Kochs influence on environmental quality; 2014 industrial accident at Charleston WV; Freedom Industries; Russel Sobel

At West Virginia University, the Charles Koch Foundation's donation of $965,000 to create the Center for Free Enterprise came with some strings attached. The foundation required the school to give it a say over the professors it funded, in violation of traditional standards of academic independence. The Kochs' investment had an outsized impact in the small, poor state where coal, in which the Kochs had a financial interest, ruled. One of the WVU professors approved for funding, Russel Sobel, edited a 2007 book called Unleashing Capitalism: Why Prosperity Stops at the West Virginia Border and How To Fix It, arguing that the mine safety and clean water regulations only hurt workers. "Are workers really better off being safer but making less income?" it asked. Soon, Sobel was briefing West Virginia governor and cabinet, as well as a joint session fo the Senate and House Finance Committee. The state Republican Party chairman declared Sobel's antiregulatory book the blueprint for its party platform.

In 2014, a sparsely regulated West Virginia company, Freedom Industries, spilled ten thousand gallons of a mysterious, foul smelling chemical into the drinking water of Charleston, the state's largest city, triggering panic in 300,000 residents, whom authorities ordered away from their taps. It was just another in a seemingly endless history of tragic industrial disasters afflicting West Virginia. By then, though, Sobel was long gone. He was listed as a visiting scholar at the Citadel in South Carolina, and an expert at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. (189-190)