The Koch Network Database is a new resource library built by DeSmog to assist journalists, academic researchers, and the public to learn more about the backgrounds of individuals and organizations associated with billionaire fossil fuel industrialists Charles Koch and David Koch‘s free market approach to a broad spectrum of civic issues. 

The Koch Network Database will chronicle the historical and present deeds and quotes associated with the people and organizations that have helped to advance the Kochs’ free market approach to environmental regulations, and the subsequent consequences of such approaches for climate change, public health, and democracy.

The database launch coincides with the KochDocs.org document archive launch, as Sharon Kelly covers in an important article about the Koch-led campaign to destroy the U.S. Department of Energy. 

It was 12 years ago that DeSmog first reported about Koch Industries‘ campaign to confuse the public about climate science, in a 2007 article titled Why Exxon Makes Koch Giggle.

In the years that followed, we have learned vast amounts about the orchestrated campaign to delay climate action and attack climate science by a constellation of individuals and organizations that share affinity and often financial ties to the Koch family, ExxonMobil, the Mercers, and a range of other like-minded characters in the fossil fuel industries and right wing politics. 

I first learned of the Koch name in 2002, when I came across their attempts to influence the makeup of the courts to skew further toward right-wing interests — what they call “judicial reform” — and have remained interested in this line of research ever since. 

Please let DeSmog know if you have any additional information or documents that would complement our database, and of course, send us your thoughts about our work any time. 

As my father the librarian always reminds me, information is power.