Barack Obama singles out Koch brothers over fossil fuel lobbying
Source: The Guardian
Barack Obama singles out Koch brothers over fossil fuel lobbying
Joanna Walters in San Francisco
Tuesday 25 August 2015 04.24 BST
Barack Obama has railed against US political and business figures who oppose the expansion of wind and solar power in a speech where he singled out the influential Koch brothers for criticism.
Accusing opponents of his energy policies of “wanting to protect an outdated status quo” based on fossil fuels, he warned them away from “standing in the way of the future” and his efforts to combat climate change.
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“I’m getting resistance from some fossil fuel interests who want to protect the outdated status quo. When you start seeing massive lobbying efforts backed by fossil fuel interests or conservative thinktanks or the Koch brothers, pushing for new laws to roll back renewable energy standards or prevent new clean energy businesses from succeeding, that’s a problem,” he said.
The Koch brothers are Charles and David Koch, the business siblings who control Koch Industries, a multinational conglomerate based in Kansas with vast holdings in oil, chemicals and a host of other traditional industries. They actively fund Republican and conservative causes that oppose expanding the government’s role in healthcare and combating climate change, particularly through taxation and tighter regulation of power plant emissions.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/25/barack-obama-warns-fossil-fuelled-opponents-he-has-clean-energy-to-spare
