Mike Pompeo is a Congressman from Kansas who represents a vast swath of Koch brothers' offices, executives, lawyers, yes-men and employees. Could that alone explain Pompeo's latest gambit?
It's relevant background as he offered a quixotic bill targeting one of Charles and David Koch's favorite punching bags: the EPA. The brothers are among the largest polluters in the U.S. and have a long track record of donating to politicians and think tanks that fight safety precautions.
But the target is not the EPA's position on enforcing emission standards, ozone protections or anything else that might stop the planet's destruction or help us breathe healthier air. Those are battles the Kochs already won.
It's the internship program, and in Pompeo's telling:
The [Environmental Justice Eco-Ambassadors program] program favors students who share President Obama's "radical" views on the environment.
Such baseless distortions have become commonplace in this Congress. But Pompeo dresses up his bill as a cost-saving measure, too. From iWatch news:
At a time when millions of Americans cannot find work and are saddled with record deficits and crippling environmental regulations, spending $6,000 of taxpayer money per student to act as tools of this Administration's radical policies is clearly not acceptable -- nor is it ever the role of the federal government to indoctrinate, said Pompeo in a statement.
The EPA program selected its six interns already. The $6,000 is a stipend for the interns, who work in and alongside local communities to address or promote green jobs, development, sustainability and other local issues.
Pompeo's bill must make it out of committee -- the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has a majority of members funded by -- you guessed it-- the Koch brothers! (Hat tip to Jonathan Turley:)
The Koch brothers and their employees are the biggest oil and gas donors to lawmakers sitting on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. They contributed $279,500 to 22 of the committee's 31 Republicans and $32,000 to five Democrats. Americans for Prosperity, a Koch front-group, spent over $200,000 on ads that benefited five of the six GOP freshmen members on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
If this outrages you, fight back against the Kochs at the the Koch Brothers Exposed page on Facebook, a curator and aggregation service seeking to inform everyone about the Koch brothers' vast influence on democracy and society.
