![]() ![]() Koch Industries in 2000 paid $35 million - then the largest civil fine ever levied under the federal Clean Water Act - to settle lawsuits over oil pipeline leaks into lakes and streams in six states. It has drawn fire for years from environmental advocates and researchers. It is the company behind Stainmaster carpeting, Brawny paper towels and Dixie cups. The Wichita, Kansas-based conglomerate has vast holdings in oil refineries, paper mills, fertilizer plants, cattle ranches and other ventures. Their father, Fred, in 1940 co-founded the company that later became Koch Industries. “I felt that the good Lord was sitting on my shoulder and that he helped save my life because he wanted me to do good works and become a good citizen,” he told Barbara Walters in 2014.Ĭharles and David Koch, each with an estimated net worth of $50.5 billion, were tied for 11th place in 2019 on the Forbes 500 list of the nation’s richest men. Koch spent two days in intensive care with smoke inhalation. He said his philanthropy was fueled by a brush with death during a 1991 collision of two airliners at the Los Angeles airport. Parts of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History are named for him after he contributed a total of $50 million for exhibits devoted to dinosaur fossils and human evolution. Koch Theater in 2008 after he gave $100 million. The Lincoln Center theater that houses the New York City Ballet became the David H. Anderson Cancer in Houston and other institutions. He also gave millions to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the M.D. Koch donated $100 million in 2007 to create a cancer research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “When I pass on,” he told The Weekly Standard, “I want people to say he did a lot of good things, he made a real difference, he saved a lot of lives in cancer research.” In an interview after the 2012 Republican convention, his mind was on his legacy. Trump, for his part, tweeted last year that the brothers were a “total joke in real Republican circles,” calling them “two nice guys with bad ideas.”ĭavid Koch had stepped away from a leadership role in recent years because of declining health, including a decades-long battle with prostate cancer, and his brother became the network’s public face. The Kochs refused to endorse him in 2016, warning that his protectionist trade policies, among other priorities, weren’t sufficiently conservative. And they developed a nationwide grassroots network backing conservative causes and candidates at the state and national levels. They pressed to bring conservative voices to college campuses. The brothers also invested heavily in fighting President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. “David Koch will likely be remembered as one of a small handful of individuals who singlehandedly thwarted efforts to act on climate change and other pressing environmental threats aimed at preserving our planet for future generations,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann. On the other side of the political divide over Koch, Beth Rotman of the government watchdog group Common Cause said the Kochs and their network of like-minded wealthy donors “undermined so many important American values over the past several decades as part of the Kochs’ attempted corporate takeover of American politics.”Īmong other things, the Kochs and their company bankrolled a decades-long movement to cast doubt on man-made climate change and to thwart efforts to fight global warming through reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Rand Paul of Kentucky saying “his many contributions will have lasting impact on our country.” Some prominent Republicans praised his legacy upon his death, with libertarian-leaning Sen. While we may not always get what we want, the exchange of ideas betters the nation in the process.” “Each of us has a right - indeed, a responsibility, at times - to make his or her views known to the larger community in order to better form it as a whole. “I was taught from a young age that involvement in the public discourse is a civic duty,” David Koch wrote in a 2012 op-ed in the New York Post. While celebrated on the right, the Koch brothers have been vilified by Democrats and others who see them as a dark and conspiratorial force, the embodiment of fat-cat capitalism and the corrupting influence of corporate money in American politics. ![]()
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