TO ENGAGE IN RESEARCH concerning the various avenues and strategies being employed by America’s coal, gas and oil industrial giants to ensure their continued dominance involves immersing oneself in an enormous tidal wave of propaganda and misinformation generated by those huge financial interests. Sorting it all out is an almost herculean chore.

At the heart of the enterprise — or gigantic corporate scam, as it could more accurately be described — we find, among a number of others, ALEC, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and funders-in-chief of all things right wing and extreme, the brothers Koch, Charles and David. I open an examination of these in the piece below.

First, a report from the saga of the Koch brothers’ valiant struggle against the forces of environmental dictatorship. From “The Koch Brothers Are Still Trying to Break Wind,” by Elliott Negin, Huffington Post, Dec. 10, 2013:

“As Congress dithers for the umpteenth time over extending a key subsidy for wind energy, the industry once again is up in the air. Called the production tax credit (PTC), the subsidy helps level the playing field between wind and fossil fuels and has proven to be critical for financing new projects, helping to make wind one of the fastest growing electricity sources in the country. Given the planet needs to transition as quickly as possible away from coal and natural gas to carbon-free energy to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, who would be against renewing wind’s tax credit?

“The Koch brothers, that’s who.

“Charles G. and David H. Koch — the billionaire owners of the coal, oil and gas Koch Industries conglomerate — have enlisted their extensive network of think tanks, advocacy groups and friends on Capitol Hill to spearhead a campaign to pull the plug on the PTC. Never mind the fact that the oil and gas industry has averaged four times what the wind tax credit is worth in federal tax breaks and subsidies annually for the last 95 years!

“The Koch network is fighting the wind industry on a number of fronts. Last month, Koch-funded Congressman Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, sent a letter signed by 52 House members to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, urging him to let the PTC expire. Meanwhile, a coalition of some 100 national and local groups organized by the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity sent a letter to each member of Congress asking them to do the same. And earlier this month, the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research launched an anti-PTC ad campaign and released a report claiming that only a handful of states actually benefit from the subsidy.

“Malcolm Gladwell didn’t include this battle in his new book ‘David and Goliath’ because, given the odds, it’s more like Bambi versus Godzilla.

“The fact that Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo is the Kochs’ point man to scuttle the PTC in the House is a bit ironic given his state is a wind energy leader. Kansas has the second highest wind potential in the country, it has already attracted more than $5 billion in wind industry investment, and last year wind generated 11.4 percent of its electricity. With stats like that, the industry has broad bipartisan support.

“Why is Pompeo so down on wind? Perhaps it’s because Koch Industries is headquartered in Wichita, smack-dab in the middle of his district — and the fact that the company is by far and away his biggest campaign contributor. Since 2010, Koch Industries has given him $200,000, more than four times what his second highest contributor kicked in. Besides Koch Industries, three other oil companies are among Pompeo’s top five contributors — McCoy Petroleum, Mull Drilling and Richie Exploration — and they’re also based in Wichita.

“What about the other 51 House members who signed Pompeo’s letter? As it turns out, 65 percent of them received contributions from Koch Industries during the last two or three campaign cycles, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. A quarter of them, meanwhile, cashed checks from ExxonMobil. And except for two congressmen who didn’t take any energy industry money, the signatories received sizable contributions from a number of other corporations that compete with wind, including coal barons Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources; oil and gas giants Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy; and Exelon, which owns the most nuclear reactors in the country. …

“Pompeo’s letter came on the heels of a letter from the Kochs’ flagship advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, calling for Congress to kill the PTC. AFP’s letter, which was signed by 102 organizations, claims that ‘the wind industry has very little to show after 20 years of preferential tax treatment’ and declares that ‘Americans deserve energy solutions that can make it on their own in the marketplace — not ones that need to be propped up by government indefinitely.’”

Is that right? Little to show? And what in the hell is this beef about preferential tax treatment, given the flood of public funds that has been pouring into the energy business for a century?!

“In fact, until Congress left the wind industry hanging late last year, it had been doing quite well. Even with a deep recession and slow recovery, over the previous five years — with the help of the PTC, stimulus spending and state renewable electricity standards — the industry doubled its electricity output, employment and private investment. In 2012, domestic manufacturers produced roughly 72 percent of the wind turbine equipment erected across the country — nearly triple the percentage in 2006 — and more than 13,000 megawatts of new wind generation capacity was installed. By the end of last year, there were enough wind turbines to power 15 million typical American homes — without toxic pollutants or carbon emissions.

“But AFP’s complaint that the wind industry has been on the dole far too long is even more galling. What about the oil and gas industry? It’s been feeding at the federal trough since 1918! On average, the industry has benefited from $4.86 billion in tax breaks and subsidies in today’s dollars every year since then, according to a 2011 study by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. Renewable energy technologies, meanwhile, averaged only $370 million a year in subsidies between 1994 and 2009. The 2009 stimulus package did provide $21 billion for wind, solar and other renewables, but that support barely begins to balance the scales that have tilted toward nuclear power for more than 50 years, oil and gas for 95 years, and coal for more than two centuries.

“So who signed the AFP letter? About half of the signatories are local tea party affiliates and anti-wind NIMBY groups of indeterminate size and funding. The other half are, for the most part, relatively obscure national groups, but there are a few that have attracted attention over the years for their contrarian views on climate science and renewable energy. Like AFP, those groups are awash in petrodollars. The American Energy Alliance (and its parent, the Institute for Energy Research), Competitive Enterprise Institute, Freedom Works, Frontiers of Freedom and Heritage Action (and its parent, the Heritage Foundation) collectively have received millions of dollars from Koch family foundations, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s premier trade association.”

Nothing could be more clear than the antithetical aims, beliefs and commitments of the Koch brothers and the environmental movement. Also very clear is the huge bankroll at the disposal of two of the wealthiest multi-billionaires in the land in their unyielding and ever-vigilant battle against any interference with the freedom of industry to rape the environment.

And so it goes in the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And a Merry Christmas to all, from Jerry!

Jerome Page is a Benicia resident.