May 1, 1997

Oil Slick

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Oil Slick

How to choke off clean air with independent expenditures.

by Romesh Ratnesar and John Cook

#10 David H. Koch, 56, Wichita, Kan. Party: R and Libertarian. $339,000 total contributions.

View Koch’s itemized contributions.

When the Environmental Protection Agency announced last November it would update Clean Air Act standards to ban dust particle emissions that reportedly cause 40,000 premature deaths annually, big industries sharpened their knives. (Final EPA regulations are due by July.) Oil companies, automakers, and the nation’s largest manufacturers claim it will cost them billions to comply. Among them is David Koch, chairman of Koch Industries, whose oil subsidiary is being sued by the government for Clean Water Act violations, for a reported $55 million. Although Koch gave $339,000 to federal campaigns in 1995-96, it’s only one way he sought influence. He also gives through a tangled web of think tanks, PR agencies, and trade associations, all of which want Congress to gut the Clean Air Act.

View the Map of Koch’s Influence (Warning: This is a 234K file)

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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