The toxic history of Koch Industries is not limited to physical pollution. In March, Koch signed a consent decree with the Department of Justice requiring it to spend more than $40 million to bring this plant into compliance with the Clean Air Act. The cost is borne by communities in cities like Port Arthur, Texas, where a Koch-owned facility produces as much as 2 billion pounds of petrochemicals every year. Across its businesses, Koch generates 24 million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.įor Koch, this license to pollute amounts to a perverse, hidden subsidy. Koch’s climate pollution, meanwhile, outpaces oil giants including Valero, Chevron and Shell. The company ranks 13th in the nation for toxic air pollution. Thanks in part to its 2005 purchase of paper-mill giant Georgia-Pacific, Koch Industries dumps more pollutants into the nation’s waterways than General Electric and International Paper combined. According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute, only three companies rank among the top 30 polluters of America’s air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power and Koch Industries. The volume of Koch Industries’ toxic output is staggering. The company’s stock response to inquiries from reporters: “We are privately held and don’t disclose this information.” By that metric, it is larger than IBM, Honda or Hewlett-Packard and is America’s second-largest private company after agribusiness colossus Cargill. Koch touts only one top-line financial figure: $115 billion in annual revenue, as estimated by Forbes. The building, like the brothers’ fiercely private firm, is literally and figuratively a black box. Koch Industries is headquartered in a squat, smoked-glass building that rises above the prairie on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. What is less clear is where all that money comes from. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year’s midterms. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today’s GOP. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs they’ve cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. Koch Foundation.The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. In 2022 Koch - a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art - was pictured at a Met acquisitions gala, and also at an artsy, upscale Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art celebration. In 2021 she was spotted at an event in Bridgehampton for NYU Langone Health. Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images Koch and her late husband, David, were regulars on the charity scene. Since then, it seems she has been selective about which functions she’ll attend. In August 2020, the NY Post ran an article titled, “Julia Flesher Koch, NYC’s richest woman, has turned into a hermit in the Hamptons,” claiming she and her family had not left her $18.8 million Southampton mansion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dana Blumberg’s guests, also including Tom Brady, Kevin Hart, rapper Lil Baby and country crooner Kenny Chesney.Ī Hamptons regular tells us they were surprised to see Koch, who has rarely been seen out at parties since her husband’s death in August 2019 at age 79. Getty Images for NYU Langone Healthĭave Matthews performed at the party for Kraft and his wife Dr. Getty Images Koch turned up this weekend at Washington Post heiress Lally Weymouth’s party. Julia Koch popped up on the Hamptons social scene after being largely absent since her husband’s death in 2019. Koch, 61, was also spotted the next night at billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s holiday shindig. Sources said Weymouth’s kids were also at the bash that featured live music and went till midnight. This year, guests included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Joe Manchin, Martha Stewart, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former NYPD boss Ray Kelly, as well as Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black, and a number of foreign dignitaries, we hear. She hasn’t circulated socially since her husband, Koch Industries billionaire David Koch, passed away nearly four years ago. Koch - listed as the second wealthiest woman in the world by Forbes with an estimated net worth of $58.2 billion - was spotted at Washington Post heiress Lally Weymouth’s Fourth of July bash. Wilbur Ross to host Hamptons event for emerging White House hopeful Glenn YoungkinĪmerica’s richest woman, Julia Koch, made a rare appearance on the Hamptons social circuit over the holiday weekend - after being mostly absent since 2019.
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