Everything about Koch Industries totally explained
Koch Industries, Inc. (pronounced "koke") is a private corporation based in
Wichita,
Kansas with subsidiaries involved in manufacturing, trading and investments. Koch companies are involved in core industries such as commodities trading, petroleum, chemicals, energy, fiber, intermediates and polymers, minerals, fertilizers, pulp and paper, chemical technology equipment, ranching, securities and finance, as well as in other ventures and investments. It is the largest private company in the
United States, and has an annual revenue of about
$90 billion.
Fred C. Koch, for whom Koch Industries, Inc. is named, co-founded the company in 1940 and invented an innovative crude oil refining process. His sons,
Charles G. Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer, and
David H. Koch, executive vice president, are principal owners of the company. Charles Koch owns 40% of Koch Industries, and has stated that the company will publicly offer shares "literally over my dead body"..
Political activity
The Koch brothers also operate the
Koch Family Foundations, a major source of funding for
conservative and
libertarian political causes in the
United States, including
think tanks such as the
Cato Institute. (Their father helped found the
John Birch Society, though neither brother is a member or supporter of the organization.) David's political activism also includes running as the vice presidential nominee of the
United States Libertarian Party in
1980, when he and running mate
Ed Clark finished fourth with 921,299 votes.
Koch also supports
Americans for Prosperity, formed as a successor to Citizens for a Sound Economy. Rich Fink, a Koch executive vice president, is a member of the
board of directors of Americans for Prosperity. Previously he served as president of Citizens for a Sound Economy.
In April of 2006, it was announced that the
Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation had contributed $1 million to help preserve the
tallgrass prairies of the
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in
Chase County,
Kansas. The donation made to the
Kansas Prairie Legacy Campaign is reportedly the single largest private donation in the State's history. Currently
Liz Koch is the president of the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation, and has been reported as saying that the
Flint Hills of Kansas were a special place for
Fred C. Koch, who died in 1967, and
Mary R. Koch, who died in 1990. The Flint Hills is where their ashes were spread and their headstones placed. The $1 million donation was made as a special way to honor the love Fred and Mary had for the
Kansas Prairie.
Criticism
In
1989, the Democratic-controlled
U.S. Senate Committee on Investigations claimed that "Koch Oil, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, is the most dramatic example of an
oil company stealing by deliberate mismeasurement and fraudulent reporting."
(Palast p.150) During the
Clinton administration, Koch was charged with 315 acts of
pollution, especially at its
Pine Bend Refinery facility in
Rosemount, Minnesota. Koch Industries denied the allegations, and the cases were settled in January 2000 for $35 million in fines.
Koch was separately charged with 97 counts of covering up evidence in the case of a
benzene spill of 91 metric tons in
Corpus Christi, Texas. The government sought fines as high as $350 million. Four of its employees were also charged individually with criminal offenses in the case, facing up to 35 years in prison. During this time, Koch donated $800,000 to the Bush election fund and other Republican candidates. In 2000, the Justice Department under President Clinton reduced the number of counts from 97 to 11 to nine to seven. Just before the case was to go to trial, the Justice Department dropped the remaining seven counts and settled the case for $20 million. Koch pled guilty to one count of concealing evidence, which they in fact had self-reported in 1996, and the criminal charges against the employees, personally, were dropped.
Further Information
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