Koch Industries Inc
Profile
Koch Industries is a family-owned chemical and manufacturing company based in Wichita, Kansas. It is named after the founder who invented an efficient way to turn crude oil into gasoline and other products in the 1920s. Today it is one of the largest producers of nylon and polyester fabrics, a business that it acquired from Dupont and ICI. It also owns Georgia-Pacific, one of the world's largest producer of pulp and paper products. Koch Industries is projected to make a major profit off the Keystone XL pipeline between Canada and the U.S. from land leases for fracking as well as other petrochemical interests.
Asphalt, chemicals, commodities trading, energy, fibers, fertilizers, finance, minerals, natural gas, plastics, petroleum, pulp and paper, ranching.
Violations
| Top 5 Offense Groups (Groups Defined) | Penalty Total | Number of Records |
|---|---|---|
| environment-related offenses | $815,450,154 | 236 |
| employment-related offenses | $88,540,756 | 27 |
| competition-related offenses | $29,000,000 | 3 |
| safety-related offenses | $2,200,955 | 169 |
| consumer-protection-related offenses | $75,000 | 1 |
(September 30, 2022)
Stories
- Axis of Ideology: Conservative Foundations and Public Policy (National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, March 2004).
- Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer (2016).
- Faces Behind a Global Crisis: US Carbon Billionaires and the UN Climate Deadlock (International Forum on Globalization, December 2012).
- Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine (Greenpeace, March 2010).
- Koch’s Web of Influence by John Farrell (Center for Public Integrity, April 2011).
- The Koch Brothers: What You Need to Know About the Financiers of the Radical Right (Center for American Progress Action Fund, April 2011).
- Uncloaking the Kochs: A Closer Look at the Chairmen of the Billionaires' Caucus (Public Campaign Action Fund and Common Cause, 2011).
Activism
Phoenix Voters 'Say Yes to the Future,' Rejecting Koch-Backed Effort to Ban Light Rail Expansion in Least Sustainable US City
Julia Conley | Common Dreams | August 28, 2019
The city of Phoenix dealt a decisive blow to a Koch Brothers-backed measure on Tuesday when voters rejected a proposition that would have banned any expansion of the city's light rail system.
Unions fight back against Kochs and allies since supreme court 'disaster'
Mike Elk | The Guardian | February 8, 2019
After decades of trying, the Koch brothers and their allies won a major battle last year when the US supreme court stripped public sector unions of their ability to collect “fair-share fees” from non-union members.
- A Community Voice
- Alliance for Affordable Energy
- Climate Reality New Orleans
- Coalition Against Death Alley
- Healthy Gulf
- Justice and Beyond
- Louisiana Bucket Brigade
- Louisiana League of Conscious Voters
- New Orleans Office Sierra Club
- Poor Peoples Campaign
- SouthWings
- Sunrise Movement, New Orleans
- RISE St. James
- 350 New Orleans
& Lawsuits
Heckler & Koch must pay for illegal arms sales to Mexico
DW | March 30, 2021
Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) upheld a 2019 lower court decision Tuesday, finding that employees at German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch (H&K) knowingly falsified information as to the nature and destination of arms sold by the company in order to attain federal export licenses.
In Minnesota, Ellison Announces Climate Lawsuit Against Exxon, Koch, and API
Andrea Germanos | Common Dreams | June 24, 2020
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit Wednesday against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute for mounting a 30-year "campaign of deception" related to the climate crisis.
Environmental Impacts
2000 Press Release, Koch Industries Paid Largest Ever Civil Fine on an Oil Company: $30 Million for More than 300 Oil and Chemical Spills in Six States
Koch Docs | June 7, 2019
In this press release, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it was imposing the “largest civil fine ever imposed on an oil company under any federal law,” on Koch Industries in 2000. The fine was $30 million.
Koch Facility Leaked “Big Green Cloud” of Deadly Chlorine Gas
Connor Gibson | Green Peace | June 11, 204
A subsidiary of Koch Industries recently leaked about 15 pounds of toxic chlorine dioxide gas from a Florida mill following a 3AM power outage.
Koch Connection to West Virginia Chemical Spill Company
Tina Casey | Triple Pundit | January 13, 2014
A chemical spill in West Virginia last week cut off access to safe tap water across nine counties, and although it involved a chemical used by the coal industry, state officials have been pushing back strongly against suggestions by reporters that the disaster had anything to do with the state's dominant industry -- coal.
PERI Pollution Indexes
Based on United States Environmental Protection Agency data ranking the top 100 worst polluters.
& Relations
Amazon Hired Koch-Backed Anti-Union Consultant to Fight Alabama Warehouse Organizing
Lee Fang | The Intercept | February 10, 2021
Amazon is Bringing on a set of well-trained union suppression consultants in its high-profile fight to keep its massive warehouse workforce free of organized labor.
Koch Compliance: Georgia-Pacific Plants Have Troubling Health and Safety Record Including Seven Death
Don Wiener | | Center for Media and Democracy | March 15, 2018
Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch is known for extolling the virtues of his own management system, “Market-Based Management.” He credits this system, which he has trademarked and promoted in a series of books, as the key contributor to the success of Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held companies in America.
Profiles on Koch Industries from other sources
Financials
Note: Most recent list is not always the most complete list.
Croctail Subsidiary Tool using the CorpWatch API - This API extracts the subsidiary relationship information from Exhibit 21 of companies' 10-K filings with the US SEC.
- CIK numbers link to SEC database (EDGAR)
- Section 21 links to SEC list of companies.
- Koch Industries Croctail Profile
Privately Held.
Political Influence
Open Secrets - Tracks corporate lobbying of US politicians.
OpenSecrets.org Profile of Koch Industries
Import & Export Data
ImportYeti - Shipping Tracking Tool - Bill of ladings are public information that are too cost prohibitive, challenging to obtain and difficult to use for the average joe. ImportYeti's goal is to solve that problem.
- ImportYeti Profile of Koch Industries
& Evasion
“This is Extortion”: Koch Industries Gets Another Tax Break
Don Wiener | PR Watch | November 14, 2019
The Toledo, Oregon City Council voted 4-2 on November 6 to give Koch Industries' subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, a 15-year property tax exemption in return for investment in an existing plant there.
Koch Brothers Could Get Up To $1.4 Billion Tax Cut From Law They Helped Pass
Americans For Tax Fairness | January 24, 2018
A new analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that Charles Koch and David Koch and/or Koch Industries could save between $1 billion and $1.4 billion combined in income taxes each year from the Trump tax law―and that doesn’t even count how much the brothers might save in taxes ....
How Koch Industries is scamming America: Investigation highlights a global web of tax avoidance
David Dayen | Salon | May 17, 2016
The Koch Brothers want to pull back on national politics, according to the National Review, because their business and public relations wings have grown weary of the spotlight. “Concerned about the damage being done to their corporate brand [and] increasingly bothered by their public vilification,”....
Koch Industries secures majority stake in St. James methanol project
10/12 Industry Report | August 27, 2019
A company owned by Koch Industries is now the majority owner and managing member of a $1.85 billion methanol production complex under construction in St. James Parish.
Procurement
Koch Industries contracts with the U.S. Federal Government (via USA Spending)