5 Disturbing Ways The Koch Brothers Made Billions

[KansDem]

Stealing Oil From Native Americans: Starr writes that in 1989, investigators found that Koch Industries ended the year with more barrels of oil than they paid for and that the oil was stolen from Indian land. The Kochs reportedly made $31 million off the stolen oil before eventually paying the U.S. government $25 million to settle the case in 2001.

Covering Up Faulty Pipelines: Starr writes that in 1994, a Texas pipeline exploded and sent 90,000 gallons of oil into Gum Hollow Creek and reached six states. The Kochs had been told that the pipeline had serious problems. They were ultimately sued for violating the Clean Water Act and had to pay what was at the time the largest fine in the history of U.S. environmental law.

Treating the Mississippi River as a Toilet: Starr writes that the Kochs’ Pine Bend refinery in Minnesota spilled 600,000 gallons of fuel into wetlands near the Mississippi River throughout the 90s and later had to plead guilty to “negligent discharge of a harmful quantity of oil.” Of course, they only had to pay $8 million in fines and remediation costs.

Treating the Air We Breathe Like an Ashtray: Starr writers that the Kochs were accused of violating the Clean Air Act in 2000 and were hit with a 97-count indictment by the feds for emitting 15 times the legal limit of benzene into the air. The Kochs avoided criminal prosecution and paid a $20 million fine.

Profits Over Public Safety: In 1996, the Kochs were found to have a severely corroded pipeline in Texas which exploded near a car and burned two teenage boys to death. The feds determined that the Kochs failed to “adequately protect its pipeline from corrosion” and the Kochs ultimately were ordered to pay $296 million, then the largest wrongful death suit in American history.

Starr goes on to note that the Kochs were able to buy influence in the Bush White House that led to them passing all of their standard compliance inspections – something they clearly failed to do before. The Kochs also used shell corporations to do illegal business with Iran while their father, who founded the company, did business with Joseph Stalin.

Latest

Website includes two interview videos with Bernie Sanders and Daniel Schulman.

[KoKo]

1. Serving time in jail instead of fines might have curbed

their influence. With that many fines it seems calculated that they know they can keep doing the same thing over and over get away with it. Just like the Wall Streeters and supposed Regulators who were responsible for the '08 Banking Crisis. They paid fines but never were held accountable like the criminals they are.

[KansDem]

3. Fines for the Kochs and Wall Street are "the cost of doing business."

A little more detail on the theft of oil from Native Americans---

According to the transcript of the secretly recorded tape, Charles Koch was chuckling like a six-year old. Koch was having a hell of a laugh over pilfering a few hundred dollars' worth of oil from a couple of dirt-poor Indians on the Osage Reservation.

Why did Koch, worth about $3 billion at the time (now $20 billion) need to boost a few bucks from some Indian in a trailer home? Koch answered:

"I want my fair share – and that's all of it."

Now "all of it" includes a pipeline, the Keystone XL, which would run the world's filthiest oil, crude made from tar sands, down from Canada to his family's refinery on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Problem: the Keystone XL tar-oil tube would endanger the largest US water sources, vastly increase pollution in the USA and measurably heat the planet.

DU thread from 2013

[bulloney]

2. Let's go back a generation to when their father made much of his fortune

by helping Joe Stalin build up his country's infrastructure. Then we spend the next 40 years or so engaging in an insane arms race against the Soviet Union that cost our country countless billions of dollars that could have gone toward maintaining our nation's infrastructure, developing viable alternative sources of energy or anything but that insane rat hole known as the military budget.

[valerief]

4. Well, this is their planet, after all. We're just litter to them. nt

[vlyons]

5. So when will we put these criminals in jail?

We need to put some enforcement teeth into EPA legislation. I realize that it won't happen with the current crew of crazy and corrupt politicians.

[J_J_]

6. stealing from everyone everyday by driving the cost of our gas through the roof

October 6, 1986: First oil derivative is introduced to Wall Street by traders at Koch.

1990-1992: Koch, along with several oil companies and Wall Street speculators, form a coalition lobbying group to deregulate oil speculation

January 21, 1993. Wendy Gramm makes first major move to deregulate oil speculation.

December 12, 2000: Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), after being lobbied by Koch and Enron, creates the infamous “Enron Loophole” vastly deregulating the oil speculation market.

2008: Rampant oil speculation spikes prices to unprecedented levels





http://thinkprogress.org/report/koch-oil-speculation/

[ReRe]

7. K&R

Thanks, KansDem. I have been further schooled. Great informative videos. Just when you think you know everything about the Koch Bros, you learn that you don't. Will include a couple things I jotted down: Book: The Sons of Wichita by Daniel Schulman; and the 2014 edition of http://www.KochBrothersExposed.com from Brave New Films.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

8. K 'n Fucking R. nt

[eShirl]

9. we need some time of 3 Strikes Law for situations like these

I'm not sure how it could be written to effectively apply to the most egregious men-behind-the-curtains...