Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Add Good to your Google News feed.
Google News Button

Mapping The Koch Brothers’ Influence Over Trump’s Environmental Policies

Despite repeated snubs from the fossil-fuel billionaires, the President-elect’s administration is set to be full of their allies

Ben Jervey
By Ben JerveyJan 03, 2017
Ben Jervey
Ben is a writer and editor covering climate change, energy, and environment, and is currently the Climate and Energy Media Fellow at Vermont Law School. He was the original Environment Editor at GOOD Magazine and his work has appeared regularly in National Geographic News, Grist, DeSmogBlog, and OnEarth. He recently worked with the non-profit Focus the Nation to publish an Energy 101 primer. When living in New York City, he wrote a book, The Big Green Apple, on how to live a lower impact life in the city. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much of Europe.
See Full Bio

Last summer, Donald Trump called other Republican presidential hopefuls “puppets” for meeting with the billionaire Koch brothers—the notorious free-market activists who amassed the lion’s share of their fortunes through oil and gas processing and distribution. But as the inauguration approaches, the Trump transition team and his prospective administration are filling up with prominent players in the Koch political network—leaving many policy experts to speculate whether the president-elect himself might be their unwitting puppet.

Throughout the presidential primaries and the general election, the Koch brothers were steadfast in their refusal to support Trump, consistently critical of his candidacy. Charles Koch even once described choosing between Trump and Clinton as picking “cancer or a heart attack.” And when they hosted 400 wealthy conservative donors and politicians at their annual Koch network gathering at a luxury resort in Colorado, Trump wasn’t invited—a sequel to fundraising drama that played out a year earlier.

Yet, even after all the public snubs and criticism, Trump has been filling up his transition team and administration with scores of the Koch brothers’ friends, employees, and other fossil fuel advocates who have benefited from Koch funds. According to an analysis from the Center for American Progress, of the roughly 300 names currently on the transition team books or in play for Cabinet or other positions in the administration, nearly one-third are affiliated with the Koch network.

Scroll and zoom through the above map that I built for a DeSmog project that tracks Koch attacks on clean energy on the LittleSis platform, and it’s easy to see how the brothers are poised to influence Trump’s energy and environmental policies. From the Institute for Energy Research and the Heartland Institute to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a number of oil and gas shills and straight-up climate deniers are in prominent positions on Trump’s teams.

Take, for instance, the Department of Energy transition team, which is being lead by, Thomas Pyle, who was once employed directly by Koch Industries, then went on to a lobbying contract with Koch Industries, and today serves as president of a think tank that was founded by Charles Koch and receives considerable funding from the Koch network. Or the transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, led by Myron Ebell, a prominent and outspoken climate denier who works for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market public policy organization that has received millions from the Kochs.

There are plenty more where those came from. For all the snubs and Trump’s talk of puppets and “draining the swamp,” the Koch brothers seem well-positioned to have more direct influence on the White House’s energy and environmental policy than ever before.

climate changeenergyenvironment

The Latest

Rutgers, tomato, tomatoes, Rutgers tomato, science, agriculture, food
Culture

How a small 1934 college experiment completely changed our relationship with tomatoes

david lynch, david foster wallace, filmmaking, lynchian, movies
Culture

Asked about David Lynch's surrealism, David Foster Wallace's perfect response involved peanut butter

email mistake, Reddit, perfect response, job interview, email etiquette
Work & Money

Job applicant accidentally CC'd on email before canceled interview. He responded perfectly.

Boomers, Gen Z, Baby Boomers, Zoomers, travel, generational bias, culture, generational divide
The Planet

Gen Z and Boomers 'completely disagree' on vacation planning. Here are their 4 main differences.

More For You

Tina Fey, Mean Girls Musical, Online Trolls, Comedy, SNL, West End Theatre, Viral Comeback, Letters of Note

Tina Fey at a movie premiere

David Shankbone via Wikimedia Commons

Tina Fey once roasted a troll so hard, it still stings years later

The internet can be a double-edged sword—offering both support and criticism. Celebrities often find themselves at the receiving end of unsolicited opinions. Tina Fey, renowned for her work on "Saturday Night Live" and "30 Rock," once faced such criticism but responded with a masterclass in wit and satire.

A user named "jerkstore" once commented, "In my opinion, Tina Fey completely ruined SNL. The only reason she's celebrated is because she's a woman and an outspoken liberal. She has not a single funny bone in her body."

Keep ReadingShow less
cat, knuckles, treadmill, treadmill cat, exercise, feline, fitness, pectus excavatum

Knuckles the cat wasn't going to take his illness lying down.

Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash

After a challenging diagnosis, a cat saved his own life by taking to the treadmill

When Knuckles the cat’s family adopted him, they knew he had been diagnosed with pectus excavatum, a chest compression or malformation that can cause breathing problems, and would need some extra attention. This was especially true as it pertained to weight gain–if Knuckles gained too much weight, breathing could become extremely difficult. His family knew they’d have to come up with a solution, but what they didn’t expect was that Knuckles would come up with it himself.

After Knuckles was adopted, he saw his dad take to the stationary bike in his basement for workouts. While Dad was on the bike, Knuckles developed a taste for treadmill, and now loves it so much that he even has a preferred speed of 1.4 miles per hour. For Knuckles, staying a trim feline just became that much easier, and according to his mom, he now asks to take the treadmill for a spin "six to seven times a day."

Keep ReadingShow less
family, vacation, summer break, parks, recreational activities, summertime, kids, video games

Family enjoying cupcakes at outdoor summer event.

Image via Canva - Photo by Monkey Business Images

Parents share 7 great, cheap ideas for when their kids are home all summer

The summer is here and the kids are out of school. There's only so much video gaming and phone watching any parent can allow before the internal radar suggests forcing them to do something different. Not everyone has the budget to travel or the means to send them off to a summer camp.

One of the great things about a message board is people can share their needs and the community comes to the rescue. Sure the age old advice of tell your kids to go outside and play is a solid suggestion, but there are so many more activities available for a family on a budget.

Keep ReadingShow less
spanish healthcare, er visit cost, ana ochoa, healthcare abroad, ambulance cost usa, viral tiktok health, american healthcare, madrid hospital, fractured humerus, international healthcare

Woman looks at insurance bill

Canva

She went to the ER in Spain. The bill made her question everything about U.S. healthcare.

When Ana Ochoa’s 83-year-old father fell on a sidewalk in Madrid, her heart sank. He had tripped outside a restaurant, hit the pavement hard, and couldn’t get up. Paramedics arrived quickly and rushed him to Hospital Clínico San Carlos, one of Spain’s top hospitals.

At the ER, doctors immediately began treatment. They performed X-rays and diagnosed him with a fractured humerus, a painful break in the upper arm. He was bandaged, stabilized, given a prescription, and released.

Keep ReadingShow less
stevie nicks, fleetwood mac, lindsey buckingham, silver springs, fleetwood mac live

Fleetwood Mac may have cut "Silver Springs," but Stevie Nicks never gave up on it.

Photo credit: screenshots from Fleetwood Mac YouTube video

Fleetwood Mac cut this haunting ballad from 'Rumours.' Then Stevie Nicks gave it new life.

Fleetwood Mac’s 11th studio album, 1977’s Rumours, is widely considered one of the greatest ever—a multi-platinum, immaculately produced blockbuster that encapsulates the drama, both musical and interpersonal, that made this band so fascinating. But much like The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which set aside the non-LP singles "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever," Rumours is a perfect album that could have been even better—if only they’d used all the classic material in their repertoire.

The leftover in question is "Silver Springs," a shimmering ballad written by Stevie Nicks and earmarked for that timeless record. And this song was especially important to the singer, who’d gifted the publishing rights to her mother, Barbara. But since nothing is easy in Fleetwood Mac world, "Silver Springs" became the launching pad for both turmoil and redemption within their camp—helping to break apart the classic lineup and, ultimately, glue it back together.

Keep ReadingShow less
jerry seinfeld, seinfeld show, david lynch, meditation, transcendental meditation

Jerry Seinfeld's lunch-break ritual "saved" him while making 'Seinfeld.'

Photo credit: YouTube screenshot from David Lynch Foundation

Jerry Seinfeld said this lunch-break ritual 'saved' him during the chaotic 'Seinfeld' production

The clichéd stereotype of a meditator is probably someone with a tranquil and peaceful demeanor, dressed in a flowing robe. It’s definitely not Jerry Seinfeld: an energetic, sneaker-loving stand-up comedian known for his obsessive, granular observations. Nonetheless, he’s probably the world’s most famous practitioner of Transcendental Meditation, a practice developed and taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1950s India before spreading around the world, most famously via the influence of celebrities like The Beatles. (According to its official website, TM is "a simple mental technique practiced silently with the eyes closed, sitting in any comfortable position.")

An inquisitive Seinfeld first learned about TM around age 18 while attending State University of New York at Oswego. "I don’t remember exactly how I started," he said during a 2013 speech for the David Lynch Foundation, which was founded by the titular filmmaker and TM practitioner in 2005. "It was some kid I knew. I had just gone to college, and we were still kind of in the flush of the feeling of the '60s, and I just wanted to try any new thing that I heard about. So I went and learned TM. I do remember the first time I did it, and I remember I was up the entire night because I’d never felt that good before. I had terrible acne…and it all just went away, and I became a world-famous comedian. That’s the story. That’s the entire story of my life."

Keep ReadingShow less
new planet, scientific discovery, space discovery, ninth planet, astronomy

Astronomers are perplexed by this new planet.

Photo credit: Canva

Goodbye solar system? Scientists confirm a possible new gas giant planet behind Pluto.

Millennials and older generations memorized the planets of our solar system with the mnemonic device “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas,” which was then changed to “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles” when Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006. However, a recent discovery could change it all over again as scientists have discovered what could be a “new” ninth planet.

In a recently published study, an international team of astronomers have found a gas giant orbiting TOI-6894, a tiny red dwarf star located just beyond Pluto. The cold gas giant reportedly has a radius slightly larger than Saturn and is so close to TOI-6894 that it can complete its orbit around the tiny star within three days. What flummoxes scientists is how such a small star can draw in a massive potential planet as its discovery challenges current conventional theories about our solar system.

Keep ReadingShow less
celebrity, Jennifer Aniston, sleep tips, 7-9 hours sleep, good night's sleep, recovery, sleep patterns, dreams, sleep cycles

Jennifer Aniston and a comfortable looking bed.

Photo from "The Morning Show" Jennifer Aniston and via Canva by anytka.

Jennifer Aniston swears by these 4 tips for a good night's sleep and science agrees

Many people are suffering the ill effects of poor sleep habits. A Gallup poll in 2024 found that only 42% of the people surveyed felt that they got enough rest. On average about 27% of us are not getting the nightly requirements for healthy sleep.

Jennifer Aniston, an actor known for many roles including the iconic show Friends, has been forthcoming with her own difficulties in finding a good night's sleep. With the stresses of random hours for a filming schedule, travel, meals, and unfamiliar places for rest, it's no wonder the entertainer could have sleep difficulties.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2025