The Topeka Capital-Journal has a story reinforcing the link betweenrenewable energy opposition and fossil fuel funding. In 2014, Kansas University lecturer Art Hall testified against Kansas's renewable energy standard. Hall's testimony was based on unpublished research funded by the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation (a foundation funded solely by Koch Industries).
This was not Hall's first encounter with the Kochs. In fact, before moving to Kansas University's Center for Applied Economics, Hall was the chief economist for Koch Industries' public affairs group. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that after Hall left Koch Industries, the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation provided the seed funding for Hall's Center for Applied Economics at Kansas U. The Foundation gave $250,000 to get the Center off the ground in 2008 and another $100,000 in 2009.
That funding was explicitly designated for a "pipeline of reform-oriented research projects" to create "an intellectual foundation for policy change." In essence, a Koch operative used Koch money to set up shop in a University, thereby providing an academic cover for pro-Koch research.
But before you jump to the conclusion that the KU Center for Applied Economics is just a front for Koch propaganda, the end of the Capital-Journal story points out that other research projects at the Center aren't Koch-sponsored. For example, one report was funded by the Kansas Policy Institute, a free-market group affiliated with the State Policy Network and ALEC. There's also a report on alcohol sales, funded by the "Coalition for Jobs and Consumer Choice," a group created by Kansas businesses to lobby for more liquor sales.
Art Hall also assures us that fears regarding the corrupting influence of his Koch funding "are not warranted." Except, these aren't just fears, so much as researchedand documentedfacts.
But don't expect the Center for Applied Economics to research that topic. Unless you pay them.
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