incoherent, there is no one at fault but her.  Also, Koch has never objected to Ms. Cather’s right to speak, as she falsely claims.  Quite the contrary – Koch has long advocated for the first amendment rights of all American citizens as well as the other rights enumerated in the Constitution. Given the death threats and other security risks we have faced in the past few years, we do object to the hateful rhetoric, threats of violence, and lawless conduct that often characterize Occupy gatherings. In addition, the Sierra Club was one of the organizers of a protest outside a Koch meeting in Palm Springs last year that led to violent and racist comments by participants and the subsequent arrest of many protesters.

Little was mentioned about the action’s success, peacefully raising public consciousness about pollution and corporate influence.

Ms. Cather seems to believe that the right to be heard also includes the right to be taken seriously.  It is bizarre at best to fault the news media for failing to measure the degree to which public consciousness was peacefully raised, whatever that even means.

The Alberta pipeline system…carries diluted bitumen, the same product planned for Keystone XL [pipeline].

Ms. Cather’s attempt to connect the Keystone XL Pipeline to Koch is entirely fabricated.  As we have said repeatedly, Koch has no involvement whatsoever with the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.  It also is worth noting that it was recently revealed that the Sierra Club secretly took $26 million dollars in recent years from the natural gas industry to oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline and other fuel sources that compete with the natural gas industry.

. . . the Koch-owned Pine Bend Refinery in Minnesota, . . .  is listed as a “high priority violator” by the Environmental Protection Agency.

This charge is false. According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, officials there made a mistake when setting emissions limits for Pine Bend facility’s permit in 2006.  These issues have been resolved. To our knowledge, our Pine Bend facility is not subject to any outstanding enforcement actions that might explain placement on the HPV list.

Finally, Ms. Cather and the Sierra Club have nothing to say about the financial and political influence of her own members, as well as public employee unions and other top donors to left-wing elected officials.  And it’s no small irony, and we think hypocritical, that Ms. Cather called on activists to fly and drive to Wichita from throughout “Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Iowa, Oregon and Washington, D.C.” in order to protest fossil fuels.  So even by their own standards, everyone would have been better off had they just stayed home.

At a hearing of the Committee on Energy and Commerce on January 25, Rep. Henry Waxman repeated several demonstrably false statements he had made earlier this year, asserting that Koch has some financial stake in the Keystone Pipeline project.  In particular, Mr. Waxman said at the hearing, ‘We learned that [Koch] told the Canadian government they have a direct and substantial interest so something does not add up.’

As we have previously stated, Koch Industries has no financial stake in the Keystone pipeline and we are not party to its design or construction. We are not a proposed shipper or customer of oil delivered by this pipeline. We have taken no position on the legislative proposal at issue before Congress and we are not cited in any way in that legislation.

In response to the repeated false allegations by Representative Waxman and some news media, Koch has consistently and repeatedly stated (including here, here, here, and here) that we have no financial interest whatsoever in the Keystone pipeline. In addition, this fact has been verified by TransCanada’s CEO here. Further, the notion that Koch as an intervenor means that we have an interest in the project has been completely debunked here.

An ‘intervenor’ status in the proceeding does not mean that the Koch subsidiary at issue has a financial or ownership interest in the project.   Here is a list of all intervenors, which includes Sierra Club Canada, Alberta Federation of Labour, several First Nation groups, other companies, and numerous individuals.”

– Philip Ellender, President, Government and Public Affairs, Koch Companies Public Sector

Before another lie gains traction, these are the facts: Koch has no mining operations in Wisconsin, no plans for any such operation, no financial interest in the proposed iron mine in the state, and has taken no position on any Wisconsin legislation related to mining.  Koch companies have never been involved in lobbying for this bill, either directly or through any other party.  Any suggestion that Koch companies or any of our 3,000 Wisconsin employees are secretly pursuing this project is flat out false.

The blog, by the way, is written by anonymous authors.  Readers would be right to question why the bloggers are so worried about alleged ”shadowy” participants in Wisconsin public discourse, yet conceal their own identities from the public.

Dear Ms. Roussell:

A laundry list of critics including almost every national news outlet, innumerable bloggers and citizens, and an ongoing congressional inquiry have pointed out that the Administration’s loan guarantees to the now bankrupt solar company, Solyndra, were a galling mistake.  But instead of answering those questions honestly or owning up to the boondoggle, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent out a press release under your name on November 2 attacking Koch.  You wrote, “It shouldn’t shock anyone that the Koch brothers are shilling for their oil company by funding attack ads against clean energy investments.  They are defending their own interests — the Koch Industries oil and gas conglomerate.”

This is simply dishonest.  For a start, Solyndra is not a competitor of ours.  Bankrupt companies, by definition, are not competitive.  It seems odd that the DNC still regards Solyndra as something that is “investing in America” but, then again, that is the kind of thinking that wasted more than $500 million of taxpayer money on the project in the first place.

For your information, Koch did not create, review, place, or promote the ad that DNC objects to.  Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which made the ad, is working hard in a principled way to highlight reckless government spending and the irresponsible fiscal policies of the administration.  We support AFP’s efforts because those are, of course, critical issues and ones that most Americans regard with the utmost concern.  But instead of responding on the merits or speaking directly to the concerns being raised, DNC apparently prefers to fault us (mistakenly) for the ad appearing at all.

Koch has always advocated against subsidies of any kind.  When the government picks winners and losers in the market, it inevitably leads to disastrous results of the kind so clearly seen in Solyndra.

You also wrote, “Koch…and the Republican presidential candidates whose campaigns they fund are interested in investing in America but only when it lines their own pockets.”  That is false.  As we have stated publicly and to DNC directly, Koch is not providing any financial support at this time for any presidential candidate.  Stranger still is the line-their-own-pockets accusation — which is the very misconduct that Congress is investigating regarding Solyndra.  Top campaign contributors to the Democratic party are the same people that benefitted from the government loan guarantees to Solyndra.

Finally, I sense you may be unaware of the work that Koch is doing in actual, profitable renewable and clean energy. Alternative, renewable, and clean energy are a top strategic priority for Koch, as can be easily reviewed on our website.  Here are a few examples:

• We are one of the largest buyers and sellers of recycled fiber in the world, managing more than 6 million tons of recovered paper in 2010.
• We are one of the largest producers of renewable electricity in the country.  One of our subsidiaries, for instance, derives about 60 percent of its energy from renewable woody biomass.
• We are a global leader in ultra-low emission process burners, boiler burners, duct burners, flares and thermal oxidizers.
• We invented and manufacture the largest array of membrane products in the country — filtration systems that help people and businesses reduce their water footprint, increase productivity, and lower operating expenses.  That helps millions of people live healthier lives by developing better ways to purify the world’s water sources, improve food processing, and more.
• Our latest carpet fiber innovation is the first carpet fiber to combine recycled and renewable content in a single fiber offering.
• We are building technology to efficiently expand the range of low cost feedstocks used in biodiesel production.

It is possible that the DNC didn’t do its homework before sending out the release (which could also be said of the Solyndra loans as a whole).  If so, I would urge you to be more diligent about facts, accuracy, and intellectual honesty going forward.  That’s because when you squander half a billion dollars belonging to taxpayers on an unsustainable company run by the president’s supporters and then blame Koch for the debacle being pointed out — that argument assumes American voters are blind to your dishonesty, which is clearly not the case.  We expect that the DNC will soon figure this out.

Sincerely,

Philip Ellender
President and COO – Government & Public Affairs
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC

After several days without a response from the DNC we reiterated our request

Dear Ms. Roussell:

We have tried to engage with you over public comments you have made about us that are intellectually dishonest at best, but you have not responded.  I respectfully request that you provide us with a response.

As you will recall, in an opinion piece that appeared in Politico on November 1, Ms. Wasserman-Schultz falsely suggested that Koch has been providing financial support for GOP candidates in the primary campaign and that Koch did so in order to “distort” the truth.  That is untrue, as we have explained.  The following day, Ms. Roussell sent out a press release blaming Koch for television ads that criticized the administration’s handling of the Solyndra issues.  That too was false – Koch did not create, review, place, or promote the ad that DNC dislikes.

We would greatly appreciate your correcting these inaccurate statements and not making such false claims about us in the future.  Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
Philip Ellender

CC: Hon. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Chairwoman

“The Charles Koch Foundation has long supported, and will continue to support, sound, nonpartisan scientific research intended to benefit society by informing public policy and advancing an understanding of the costs and benefits of proposed solutions. Among the research the foundation recently supported is a project by Professor Richard A. Muller in partnership with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and several other foundations. That research is undergoing peer review now but has already received significant media interest. The research examined recent global surface temperature trends. It did not examine ocean temperature data or the cause of warming on our climate, as some have claimed,” said Tonya Mullins, director of communications for the foundation.

• Manufacture a “news” item out of something utterly ordinary.
• Distort the meaning of the event.
• Disregard anything that doesn’t fit the narrative, even when the target of the attack explicitly points out the facts.
• Then give prominent, positive attention to any politician that tries to parade the distortion.

Here are the specifics:
The headline of the article reads, “Rep. Waxman requests investigation…cites legal papers filed by Koch subsidiary, uncovered by InsideClimate News.”  Yet we have detailed repeatedly (including here, here, here, and here) in response to these allegations by Congressman Waxman and InsideClimate that we have no financial interest whatsoever in the Keystone pipeline that is at issue. What’s more, the document that InsideClimate claims to have “uncovered” was, in reality, publicly filed over 2 years ago and readily available.

It was a request we made to be classified as an “intervener” — a common term in regulatory law that enables any party or person to stay directly informed about the status of a particular issue.  We have detailed publicly on numerous occasions (and to InsideClimate directly) why Flint Hills Resources Canada LP, a Koch subsidiary, applied for “intervener” status with the Canadian National Energy Board.  An intervener in a NEB proceeding is entitled to gain access to information about the progress of a particular matter, in this case the “application” concerning the Keystone XL Pipeline project.  Many others also applied and were granted intervener status in exactly the same way — including individual citizens, members of various First Nation groups, businesses, and environmental activists similar to Mr. Sassoon and InsideClimate.

A complete list of interveners is found here.  Notice in particular that in the application FHR states it did not anticipate taking any active role at the regulatory hearing in question and noted that it would not appear at the hearing; true to its word, FHR did not appear or take any role at the hearing.  Indeed, other than its application to intervene, FHR did not file anything else in the proceeding.  By contrast, other groups that were given the exact same “intervener” status, such as Sierra Club Canada (which stated it would appear at the hearing), the Alberta Federation of Labour, and the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, took an active role in the proceedings, presenting evidence, making final arguments, and seeking information from Keystone XL Pipeline.

When a party applies to be an intervener, they formally state that they have an “interest” in the application that is being considered.  That use of the word “interest” means, by first definition, curious or paying attention.  But InsideClimate distorts that meaning as if it meant a financial interest or stake — a secondary but altogether different meaning of the word.  That’s how, when InsideClimate writes that, “the company claimed ‘a direct and substantial interest’ in the Keystone XL,” it deceives readers.  What FHR actually said when it applied for intervener status was that it had”a direct and substantial interest in the application” — meaning it wanted to stay informed about Keystone’s application, and nothing more.  That intervener status does not mean (as Mr. Sassoon apparently wishes readers to believe) that FHR has a direct financial interest stake in the project.  In fact, if FHR or any other proposed intervener had a financial, ownership, or investment interest in the proceeding, that would have been required to be disclosed.  Of course, FHR did not have and still has no such interest in the Keystone Pipeline XL project.

All this is both well known to anyone familiar with regulatory procedure, easily fact checked, and something that we have publicly stated repeatedly.

We spelled all this out for the writer at InsideClimate, Stacy Feldman, and she refused to include it in the article.  Instead, she suggested that we post it in the comment thread beneath the article.  The editor’s note at the top of the article, “This version of the story adds comment from Koch Industries,” further misleads readers.  The truth is that we tried several times to get Ms. Feldman to include our full comment and she would not, oddly insisting that it did not “pertain” to the issue.  That verbatim statement is posted below.

Perhaps the worst part of the dishonesty at InsideClimate is that it aims to deceive readers into thinking that it is an objective, independent news organization — and also provide their copy to legitimate news outlets as such.  We have detailed, however, that InsideClimate has multiple financial and ideological conflicts of interest.  News outlets that reprint their material as straight reporting do a deep disservice to readers and we would urge anyone that encounters their copy to regard it with deep skepticism.

Indeed that is exactly what happened last February when InsideClimate and its owner, David Sassoon, were the first to write false stories saying that we had some financial connection to the Keystone project.  They never bothered to fact check with us prior to writing that approval of the project would be a “big victory” for Koch and a “great financial opportunity [for Koch to] profit.”  Those two stories, in turn, prompted Congressman Waxman’s staff to raise the issue with us directly and then he raised it directly with the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  We detailed for his staff that we have no financial interest in the project whatsoever and also responded with the same message in response to Rep. Waxman’s letter to the Committee.  Naturally, InsideClimate touted Mr. Waxman’s efforts, again completely disregarding our explicitly stated position, and then wrote that Koch was being “accused of stonewalling.”  Yes, the deceit is that obvious and just as brazen, and we exposed it at the time.

Here is the full statement that we provided to InsideClimate News — and which they refused to include in the article:

Subject: Statement from Koch Industries

As previously stated, Koch Industries has no financial stake in the Keystone pipeline and we are not party to its design or construction. We are not a proposed shipper or customer of oil delivered by this pipeline. We have taken no position on the legislative proposal at issue before Congress and we are not cited in any way in that legislation.

This is just the latest of many false allegations initiated by InsideClimateNews and advanced by aligned advocacy media. It is also evidence that those promoting these falsehoods do not even do the basic due diligence before attacking Koch industries. A rudimentary fact check by any legitimate investigator or reporter would reveal the clear difference between “intervening” in an application in Canada’s National Energy Board hearings, and “having an interest” in the pipeline. By definition, an intervener is anyone who wants to learn more about a project. In this case, interveners included individuals, environmental groups, businesses and many others. We challenge InsideClimateNews and other advocacy media to ask Sierra Club Canada and other interveners in this case if they have a financial interest in the pipeline.

A complete list of interveners is found here.  Notice in particular that in the application documents, our subsidiary, Flint Hills Resources, indicates that it did not anticipate taking any active role at the regulatory hearing in question.  By contrast, other groups that were given the exact same “intervener” status, such as Sierra Club and the Alberta Labour Union, took an active and role at the hearing, presenting briefs and other arguments.

Publisher David Sassoon writes:
“We are a non-partisan news organization staffed by accomplished journalists who abide by the highest professional standards.”

That is deceptive.  Perhaps InsideClimate doesn’t endorse political candidates in that sense of the word “partisan” but their entire editorial effort is on advancing an environmental agenda that is entirely consistent with the political left.  Articles on the site routinely advance policy prescriptions for legislative, legal, and regulatory actions on environmental issues.  Of those who differ with those policies, Mr. Sassoon writes, “the fossil and free market guns are focused on fear-mongering.”  What’s more, Mr. Sassoon works hand in hand with environmental activist groups and foundations — often as a paid consultant.  We have detailed all these obvious conflicts at length.

Sassoon:  ”We have made no false allegations and remain in the dark about what you think they might be.”

That is untrue.  We have made it explicitly clear for the better part of a year now to InsideClimate that Koch has no financial interest whatsoever in the Keystone project.  Yet, InsideClimate continues to mislead readers that we have some connection to the project and that approval of the project would be a “big victory” for Koch and a “great financial opportunity [for Koch to] profit.”

Sassoon:  ”We have also endeavored to involve you in our due diligence but you have not responded to our repeated queries, until yesterday for the first time…”

This is just the latest of many false allegations initiated by InsideClimateNews and advanced by aligned advocacy media. It is also evidence that those promoting these falsehoods do not even do the basic due diligence before attacking Koch industries. A rudimentary fact check by any legitimate investigator or reporter would reveal the clear difference between “intervening” in an application in Canada’s National Energy Board hearings, and “having an interest” in the pipeline. By definition, an intervener is anyone who wants to learn more about a project. In this case, interveners included individuals, environmental groups, businesses and many others. We challenge InsideClimateNews and other advocacy media to ask Sierra Club Canada and other interveners in this case if they have a financial interest in the pipeline.

A complete list of interveners is found here.