you're watching the news live from berlin ah series doc film is up next and you can get all the latest news around the clock on our website dot com follow us on twitter and on instagram as well. news told me a lot of all the back and at the top of the hour it's for joining us to. try calling me and i'm game did you know that 17 trillion land animals are killed worldwide here but it's not just the animals at all suffering it's the environment if you want to know how old when clicked off the priests and the hunters strange to us as we think is listening to our podcast on the brain science. of.

washington d.c. the white house is the center of power in the united states. or is it. i think that there's a lot of issues with the lack of just closure it leaves voters in the dark and the representatives and senators in congress make the laws but the arms lobby the various religious groups and the powerful pressure groups also wield considerable influence when we try to push an issue we will do protests but there will also do phone calls and then social media pressure most americans want stricter environmental protection and weapons laws that are their voices being heard to have all kinds of policies in the united states these days which do not have democratic widespread approval what they have is millionaires putting extraordinary sums in.

we're going to care joel the paris climate. after taking office in 2017 donald trump reversed u.s. policy on the environment well recruiting his own new staff who complied with his anti conservation stance. people would have called me a climate skeptic or a climate denier coal lobbyist such as scott pruitt and andrew wheeler worth pointing to had the environmental protection agency. the powerful business lobbies chalk this up as a success with millions of dollars at stake with shades of the wild west it seems the strongest and most powerful controlled along even in the shadow of the corona crisis washington has continued to cut back on environmental protection so who in the usa is really pulling the strings. follow the money trail. anima soliah does just that her workplace

washington d.c. home to some 12000 lobbyists. muscly a works for an ngo that wants to see more transparency she looks through tax returns for example to find out who is paying which lobby groups and think tanks in order to shape laws and public opinion it's frustrating work with many facts and figures remaining anonymous and it's all completely legal. we have people operating behind the scenes without ever disclosing their identity having a significant impact on who is elected in the united states who is holding power in the united states what laws are passed and it's something that really seeps into every aspect of people's daily lives without them knowing it they're aiming to influence the political system across the board. at the top as. president then

there are the members of the 2 chambers of congress 435 directly elected representatives and the 100 senators 2 per state. the groups and advocacy organizations also operate at the individual state level and their influence extends down to local level one reason is that the political parties as such have limited financial clout in the us individual politicians are therefore dependent on external funding from their supporters especially when it comes to expensive election campaigns. the most influential players in the poker stakes for power include billionaires who prefer to operate in secret among them 2 brothers charles koch and his now deceased brother david they created a sprawling network of countless organizations wielding substantial political power . animists olia is an expert on the issue of dark money and the hidden connections

in such networks. the koch brothers were to some extent pioneers in heralding in a new era of money and politics and in particular in building up a new model of dark money networks they built what is often referred to as the koch network. the koch network comprises a loose association of think tanks lobby groups organizations that claim to be grassroots movements and the media the koch's repeatedly bought influence over politicians judges even universities doing so with millions and millions of dollars . so who are the koch brothers in 20 they had an estimated fortune of around $50000000000.00 each david koch died in the summer of $29.00 leaving his older brother charles born in 1935 to continue the fight for the interests of their company koch industries. maybe not a famous global brand but the company. generates more revenue than facebook and

goldman sachs combined with an estimated value of $110000000000.00 and almost $130000.00 employees worldwide. for this oil gas and chemical conglomerates weaker environmentalists protection laws meaning better business. the goal has always been true democracy where people can run their own lives and choose what they want to buy and choose how to spend their money as charles koch put it in a rare interview in 2012 award winning filmmaker robert greenwald wanted to find out more about the publicize the shy brothers and their system many americans have never even heard of the powerful corporation. as one of the koch brothers said. candidates are like actors and what they do is they read from a script and what the koch brothers want to do and they did very successfully they

want to write that script and writing that script happens by funding all of these different sources hundreds of millions of dollars or more to reward to anyone else if you guys think the country fails in 12 election cycle 400000000 dollars. in his documentary investigation greenwald set out on a search to discover the impact on the ground of these billionaires and their factories among his shocking revelations was the story of a community where an alarming proportion of locals seems to be dying due to environmental pollution. you can see the steam coming from a store they call so since all the before there are no it's hard to breathe we have 15 homes in this area and maybe 11 people. were killed

and. so where you see these people are saying they're dying this is inexcusable. this right here is private property but if you can follow it in a straight line you would be at georgia pacific suppliant own back ok industry. koch industries ignored all requests for an interview with greenwald's production company as they did for this documentary too. they are. attacked me personally with and had kind of headlines about what a bad guy i was and then threatened to sue what are facts are ironclad. as the koch's expand their network they try to be quite open politically their goal to ensure laws that benefit their business and increase their profits.

for decades ago in 1980 david koch was the libertarian party's candidate for vice president alongside clark they ran on a platform of minimizing state intervention promising to abolish corporate taxes social security and minimum wage laws. ronald reagan became president while the clark ticket mustered around one percent of the vote in a turning point in a cup strategy the brothers now decided to pull the strings from the background. his running for vice president was a real lesson as he has said the way to impact their policies the way to impact their profit margin was not by running for office but by financing all these other ways. taking on the big money behind the oil lobby is a tough proposition amid concerns about the impact of the nature pipeline project

on the standing rock reservation in $27000.00 lawyer and activist chase iron eyes took action. this is our country this isn't trump's country. and we're going to stand up. in peace and dignity. to miami. miami. the protests in north and south dakota against the construction of oil pipelines became almost a daily occurrence in the meantime a 3rd pipeline is under construction which the native american people living here see as a threat you know. i don't have a choice. it is either i write these guys or my sugar we're in hell. when i was born. the latest project is called keystone x.l. pipeline said to be even bigger than the original keystone pipeline and fears of

oil leaks that could poison the water proved to be founded by the end of 201918 half 1000000 leaders had already spilled into the ground. rules are not a matter of just a matter when and so we these are just these are risks that we. know we choose not to bear the wrists. you know then our children might have to drink water. oil to be pumped through north and south dakota comes from canada and the tar sands of alberta have been a major source of wealth for the koch brothers and also a highly toxic way of producing oil. and the construction of the keystone x.l. pipeline was initially halted by then president obama in 2015 shortly after taking office in 2017 trump revive the project. that is everybody

here discussion. was extended ie with coke industries denies having lobbied for the construction of the pipeline environmental organizations reject such claims given the amount of money donated by the coax to think tanks and door seeing the pipelines construction the texas public policy foundation said in 2017 the pipeline would lead to thousands of new jobs across the u.s. and provide for the safe and affordable transfer of oil the safest way to move products and goods is through pipelines the keystone pipeline goes through the regulatory hurdles and believe me there are a lot of regulatory hurdles but we've got to stop all of the protests and the lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit that are just driving up the cost because any time you drive up the cost of energy you hurt the least among us more than anyone else. the conservative think tank also promotes the free market on social media

while dismissing renewable energy sources such as wind turbines that's something they go to the country for something we've enjoyed living in a country is it's peaceful it's quiet it's serene it's no longer like koch industries is one of the sponsors behind the think tank together with various other oil companies such as exxon mobil the list of donors was leaked to the local media and then made public a few years ago the kind of information that think tanks do not voluntarily disclose. as one of the benefits that we have is that people can give to us freely and be protected from harassment and you see that so often here now is when donors are released or people get viciously attacked in the united states and they get. i've. had a lot of threats against me because my information was public a similar argumentation to that of the koch's where the president attacks us and we

get threats from people in congress and this becomes part of a culture that we are evil so we need to be destroyed or killed then why force people to disclose. the figures and groups who donate millions from behind the scenes often remain in the shadows many organizations do not have to reveal their donors thanks to a series of court rulings the most important of these concerns a lawsuit brought by a conservative organization against the federal election commission. 2010 the supreme court found that financial donations to political campaigns were covered by the right to free speech a right that also applies to corporations the decision permitted them to spend unlimited funds on political advertising koch brothers were a critical part of the citizens united decision they funded several of the groups that helped the knish 8 that lawsuit they fund. many of the politicians who spoke

in favor of the lawsuit they funded some in the media who were in favor of the lawsuit and the ultimate decision organizations were then created that function like parties but without the financial restrictions so called super pacs a super pac is a political committee that can take unlimited sources from donors and spend unlimited funds in support of a candidate super pacs are not allowed to coordinate with campaigns and because of that they're able to take unlimited sums traditional campaign so that are actually operated by the candidate and people there they've hired to operate their campaign are limited in how much they can take from individual donors. candidates may accept up to $5000.00 per year from the regular political action committees harpax. there is no such limit for the super pacs while they cannot give money directly to the candidates they are allowed to fund.