state legislators who showed up in Topeka and seemed more concerned with toeing a line set out by Koch Industries than they did with thinking for themselves.
“They’re like numbskulls. All they’re going to do is take orders from the Chamber and Koch and so on,” Moxley said. “They’re not thoughtful. They’re not people that read the newspaper or have a history background. They just do what Koch wants done.”
Koch’s efforts in Kansas were part of a multistate campaign to push back renewable-energy subsidies. Koch’s primary targets were so-called renewable energy standards that required states to buy wind and solar power. Koch characterized these mandates as a form of crony capitalism. The Heartland Institute, which Koch funded, helped write a bill to repeal such standards. The bill was then taken up by ALEC, the Koch-funded conference of state legislators, and then introduced in more than a dozen states between 2013 and 2014.
ALEC’s efforts bore fruit. Ohio repealed its renewable standard, as did West Virginia. In Kansas, the fight lasted for years. Moxley repeatedly voted against the bill to repeal the renewable-energy mandates, as did a handful of other Republicans and many Democrats. But the financial power behind the bill was too strong to resist. In 2015, a version of the bill finally passed, removing the mandates and making the renewable-energy standards voluntary. This was only a partial victory for Koch. Wind power continued to gain ground in Kansas in part because it was so cheap. The utility companies were already meeting their renewable standards whether they were mandatory or not. Still, Koch had managed to achieve an effect in Kansas and other states that was similar to what it had done in Washington. It politicized the issue of renewable energy. It had stained the efforts to stoke competition in the energy industry as a form of government corruption, and it drew a red line that Republican politicians could not cross.
Moxley ended up leaving the Kansas legislature in 2016, when he decided not to seek reelection. “I kind of aged out,” he said. But his time in the conservative Kansas statehouse changed his thinking about human-induced climate change. He was more worried about it than before. He went back to his ranch in Council Grove, installed a large set of solar panels, and now only pays for electricity off the grid for about five months in the winter. About a year after he left politics, Moxley began to recover from the experience.
“I was just walking across the yard, and broke out in a whistle,” he said.
* * *
By 2014, a sense of mastery infused the corporate culture at Koch Industries. The company was thriving, even during an era of almost unprecedented volatility in the global energy business and weak economic growth in the United States. A geyser of cash flowed from Koch’s oil refineries, thanks to the Eagle Ford Shale play and the continued profitability at Pine Bend. Profits were soaring in Koch’s massive network of nitrogen fertilizer plants, thanks to the collapse of natural gas prices. Business was strong and profits were rising at Georgia-Pacific, thanks to a recovery in the housing market. The company’s success seemed like the proof of concept for Market-Based Management. Koch Industries seemed to have its hand in everything—paper towels, gasoline, clothing, corn, derivatives trading—and somehow it succeeded even as different markets rose and fell.
Charles Koch and his team had also proven that they could master the art of politics. The Obama revolution was crippled. The days of a permanent liberal majority and a new New Deal were in the past. It was true that Obama had been reelected in 2012, but his governing power was hemmed in by a Congress that slid further into Republican control with each election. Koch’s chosen congressional candidates gained more seats in the midterms of 2014. Across the states, Koch’s political network was more powerful than ever. The greatest legislative threat to Koch’s business—greenhouse gas regulation—was relegated to the fringes of American political life. Charles Koch had faced a political movement that he considered to be dangerous to America’s future, and he had largely prevailed.
As always, Charles Koch had his eye on the far future. The vast majority of profits that flowed from Koch’s operations were recycled right back into the company. Koch Industries initiated an acquisition spree that was only paralleled by the wild growth strategies of the 1990s. During 2013 and 2014, Koch Industries spent billions of dollars to amass new assets and enter new lines of business.