At least one person wasn’t happy about the free publicity he landed from our story yesterday (Undisclosed Koch-Affiliated Parrots Mislead About Koch Industries' Environmental Record on Twitter). William (Bill) Frezza’s Twitter bio listed him as a “Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute” (CEI), which we pointed out to be supposedly partially funded by Koch-affiliates (including the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation).
We were surprised that Mr. Frezza blocked on us on Twitter, and decided to do some follow up research. The tweets we cited in our original article were indeed strange. Multiple geographically dispersed Twitter users, including one with the handle “recruiter4koch”, separately Tweeted similar content about the EPA and Koch Industries. To our knowledge, there was no news article or press release issued with that specific content while these Tweets were being posted. Certainly, none of the tweets linked to such material.
For background, Mr. Frezza’s tweet was: “Inconvenient: For 2 years in a row the EPA has named Koch Industries number one in pollution prevention. initiatives www.kochind.com/...”
As it turns out, there was good reason for Mr. Frezza to be well acquainted with recent developments at Koch Industries. In addition to his work with Koch-linked CEI, Mr. Frezza allegedly moderated a panel at a CPAC event promoted by the Charles Koch Institute as recently as March 2016. One of the panelists was listed as Alison Fraser, managing director of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, and two of the others were from the American Enterprise Institute and the Mercatus Center—organizations supposedly linked to the Kochs (according to the cited references).
There was also at least one reason for Mr. Frezza to be a shy. As reported by Inside Climate News, BillMoyers.com, and others, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where Mr. Frezza is a fellow, was recently subpoenaed. BillMoyers.com reports:
Attorney general of the US Virgin Islands Claude Walker served the conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) with a subpoena last Thursday, demanding several decades worth of communications, emails and other documents pertaining to CEI’s work on climate change policy and donor information. By subpoenaing CEI, Walker is broadening “a multifaceted legal inquiry into whether fossil fuel companies broke any laws as they sought for decades to undermine the scientific consensus and head off forceful action to address the climate crisis,” reports InsideClimateNews.
In fact, a review of the recent articles on this legal maneuvering is striking. Even seemingly objective sources describe the inquiry as focused on Exxon’s alleged role in the climate denial movement. Only the unabashedly liberal PoliticusUSA dares to speculate:
Tables Turned – A. G. Subpoena’s Koch-Related Climate Deniers’ Documents
Recent developments only add further reason to speculate as to where this investigation, if it is allowed to continue, will really lead.