The Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has hired Grant Kidwell, a former analyst from two major Koch-backed groups--Americans for Prosperity and the Charles Koch Institute--to lead its Energy, Environment and Agriculture (EEA) task force, a position that has been left vacant since July.
Funded by numerous fossil-fuel companies, ALEC and its EEA task force has a long history of passing “model bills” undermining environmental protections and opposing policies to combat climate change. The task force is made up of numerous corporate lobbyists and their trade groups that stand to benefit from measures weakening environmental protections: including Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Energy, the Edison Electric Institute, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the American Gas Association.
Kidwell’s first week at ALEC comes as the group holds its States and Nation Policy Summit, currently taking place in Nashville, Tennessee. Among the measures being discussed is a resolution urging the EPA to scrap the 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, which formed the legal basis for the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas pollution. According E&E News, the fossil-fuel funded Heartland Institute is rumored to be behind the resolution.
Before Kidwell's appointment, Kenneth Stein who now works for the Koch-backed Institute for Energy Research, briefly served as the task force director from April to July 2017. John Eick, who now works for AFPM, previously led the task force from 2012-2017. Todd Wynn, who now works at the Department of Interior and previously worked at the Edison Electric Institute, was Director from 2011 to 2013.
