The Koch brothers, who are deeply embedded in the fossil fuel industry, have long been financing offensives against electric vehicles through multimillion-dollar lobbying campaigns.
They are at it again with a fresh new effort to delegitimize electric cars and promote fossil fuels.
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Fortune is running a Koch Industry advertisement-as-commentary piece today ‘authored’ by Jim Mahoney, the employee signaled out in a Huffington Post article last month as leading a $10M campaign against EVs.
The piece doesn’t directly reference Tesla by name, but it does feature pictures of the Model S both in Fortune’s article and subsequent social media push by the publication (see above).
We advised that these hit pieces were coming but didn’t know they’d be coming so soon.
It looks like electric vehicles are still in the “fighting phase” as we learn today that billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are planning to back a new group of lobbyists with a focus on “boosting petroleum-based transportation fuels and attacking government subsidies for electric vehicles”, according to refining industry sources talking to the Huffington Post….
According to the Huffington Post, the Kochs are teaming up with James Mahoney, a member of their company’s board, and lobbyist Charlie Drevna, who until recently was the head of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. Their mission will be to “make the public aware of all the benefits of petroleum-based transportation fuels”.
Mahoney is a petroleum industry veteran who uses a few tired gems like:
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Brace yourself for some misinformation in the coming months.
Gandhi said: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
It looks like electric vehicles are still in the “fighting phase” as we learn today that billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are planning to back a new group of lobbyists with a focus on “boosting petroleum-based transportation fuels and attacking government subsidies for electric vehicles”, according to refining industry sources talking to the Huffington Post.
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