The Energy Equality Coalition's Koch-Fueled Attack on the Federal Electric Car Tax Credit

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The federal electric vehicle (EV) tax credit has survived House and Senate negotiations and will not be repealed by Congressโ€™s tax reform bill. The fate of the $7,500 tax credit had been uncertain after House Republicans voted to eliminate the financial incentive in their version of the taxย bill.

The credit, which was adopted as part of the 2009 stimulus bill and which has strong bipartisan roots, has come under a renewed series of attacks in recent months, including from groups with close ties toย the Koch brothers and other fossil fuelโ€“funded think tanks and frontย groups.

The Institute for Energy Research (IER), which was founded in part by Charles Koch and is led by former Koch Industries Director of Federal Affairs Tom Pyle, has argued against the EV tax credit since such federal incentivesย were introduced. Though IER has been relatively quiet on the credit in the recent round of debates, a number of other groups have surfaced to lobby for its swiftย cancellation.

One group launched for the express purpose of fighting the EV tax credit is the Energy Equality Coalitionย (EEC), which features a slogan that bashes electric cars as being โ€œBuilt by Billionaires, Bought by Millionaires โ€ฆ and subsidized by the rest ofย us.โ€

The EEC launched in late 2015, with the EV tax credit immediately in its crosshairs. Though the group has been relatively quiet in the press and on social media โ€” with just two posts on its Facebook pageย in 2017, both after the House first introduced its tax reform plan โ€” it is connected to a web of other Koch- and Big Oilโ€“backed organizations, suggesting that there may be more coordination of campaign and lobbying efforts behind theย scenes.

The Energy Equality Coalition was launched as an offshoot of Frontiers of Freedom, an Exxon and Koch-funded front group run by George Landrith, who also serves on the EEC Board of Directors. When EEC launched in late 2015, Landrith told the Weekly Standard:

โ€œWorking-class people are paying taxes to subsidize luxury goods for the richest among us. That’s wrong and needs to stop. So we’re launching the Energy Equality Coalition to raise awareness about this imbalance and end the subsidy behind it. We believe there should be energy equality, not special treatment for theย wealthy.โ€

This language used by Landrith anticipates talking points that would be employed regularly by the Koch network over the following two years up to present. See, forย instance:

Who’s Behind the Energy Equalityย Coalition?

While running Frontiers of Freedom, Landrith launched and now serves as treasurer on EECโ€™s Board of Directors. According to Greenpeace researchers, Frontiers of Freedom received at least $335,000 from Koch foundations between 1997 andย 2015.

The Energy Equality Coalition is also registered to an entity called North Rock Reports, LLC., which itself was set up by a Washington, D.C. law firm to create โ€œuntraceable pressure groups for conservativeย causes.โ€

The EECโ€™s director is David Williams, who also serves as president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which has been described as โ€œan advocacy front group that is part of the Koch political network, and is largely funded by money funneled through the Koch-connected Americans for Job Security, Center to Protect Patient Rights (now called American Encore), and Freedom Partners.โ€

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) has launched repeated attacks on renewable energy over the past few years, including through its SolarSecrets.org website, launched in 2014. As the Energy and Policy Institute revealed, the TPA also published a report criticizing โ€œsolar energyโ€™s subsidy-based business modelsโ€ and signed an Americans for Prosperity letter urging North Carolina lawmakers to repeal the stateโ€™s renewable energy standard.ย ย 

Horace Cooper is listed as president and secretary of the Energy Equality Coalition. Cooper is a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, and is also a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), where he co-chairs Project 21’s National Advisoryย Board.

In August 2016 Cooper spoke on energy policy at the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, appearing in the same program as Charles Drevna, president of the now-defunct Koch-funded Fueling U.S. Forward campaign. That wasย according to the New York Times, which added that โ€œ[t]he event brought together African-American political groups and counted Fueling U.S. Forward among itsย sponsors.โ€

Echoing now-familiar Koch network messaging, recommendations adopted by delegates at the convention included the following statement: โ€œPolicies that subsidize electric vehicles and solar panels for the wealthy raise energy prices and harm the blackย community.โ€

The Ratepayer Fairnessย Act

Writing on behalf of the Energy Equality Coalition in July 2016, Landrith promoted a bill that would, as he said in hisย op-ed in The Hill, โ€œ[require] public utilities to examine whether new policies benefit only a small number of wealthy electricย consumers.โ€

Called the Ratepayer Fairness Act, identical bills were introduced into the House and Senate by Congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas (now CIA director, and whose โ€œbiggest backerโ€ was Koch Industries) and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona. The bill, which essentially aims to put a stop to state-level solar net metering programs, was promoted publicly by Landrith and on the EECโ€™s website, and was lobbied for continuously by Koch Industries.ย ย 

In fact, according to mandatory disclosure forms, Koch Industries has lobbied on behalf of the original bill โ€” or the identical ones that were introduced this year โ€” in every quarter since the first Ratepayer Fairness Act was introduced in Decemberย 2015.

On top of the millions that the company spends on lobbying on multiple pieces of legislation and to agency rulemaking through its own affiliate Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, Koch Industries has paid $80,000 from April through September of this year to Hunton & Williams, LLP to lobby specifically for thisย bill.

At the moment, it seems as if all of the EECโ€™s and other Koch-funded efforts to repeal the $7,500 credit have been for naught, as Congressโ€™s compromise tax reform bill leaves the federal EV tax credit as is. However, the lobbying and messaging efforts around the Ratepayer Fairness Act could provide a blueprint for future legislative attacks on EVs.

In some form or another, the line of attacks on EV-friendly policies and incentives will doubtlessly continue, spreading from this growing constellation of Koch-connected front groups and thinkย tanks.

Main image:ย EV.network, used withย permission

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Ben Jervey is a Senior Fellow for DeSmog and directs the KochvsClean.com project. He is a freelance writer, editor, and researcher, specializing in climate change and energy systems and policy. Ben is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. He was the original Environment Editor for GOOD Magazine, and wrote a longstanding weekly column titled โ€œThe New Ideal: Building the clean energy economy of the 21st Century and avoiding the worst fates of climate change.โ€ He has also contributed regularly to National Geographic News, Grist, and OnEarth Magazine. He has published three booksโ€”on eco-friendly living in New York City, an Energy 101 primer, and, most recently, โ€œThe Electric Battery: Charging Forward to a Low Carbon Future.โ€ He graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College, and earned a Masterโ€™s in Energy Regulation and Law at Vermont Law School. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much ofย Europe.

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