Changes

==Actions during and before the GW Bush administration==

In 2006, the company spent $3,528,750 on [[lobbying]]. $820,000 was to outside [[lobbying firms]] with the remainder spent on in-house lobbyists.<ref>[http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?txtname=Koch+Industries&year=2006 Koch Industries lobbying expenses], ''Open Secrets.''</ref>

[[Elizabeth Stolpe]], previously in-house lobbyist for Koch Industries, became Associate Director For Toxics & Environmental Protection at the White House [[Council on Environmental Quality]].

During the 1990s, faults in Koch Industry pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil and chemical spills in five states, prompting a landmark penalty of $35 million from the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] (EPA). In Minnesota, it was fined an additional $8 million for discharging oil into streams.

During the months leading up to the 2000 presidential elections, the company faced even more liability, in the form of a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, a known carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. The company faced liability for three hundred and fifty million dollars in fines, and four Koch employees faced up to thirty-five years in prison. <ref name="New Yorker"></ref>

After [[George W. Bush]] became president the [[Department of Justice|U.S. Justice Department]] dropped 88 of the charges. Two days before the trial, [[John Ashcroft]] settled for a plea bargain, in which the company pled guilty to falsifying documents. All major charges were dropped, and Koch and Ashcroft settled the lawsuit for a fraction of that amount.

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The Koch Industries PAC had donated $332,000 to Republican candidates in the 2010 elections. <ref> Center for Responsive Politics, [http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2000&strID=C00236489 Koch PAC 2000 summary], accessed July 10, 2011. </ref>

[[Alex Beehler]], assistant deputy under secretary of defense for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, was previously Koch Industries' director of environmental and regulatory affairs and concurrently served at the [[Charles G. Koch Foundation]] as vice president for environmental projects. <ref>Bob Williams, Kevin Bogardus [http://www.public-i.org/oil/report.aspx?aid=347 Koch's Low Profile Belies Political Power: Private oil company does both business and politics with the shades drawn], [[Center for Public Integrity]], reposted March 31, 2006</ref> Beehler was later nominated and re-nominated by the Bush White House, to become the [[U.S. Environmental Protection Agency]]'s Inspector General. <ref>[http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-enviro1apr01,1,1826157.story Environment News], [[Los Angeles Times]] </ref>