Funding for the foundations comes from the conglomerate Koch Industries, the "nation's largest privately held energy company, with annual revenues of more than $25 billion. ... Koch Industries is now the second largest family-owned business in the U.S., with annual sales of over $20 billion."
"The company is owned by two of the richest men in America," David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch (described as 'reclusive billionaires'), who have a combined personal fortune estimated at more than $3 billion and who have emerged as major Republican contributors in recent years. ... Both David and Charles Koch are ranked among the 50 richest people in the country by 'Forbes'."
The Koch brothers control the three family foundations that have "lavished tens of millions of dollars in the past decade on 'free market' advocacy institutions in and around Washington."[1] --'The Nation', "What Wouldn't Bob Dole Do for Koch Oil?"
The foundations are financed via the oil and gas fortunes of Fred G. Koch, a founding member of the John Birch Society. David is a libertarian who "provides a significant amount of funding for the Cato Institute's $4 million annual budget."
Curtis Moore's "Rethinking the Think Tanks" (subtitled "How industry-funded 'experts' twist the environmental debate') appeared in the September/October 2002 issue of 'Sierra' magazine. Moore states that when "The views will seem to be coming from an independent think tank -- the Cato Institute or Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), for example ... behind these groups stands the [Koch] brother's vast fortune."
In fact, Charles Koch is a co-founder of Cato in 1977 and David helped to launch CSE in 1986. This, says Moore, is the brothers simply following in "dad's footsteps: Fred Koch was a charter member of the ultraconservative John Birch Society in 1958."
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