On Thursday, President Obama addressed the United Nations on Climate Change at the Climate Summit. In a matter of only hours, the Koch brothers minions published responses denigrating and criticizing Obama’s remarks.
Emailing their supporters, Tim Phillis, the president of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch’s PAC, said that the president was seeking to enact a radical energy agenda. Then he turned to blaming the Republican filibuster of climate change legislation on Harry Reid (D-Nev.):
The worst part is, President Obama knows that his energy agenda is harmful and will not help our country get back on the path to prosperity. In fact the President’s proposal is so unpopular and destructive, even Harry Reid’s Senate wouldn’t dream of passing it, which is why he has bypassed Congress and taken his short-sighted, destructive energy policies to an international body.
– Hill Heat
American’s for Prosperity even put out a video decrying the president and hitting some of the same points as the email to supporters does before the president even spoke at the U.N. summit.
The email calls for supporters to send letters to their senators asking them to “stop the EPA from forcing more burdensome regulations on our families” and glosses over the fact that the legislation may stand to tighten Koch Industries’ bottom-line as the Kochs receive a considerable portion of their income from fossil fuel-related industries.
This effort, like so many from Americans for Prosperity, isn’t what it makes itself out to be. It is not a good-natured or well-intentioned attempt to educate the public and rally support behind a cause that it has decided will hurt more than it will help its supporters. Instead, its an effort to protect the interests of the Koch brothers and their associated industries.
