Charles Koch Is Trying to Gut the EPA’s Power to Limit Carbon Emissions

Dark money groups funded by the fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch are lobbying Supreme Court justices to block the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

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Charles Koch during an interview with the Washington Post in Dana Point, California, 2015. (Patrick T. Fallon for the Washington Post via Getty Images)


Dark money groups bankrolled by billionaire Charles Koch are lobbying the Supreme Court to limit environmental regulators’ power to reduce carbon emissions, according to filings reviewed by the Daily Poster. The new pressure campaign follows the conservative oil tycoon using his political network to help install Donald Trump’s three ultraconservative justices on the court.

Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. The case could decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is allowed to issue rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — and comes at a time when scientists are warning that governments must rapidly decarbonize the planet in order to avoid catastrophic weather-related impacts from climate change.

If the court sides with the Koch groups, the chief environmental regulator in one of the world’s largest carbon-emitting nations would be barred from enacting many policies to combat climate change.

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