As news that President Trump was pulling out of the Paris climate accord hit at a luncheon for small-business owners in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday, an already happy crowd suddenly turned euphoric.

“It was like a major win at a football game,” said Rick Longenecker, a management consultant who had been among the 50 or so attendees who gathered to trade thoughts amid a rapidly improving local economy.

While multinational corporations such as Disney, Goldman Sachs and IBM have opposed the president’s decision to walk away from the international climate agreement, many small companies around the country were cheering him on, embracing the choice as a tough-minded business move that made good on Mr. Trump’s commitment to put America’s commercial interests first.

This full-throated support from the small-business community comes even as the Trump administration struggles to advance health care legislation and tax reform plans through Congress — and despite the swelling controversy over Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.

read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/business/dealbook/trump-climate-small-businesses.html

The "swelling" controversy over Russia/Trump is the media scratching itself raw to bleed where there is no zit. Eventually, the media will carry this story like an infected carbuncle on its own butt. Time to give this one a rest. The fact that Trump has canned the "Paris Agreement" for the US is a thousand times more significant for the future. 

The US president Donald Trump “knows that [the climate] is changing and that the US has to be responsible for it,” Haley told CNN host Jake Tapper, commenting on Trump’s recent decision to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement on climate change.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/390804-trump-climate-haley-eu/

See also:

What is global warming?

Until the very end, they tried behind closed doors to get him to change his mind. For the umpteenth time, they presented all the arguments -- the humanitarian ones, the geopolitical ones and, of course, the economic ones. They listed the advantages for the economy and for American companies. They explained how limited the hardships would be.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the last one to speak, according to the secret minutes taken last Friday afternoon in the luxurious conference hotel in the Sicilian town of Taormina -- meeting notes that DER SPIEGEL has been given access to. Leaders of the world's seven most powerful economies were gathered around the table and the issues under discussion were the global economy and sustainable development.

The newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron, went first. It makes sense that the Frenchman would defend the international treaty that bears the name of France's capital: The Paris Agreement. "Climate change is real and it affects the poorest countries," Macron said.

Then, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminded the U.S. president how successful the fight against the ozone hole had been and how it had been possible to convince industry leaders to reduce emissions of the harmful gas.

Finally, it was Merkel's turn. Renewable energies, said the chancellor, present significant economic opportunities. "If the world's largest economic power were to pull out, the field would be left to the Chinese," she warned. Xi Jinping is clever, she added, and would take advantage of the vacuum it created. Even the Saudis were preparing for the post-oil era, she continued, and saving energy is also a worthwhile goal for the economy for many other reasons, not just because of climate change.

But Donald Trump remained unconvinced. No matter how trenchant the argument presented by the increasingly frustrated group of world leaders, none of them had an effect. "For me," the U.S. president said, "it's easier to stay in than step out." But environmental constraints were costing the American economy jobs, he said. And that was the only thing that mattered. Jobs, jobs, jobs.

At that point, it was clear to the rest of those seated around the table that they had lost him. Resigned, Macron admitted defeat. "Now China leads," he said.

read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/trump-pulls-out-of-climate-deal-western-rift-deepens-a-1150486.html

Isolating Trump

Merkel's G-20 Climate Alliance Is Crumbling

The German chancellor had been hoping to isolate Donald Trump on climate issues at the upcoming G-20 summit in Hamburg. But Merkel's hoped-for alliance is crumbling, underscoring Germany's relative political weakness globally. Many countries are wary of angering the United States.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had actually thought that Canada's young, charismatic prime minister, Justin Trudeau, could be counted among her reliable partners. Particularly when it came to climate policy. Just two weeks ago, at the G-7 summit in Sicily, he had thrown his support behind Germany. When Merkel took a confrontational approach to U.S. President Donald Trump, Trudeau was at her side.

But by Tuesday evening, things had changed. At 8 p.m., Merkel called Trudeau to talk about how to proceed following Trump's announced withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. To her surprise, the Canadian prime minister was no longer on the attack. He had switched to appeasement instead.

What would be wrong with simply striking all mentions of the Paris Agreement from the planned G-20 statement on climate, Trudeau asked. He suggested simply limiting the statement to energy issues, something that Trump would likely support as well. Trudeau had apparently changed his approach to Trump and seemed concerned about further provoking his powerful neighbor to the south.

The telephone call made it clear to Merkel that her strategy for the G-20 summit in early July might fail. The chancellor had intended to clearly isolate the United States. at the Hamburg meeting, hoping that 19 G-20 countries would underline their commitment to the Paris Agreement and make Trump a bogeyman of world history. A score of 19:1.

read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/angela-merkel-s-anti-trump-a...

The Koch brothers have landed yet another of their trusted fossil fuel think tank veterans in the Trump administration’s Department of Energy (DOE). Alex Fitzsimmons was Manager of Policy and Public Affairs at theInstitute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), while also working as a “spokesman” and communications director for Fueling US Forward (FUSF), the Koch-funded campaign to bolster public opinion of fossil fuels.

Fitzsimmons will be joining former IER colleagues Daniel Simmons and Travis Fisher at the DOE.

Simmons now serves as the head of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), an office that AEAcalled for eliminating in 2015, under Simmons’ guidance, as then-Vice President of Policy. Fisher is currently working on the controversial grid study ordered by DOE Secretary Rick Perry. While at IER, Fisher wrote a similar report in 2015, which called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat” to the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability than cyber attacks, terrorism, or extreme weather.

While there have been many IER veterans to land in the Trump administration (and even more known Koch affiliates), the arrival of Fitzsimmons at the DOE marks the first time that someone directly involved with Fueling U.S. Forward has taken a job at one of the agencies or in the White House.

The Koch network reportedly had big plans for the Fueling U.S. Forward campaign when it first launched in late summer of 2016, when Charles Drevna announced that it would make the “pro-human” case for fossil fuels, highlighting the “positives” of oil and gas to American consumers.

As the head of communications for Fueling U.S. Forward, Fitzsimmons wrote a handful of blog posts singing the praises of fossil fuels, work that echoes his contributions to the IER and AEA sites.

The Obama White House, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the DOE were all frequent targets in his articles for IER and AEA. On display in one such post, which contrasts DOE and Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections of wind power penetration in the U.S. energy system, is a casual dismissal of the department’s energy modeling and a blatant misunderstanding of how the EIA forecasts actually work.

(Basically, Fitzsimmons claims that the EIA’s numbers are model-based projections, but in reality they are forecasts based on current levels of deployment and “business-as-usual” trends. The EIA has also been rightly criticized forunderestimating renewable energy growth year after year, a tradition that had become so absurd that the agency had to publicly address it and make plans to correct it.)

Fitzsimmons will doubtlessly bring his pro-fossil fuel talking points to the DOE, though it is unclear what the communications specialist will be tasked with as a “senior adviser.”

At the Red State Gathering in August 2016, during which Charles Drevna announced the launch of Fueling U.S. Forward, Fitzsimmons interviewed Drevna. On top of his archives of IER and AEA posts, the interview provides a good a sense of Fitzsimmons’ perspective on energy...

red more, see more at:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/07/09/another-koch-cadet-alex-fitzsimmon...

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I went to D.C.’s Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History expecting to learn about the history of our planet. Instead, I stumbled upon a Koch-funded climate denial disaster.

“With the planet in peril, arts groups can no longer afford the Koch brothers money.”

That’s what Washington Post art and culture critic Philip Kennicott wrote in a recent opinion piece about prolific climate denial funders Charles and David Koch. Having recently seen Koch money in action at one of the world’s most prestigious science museums, I couldn’t agree more.

On July 4, 2017, after watching the Independence Day Parade, I went to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum feeling joyful.

I’ve visited the museum before, and every time I visit I’m attracted to all different types of exhibitions — from wildlife specimens to the beautiful gem collection. As a graduate student from China, I’ve always looked at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as one of the best museums in the world.

But this visit was different. As I wandered the museum’s bottom floor, my eyes were drawn to the words “David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins” on the wall. Wait, that David Koch? The one famous for his role as an architect of climate science denial?

I decided to take a closer look at the exhibit. The first thing I saw were the faces of ancient humans and skeletons, which made up about half of the exhibit — that much made sense.

The other half of the exhibit is focused on how ancient people adapted to the changing environments. That’s where things took a shocking turn. As an environmental engineer, I’m very familiar with the science of climate change. There is no doubt that our climate has changed beyond its natural variability — accelerating since industrialization — and those changes are already affecting our planet.

read more:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/08/12/what-do-when-you-see-science-denia...

A new rooftop solar system is installed every three minutes in the U.S., up from one every 80 minutes just eight short years ago. If this pace continues to accelerate or even just holds steady, it will not be long before solar panels become visible, if not ubiquitous, in many neighborhoods nationwide.

That prospect is enough to upset the Koch brothers, the heirs of the Walmart fortune and the utility industry, all which are trying to stamp out the rooftop solar movement or at least make a tidy profit penalizing the people who use it. With the help of powerful lobbyists and PACs like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), American Enterprise Institute and Americans for Prosperity, they are set to do battle in statehouses across the nation in 2015.

ALEC, which receives much of its funding from the utility industry and fossil-fuel investors like the Kochs, has long been an opponent of renewable energyand the Obama administration’s effort to reduce carbon emissions. It's working with conservative activists and corporate interests to fight homeowners who are installing solar panels on their roofs. Calling people who install rooftop solar panel “freeriders,” another word for freeloaders, the pro-corporate group is actively promoting legislation in states to charge fees, even exorbitant ones, for rooftop solar installations.

Behind the lobbyists are the megarich Walton family. The majority owners of the Walmart retail chain also own several energy interests, including a 30% stake in First Solar, which makes the parts for huge commerical installations of solar panels that operate like power plants. A recent report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance shows that the Waltons are giving lobbyist organizations millions to attack renewable energy laws at the state level. Their prime targets are the homeowners and businesses that opt for solar panels to provide their own electricity.

“Rooftop solar in the U.S. is growing exponentially and more and more Americans have access to affordable solar power that cuts their energy bills and builds a more sustainable energy future," says Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. "Yet, the Waltons’ money is instead limiting average Americans’ ability to go solar and control their own energy future,” 

read more:

http://www.alternet.org/environment/koch-and-wal-marts-attempt-kill-solar-panels

Q: What does spending tens of millions of dollars supporting climate denial organizations over a twenty year period buy you?

A: Donald Trump, abdication of U.S. leadership on climate and increased risk of damage from climate change.

The Washington Post’s Bob O’Harrow just penned the most complete treatment to date on what has happened over the past year and the past twenty years starting in 1997, resulting in the June 2017 Rose Garden party to ditch the Paris Climate Agreement. This story contains a sequence of key events and history, ending in the Trump White House.

This story boils down to the legacy of climate denial funding by ExxonMobil, the Koch brothers, coal companies and conservative foundations, which has supported and paid for the salaries, campaigns, programs and rent at dozens of non-profit organizations who have opposed sensible climate policy.

See ExxonSecrets for Exxon’s funders.  See DeSmog's Disinformation Database for more up to date funding data.

Brand new reporting in this piece:

• The 1997 ExxonMobil Foundation report showing a grant for $95,000 for “Global Climate Change Program and other support”  This document was recovered by Climate Investigations Center from the University of Texas Exxon archives.  It is significant because the previous grants to CEI were only $5-10,000/year.  1997 was a crux year for climate policy with the Kyoto Protocol on the horizon. In subsequent years, 1997-2005, Exxon dropped $2.1million into CEI’s bank account.

1997 Exxon Education Foundation report identifying $95,000 climate change grant to Competitive Enterprise Institute, the year the Cooler Heads Coalition was formed.

• New April 18 email from Myron Ebell reveals a White House briefing this spring that may have helped convince Trump to dismiss the advice of Secretary of State Tillerson, dozens of major corporations and his daughter Ivanka:

This spring, he leveraged those connections to arrange a White House briefing in opposition to the Paris agreement, according to an email from Ebell to participants that was obtained by The Post.

“Thank you for agreeing to be part of the basket of deplorables,” he wrote in an April 18 email. “The purpose of the meeting is to present our views on why President Trump should keep his campaign commitment to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty.”

• They knew exactly what they are doing:

“One former Cooler Heads member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of a punitive backlash, said the coalition’s mission under Ebell was to be a “Johnny-on-the-spot for climate denialism” and to simulate a “cacophony of voices” against climate-change science.”

• Newly revealed document from tobacco documents  shows Myron Ebell’s former employer and current ally, Frontiers of Freedom, in pay to play mode for Big Tobacco:

In a funding proposal to Philip Morris, Frontiers suggested a complex influence campaign in support of tobacco. The plan foreshadowed some of the tactics that Cooler Heads members would soon employ.

Frontiers could “play a substantial role” in a campaign aimed at making it politically easier for lawmakers to thwart new tobacco taxes, the proposal said. It would “educate and motivate grassroots activists” to change the “political dynamics,” making it “politically possible for key legislators to block any legislative initiative.”

“The campaign proposed is, essentially, an issue-driven political campaign,” the document said.

• Murray Coal admits paying CEI for services in defense of coal.  These grants to CEI are not meant to be public.  An rare complete CEI IRS Form 990 provided to the Washington Post resulted in this first ever acknowledgement by Murray Coal of its support for CEI:

“Supporters included one of the Obama administration’s prime targets: big coal. A 2009 IRS filing for the Competitive Enterprise Institute — inadvertently made public without redactions — disclosed funding from two coal mining companies. Ohio-based Murray Energy donated $90,000, and Richmond-based Massey Energy gave $100,000.

In a statement to The Post, a Murray Energy spokesman said the company provided annual support to CEI “in order to advance their principles of ‘limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty.’ ”

“Indeed, for eight years the Obama Administration severely undermined these principles, in its effort to completely destroy the United States coal industry,” the statement said. “The Competitive Enterprise Institute was effective in advocating against this destruction, and in supporting preservation of coal jobs and family livelihoods, and low-cost, reliable electricity for all Americans.””

• Ebell was “mystified” at being selected to run Trump’s transition team:

The call to Ebell from the Trump campaign came in late August 2016. Ron Nicol, a business consultant leading the team preparing for a possible transition, left a voice mail saying he wanted Ebell to consider serving as transition chief at the EPA.

Ebell told The Post he was mystified. He had never served in the federal bureaucracy and Trump was not his favored candidate. “Why do you want me?” he asked when he returned Nicol’s call.

Ebell said the answer was direct. Trump wanted to abolish the EPA, and so did Ebell.  Ebell’s singular focus on the agency and global warming also was in tight alignment with the views of Scott Pruitt, the man who would soon lead the EPA.

• The signatories to a May letter to Trump demanding the President kill the Paris Agreement were the people who filled the Rose Garden event.  No corporate or trade association representatives made their presence known.  The crowd was largely composed of organizations currently supported by the Koch brothers, coal companies, the Mercer family (major Trump and Bannon/Brietbart supporters) and other conservative, “free market” and libertarian foundations.

On the morning of June 1, Ebell got an email from the White House. He was told that he and all those who signed the May 8 letter were invited to Trump’s Rose Garden announcement.

(Emphasis added to quotes from Washington Post)

read more:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/09/12/washington-post-exxon-koch-and-big...

Fact #5: Mike Pence was still repeating the “draw a line in the sand” line from the No Climate Tax pledge in 2015 at Thomas Pyle’s American Energy Alliance (AEA)

During a conference call organized by American Energy Alliance to unify resistance to President Obama’s pollution-cutting Clean Power Plan, Mr. Pence declared:

“We’ve drawn a line in the sand and made it clear that the state of Indiana will not comply … We’ll avail ourselves of all legal remedies.

AEA, an organization that has received millions from groups linked to the Kochs, was founded in 2008 by Thomas Pyle, a former Koch Industries director of federal affairs. After the conference call, AEA issued a statement which reads:

“We encourage other governors and state leaders to follow the lead of Governor Pence, as well as Governor Walker of Wisconsin, and protect their citizens by ceasing all efforts to comply with EPA’s regulation.”

On November 11, 2016, President Trump replaced New Jersey Governor Christie with Vice President-elect Pence as chairman of his transition. Pence was ready. Shortly thereafter, he chose Pyle to head up the new Administration’s energy transition team.

A roadmap to radically rewrite America’s energy future, written by Pyle, was uncovered the following month by the Center for Media & Democracy. It laid out a master plan of 14 policies — including withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement — that collectively amounts to a Koch Brothers wish list to boost the fossil fuel industry and cripple competitive climate change solutions.

But Mike Pence was only getting started. The Vice President’s influence over the federal government and his fealty to the Koch agenda is breathtaking. Ms. Mayer quotes U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) as saying:

“If Pence were to become President for any reason, the government would be run by the Koch brothers—period. He’s been their tool for years.”

She even quotes President Trump’s former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon:

“I’m concerned he’d be a President that the Kochs would own.”

Today, the country is fixated on President Trump. Meanwhile, the Koch Brothers are getting stronger. Through the Vice President’s, who could soon become President, they are preparing for a final take-over of the federal government. 

Scott Peterson is executive director of Checks and Balances Project, a national watchdog blog that seeks to hold government officials, lobbyists and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP comes from sustainable economy philanthropies and donors. 

read more:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/10/20/5-facts-about-mike-pence-s-close-t...

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For decades, the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into building a network of political groups, think tanks, academic institutions, and grassroots outfits, all with the aim of realizing the brothers’ libertarian, small-government worldview. During Barack Obama’s presidency, the Koch network acted as the unyielding opposition, funding Republican candidates for office and seeking to block Obama’s agenda from practically day one. With their wealth and influence, the Kochs built their own rival party to the GOP itself.

But with the election of Donald Trump, a candidate who had little in the way of a policy agenda or a cadre of loyalists to run his government, the role of the Kochs and their network flipped: Now, they were in a prime position to stock the new administration with their own people and set the agenda. As one Koch networkdonor told Politico late last year, “In creating the Koch network, I don’t think that we ever envisioned that we would be supplying staffers to this semi-free market, semi-populist president. But we’re happy that he’s picking people who have that free market background, particularly because on many issues, [Trump] is a blank slate, so anybody with expertise is in an amazing position to shape his agenda.” 

A new report by the government accountability group Public Citizen finds that the Kochs have done just that. Public Citizen—a vocal critic of Trump that has filedseveral lawsuits against his administration—counts 44 different Trump administration officials who have close links to the Kochs and their sprawling network.

That list starts at the top of the administration—Vice President Mike Pence is a longtime ally of the Kochs—and includes senior and junior figures throughout the White House and the various agencies overseeing the functioning of the government. Marc Short, the White House’s point man on dealing with Congress, is a former president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the political nerve center of the Koch network. White House Counsel Don McGahn represented Koch-backed groups in private practice. CIA Director Mike Pompeo—rumored to be the next secretary of state—represented the Kansas district where Koch Industries was headquartered, giving him the nickname “the congressman from Koch.” 

read more:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/trump-koch-brothers-deregula...

The geopolitics of oil in the Trump era

by Thierry Meyssan

The United States have become the leading world producer of hydrocarbons. As from now, they are using their dominant position exclusively to maximise their profits, and do not hesitate to eliminate their major rivals in oil production, plunging their citizens into misery. Although in the past, access to Middle East oil was a vital necessity for their economy (Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr.), then a market over which they presided (Clinton), and then again a failing ressouce whose supply they wanted to control (Bush Jr., Obama), hydrocarbons have now become black gold (Trump). Thierry Meyssan retraces the evolution of this bloody market.

Economy depends primarily on the source of energy to which it has access. This need has always been one of the main causes of war. At one time, it was necessary to put slaves to work in the fields then, in the 19th century, to seize coal with which to feed machinery, and today we rely on hydrocarbons (oil and gas).

To avoid looking at this logic too closely, men have always invented good reasons to justify what they are doing.

Thus, today we believe 

- that Iran is being sanctioned because of its military nuclear programme (which it closed down in 1988); 

- that the installations and assets of the PDVSA (Venezuelan Oil) have been seized in order to transfer them from the dictator Maduro to Juan Guaido’s team (although it is the former and not the latter who was constitutionally elected President of Venezuela); 

- or again that the United States maintains its military presence in Syria in order to support their Kurdish allies against the dictator el-Assad (while in fact the Kurds are mercenaries who do not represent their people, and el-Assad was democratically elected).

These narratives have no real basis in truth and are contradicted by the facts. We believe them because we think we can make a profit from them.

The world market

Hydrocarbons represent the major world market, more important than foodstuffs, weapons, medicine and drugs. At first, they were managed by private companies, before becoming, in the 1960’s, the private hunting ground of states. As the economy developed, new actors stepped in, and the market became increasingly unpredictable. Besides this, from the end of the USSR until the return of Russia, the market became highly speculative, undergoing variations of sales prices between 1 and 4.

Apart from this, the world noticed that many oil fields, after having been heavily exploited, were now drying up. At the end of the 1960’s, the Rockfeller family and the Club of Rome popularised the idea that hydrocarbons were fossil energies, and therefore limited. However, contrary to this belief, we do not actually know the origin of hydrocarbons. The hypothesis suggests that they are probably fossils, but perhaps not. Nonetheless, even if hydrocarbons are renewable, that would not prevent them from disappearing if they were over-exploited (the Hubbert peak theory). Above all, the Club of Rome studied the question with a Malthusian a priori – its mission was to demonstrate that it was necessary to reduce the world’s population because the Earth’s resources are limited. Its belief in the end of oil is no more than an argument to justify the desire of the Rockfellers to limit the demographic growth of the poor populations. Within the space of half a century, we believed on five separate occasions that oil was going to become scarce within the next few years. Yet there still exist reserves which have been proven sufficient to supply the needs of Humanity for at least another century.

The highly variable costs of exploitation (from 1 in Saudi Arabia to 15 in the USA), the improvement of technology, the considerable variations of prices and the ideological debate have several times demonstrated the improbability of a return on investments. However, taking into account the operational delays, any interruption of the investment in research, exploitation and transport provokes a rarefaction of the produce available in the next five years. As a result, the market is particularly chaotic.

The world energy policy

The creation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) by Venezuelan Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, in 1960, progressively displaced the power to fix prices from the oil companies to the exporting states. This transfer was made apparent during the Egypto-Syrian war against Israël, in October 1973 (known in the West as the « Yom Kippur War »), and world oil crisis it provoked.

The United States, which were at that time the major world power, led different policies in the hydrocarbon sector. 

- President Jimmy Carter considered that his country needed this source of energy, and that access to Middle East oil was a question of « national security ». The Arabs and the Persians could not refuse to sell them its black gold or to exaggerate its cost. 

- President Ronald Reagan created CentCom, the US Command for this region (defined according to the knowledge of the oil fields available at that time). In order to apply the policies of his predecessor, he negotiated for permanent military bases and began installing troops. 

- President George Bush Sr. took the head of a quasi-universal coalition and crushed Iraq, which had imagined that it could find its own outlets, and had dared to try to recuperate the Kuwaiti wells of which the British had deprived it. 

- President Bill Clinton and his Vice-President Al Gore inherited a unipolar world, without the USSR. They drew up a map of the corridors that had to be opened across the world (pipelines, highways, railways and Internet zones) and the military operations it would be necessary to conduct in order to build them and ensure their security – for example the war against Yugoslavia in order to build the 8th corridor). 

- President George Bush Jr. and his Vice-President Dick Cheney, convinced that hydrocarbons were soon to become rare, launched a series of wars, no longer for the purpose of grabbing the black gold, but to control its production and market. Returning to the Malthusian theory of the imminent end of these energy sources, they decided to control who would have the right to buy it and therefore be able to keep their population alive. 

- President Barack Obama seized the opportunity of shale gas and oil in his own country and decided to favour its extraction. He was hoping that in this way he could save his country from the Malthusian curse. 

- President Donald Trump took power when his country had become the world’s leading producer. He decided to overturn US strategy.

Donald Trump’s policies

When President Trump nominated the representative from Kansas, Mike Pompeo, as Director of the CIA, we interpreted this unexpected nomination in terms of the President’s difficulty to find allies in the Republican Party which he had just over-run. We had forgotten that from 2006 to 2010, Pompeo had been the CEO of the hydrocarbon equipment supplier Sentry International. He knew how the oil market worked, and knew personally the world’s main actors. At the same time, President Trump nominated Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Tillerson had been the CEO of one of the major hydrocarbon companies, Exxon-Mobil. We should therefore have considered the possibility that energy policy would be at the centre of the actions of his administration.

It is obviously impossible today to estimate the extent of Pompeo’s actions as head of the secret service. However, we may entertain the thought that his older objectives may not be too far removed from those he defends today. And in fact, it so happens that he has just revealed them.

Every year, an advisory board created by the uncontested specialist of the hydrocarbon market, Daniel Yergin, organises an international meeting concerning the evolution of the situation. The 2019 Congress (CERAweek, 9 to 13 March, in Houston, Texas) was the largest international meeting in History on this subject. The CEOs of the main companies of 78 countries were present. Top of the bill was the speech by Mike Pompeo. The whole profession had been notified of the importance of his intervention, and this was the only moment at which the huge room was chock-full.

After having saluted his ex-colleagues, Mike Pompeo expressed his pride for the incredible performances of his country’s oil industry, which, in six years, had become the world’s major oil producer, thanks to new techniques for the extraction of shale. He announced that he had created a special bureau in the State Department tasked with managing energy resources. From now on, the directors of specialised US companies would have to talk to him. His mission was to help them to win markets overseas. In exchange, they must agree to help their own country to apply his energy policy.

This consisted both of producing as much as possible in the United States, and also drying up a part of the world offer in order to balance the market. This is the only way that the country would be able to sell shale oil and gas, since their extraction is particularly expensive.

According to the Pompeo doctrine, it is not a question of reducing world production to the level of demand per quotas of production, such as the OPEP+ has instituted for the last two years, but by closing the door on certain large-scale exporters - Iran, Venezuela and Syria (whose gigantic reserves were discovered only recently, and are not yet being exploited). The NOPEC project (No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act) should therefore soon emerge from the archives. This proposed law, of which numerous variants were introduced to Congress two decades ago, is aimed at eliminating the sovereign immunity that the OPEP countries invoke in order to form a cartel, despite US anti-trust laws. It would enable the pursuance before US tribunals of all the state-members of OPEP+, despite their having been nationalised, for having profited from their dominant position, and would therefore influence the rise in prices.

It so happens that, since the end of 2016, Russia has associated itself with OPEP in order to raise prices. It has thus agreed to diminish its production. This is all the more indispensable for Russia since its economy suffers from Western sanctions, and that the export of hydrocarbons - and also weapons - is one of its main sources of income. Consequently, in the current situation, the interests of Moscow and Washington do not hamper one another, but coincide to avoid flooding the market. This is why Russia does nothing to help Iran to export its oil, and still does not exploit the areas of Syria of which its nationalised companies have acquired the monopoly. It is also probable that it will not help Venezuela in this sector either. As a result, the transfer of the European headquarters of the PDVSA to Moscow has been postponed.

Russia, which saved Syria from NATO’s mercenary jihadists, has never agreed to go any further. Without reaction, it watches the slow collapse of this once prosperous nation. The situation has not yet degraded into famine, like in Yemen, but is inexorably approaching that condition.

However, the United States intend not only to stabilise the world offer, but also to determine its flow, which is the source of the pressure by Washington both on the European Union and its member-states to avoid terminating their pipeline North Stream 2. The point is to free the EU from is dependence on Russian hydrocarbons. In the event that these interventions should be crowned with success, Russia would turn this flow towards China, which would be unable to pay the same price.

Already, in order to respond to the needs of the European Union, the United States are building,as fast as possible, methane ports capable of handling shale gas. Meanwhile, Russia is accelerating the construction of the Turkish Stream pipeline, which would create another route to reach the Union.

Besides this,the US Treasury Department is blocking all means of transport for Iranian and Venezuelan oil, and also deliveries to destinations in Syria. The data to which it has access attest that the CIA had begun to observe this commerce in detail since the election of Donald Trump, including during the period of transition, which confirms the idea of the central position of energy in its policies. The attitude of the White House towards Syria is different, insofar as this country is currently unable to exploit its reserves, and Russia is allowing time to pass. The aim is to prevent reconstruction and therefore make life impossible for its people. The CIA is implementing an intense strategy of sabotage against any form of energy supply. The majority of the population, for example, has no more gas for heating their homes, nor for cooking purposes. Worse, a Turkish petrol tanker which was transporting Iranian product to Syria was sabotaged off the port of Latakia. The ship exploded, causing the deaths of its entire crew and a vast oil slick which the Western Press did not even mention.

Considering that Hezbollah participates in the Lebanese government while serving Iranian interests, the US administration extended its ban on the export of oil to Beirut Mike Pompeo is attempting to impose a new distribution of territorial waters which would re-route Lebanese oil tankers under Israëli sovereignty.

In identical fashion, Venezuela gives oil to Cuba in exchange for its military experts and its doctors. The State Department is trying to sanction any exchange between the two countries, particularly since Cuban military experts are considered to be responsible for the support given to President Maduro by the Venezuelan army.

Coming evolutions

For the moment, Donald Trump’s policies can only succeed by diminishing US demand. Until now, hydrocarbons were mainly used to fill automobile petrol tanks, which explains the development of projects for electric cars. Consuming petrol in order to supply electricity is much less expensive in the United States than using it directly in car motors. Above all, electricity can be supplied from various sources on US territory, inexpensively and at stable prices.

It is important to note that the development of electric vehicles has hardly any connection with the ideology according to which we must decrease the production of CO2 to bring down the temperature of the Earth. On one hand because the making of batteries can itself produce large quantities of CO2, but on the other, because electricity can be much more responsible for the production of CO2 than oil, when it is produced by coal, as is the case in Germany and China.

Moreover, the consumption of oil is evolving. On the world scale, it is no longer in priority destined for transport, but for the fabrication of plastics.

The United States will not allow the export of hydrocarbons from Iran, Venezuela and Syria until 2023 or 2024, the date at which their shale production will begin to decrease rapidly, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Once again, the entire geopolitical structure will be overturned.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation 

Pete Kimberley

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https://www.voltairenet.org/article205987.html

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A scheme to abolish the Department of Energy (DOE) helped spur a failed 1980 Libertarian Party presidential bid — and in the process laid the groundwork for Charles and David Koch's powerful network of influence — as documents from a newly published archive show.

The documents in the new KochDocs.org archive include a relatively little-noticed column penned by fossil fuel industrialist Charles Koch for the Libertarian Review in August 1977, in which Charles, who had served as a member of President Carter’s energy task force in 1976, argued against Carter’s energy policy, writing that the “only ‘certainty’ to be associated with governmental planning is that it will not work, will tend to produce results opposite to those intended, and will doom any substantial private long-range planning in energy development.”

Within three years, the Energy Department had been established by federal law — and its abolishment had become a central plank of the Libertarian Party’s 1980 presidential campaign, which featured Ed Clark as its presidential candidate and Koch Industries’ David Koch as his running-mate. 

“There’s nothing wrong with America’s energy problems that deregulated, decontrolled private enterprise can’t cure,” a Clark campaign ad published on May 5, 1980 proclaimed.

“One of my first priorities as President would be to abolish the Department of Energy,” the ad quoted Clark as saying.

The documents shine new light not only on the Kochs’ early opposition to the formation of the Department of Energy but also on their evolution from direct participation in politics to secretive behind-the-scenes funders of the American political right.

“That election also handed the Kochs their first political setback, driving them to rethink their approach to libertarian ideas,” The New York Times reported in 2014. “Instead of replacing the Republican Party, they have helped to profoundly reshape it.”

The Department of Energy plays a heavy role in the nuclear industry — a competitor for Koch Industries, which is heavily invested in fossil fuels — and includes branches that fund research into energy and technology and that offer the federal government a source of information and data about the country’s energy supplies intended to be independent from industry sources.

“Seeing that letter from Charles Koch, basically opposing the creation of the Department of Energy, really struck me as significant,” Lisa Graves, the director of the Koch Docs project, told DeSmog. “That’s in some ways the origin story.”

The drive to create a federal energy department arose following OPEC’s 1973 oil embargo, which ended in 1974 but left a huge mark on the next presidential campaign. “Carter won that race. He comes into office in 1977, he’s sworn in, and one of the things that he feels he has a mandate from the American people to do is to address comprehensively the energy needs of America,” Graves said, “but there’s Charles Koch saying 'no' and using pretty strong rhetoric in his article.”

The dispute could potentially affect Koch Industries' interests, and not just because the Carter administration was considering an energy policy that included taxes that would have affected the Kochs. The Department of Energy would also offer Congress independent expertise on energy. “In essence, are Americans going to have information about the best public policy options for energy coming exclusively from the industry itself,” Graves asked, “or from independent sources focused on the public interest?”

“This is a battle that [Charles and David] fought and lost 40 years ago,” Graves added, “and yet it’s still a battle that is animating the Republican Party candidates that Koch has backed.”

Though the Energy Department still exists today, it’s currently helmed by a man who, like the Kochs, previously called for its abolition. In 2017, President Trump appointed Rick Perry to run the Department of Energy.

During his own failed presidential bid in 2012, Perry had called for the DOE to be abolished (once famously forgetting the name of the department during a televised primary debate in 2011).

Following his nomination, Perry walked back his call to abolish the DOE outright. “My past statements made over five years ago about abolishing the Department of Energy do not reflect my current thinking,” Perry told Congress during his confirmation hearings. “In fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination.”

Perry’s tenure in office at the DOE has been called “a bonanza for corporations and the Koch brothers,” as climate science deniers and Koch-network veterans joined the top ranks of the Energy Department.

“In essence,” said Graves, “they have dramatic control or influence within these agencies because so many of the people who’ve been appointed either to top positions or to not-Senate-confirmed positions have Koch ties, either to Koch Industries or to their nonprofit operations.”

The Libertarian Party was formed in the early 1970s, holding its first national convention in 1972 — a time when it counted just 150 members in New York City — and electing its first state legislative candidate in Alaska in 1978.

The KochDocs archive's documents show that from 1976 to 1979, David Koch repeatedly cut big checks for the Libertarian Party, receiving personal thank you notes from party officials.

That funding surged when David became the party’s vice presidential candidate.

Read more:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/08/07/documents-shine-new-light-koch-bro...

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http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/36397

Billionaire David Koch, a major donor to the Republican party, has died aged 79. He had been suffering from cancer.

The former majority owner of Koch Industries was ranked by Forbes below brother Charles as the 11th richest person in the world.

Together they had a huge influence on the conservative movement and bankrolled causes pushing for small government and a free economy.

But this has made them both polarising figures.

They gave a lot of money to Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign but fell out with President Donald Trump over his tough immigration policy and tariffs. 

• 'Blood and money': The story of the Koch brothers

In 2018 Koch stepped down from Koch Industries - which refines crude oil, produces fertiliser, and manufactures household products - citing his declining health.

He had been a major donor to the arts, especially ballet, and donated to New York's Lincoln Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center hospital.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49438682

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We replay this TRNN documentary on the Koch Brothers and their war on climate science, on the occasion of David Koch's death on August 23rd, 2019. Narrated by Danny Glover, this documentary special reveals how climate change science has been under systematic attack.

See at:

https://therealnews.com/stories/trump-the-koch-brothers-and-their-war-on-climate-science