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The Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is taking their misinformation machine on the road in an attempt to convince American consumers that President Obama is causing the spike in gasoline prices. AFP is claiming that the president is intentionally keeping gas prices high because he refuses to allow oil companies to drill for oil in protected areas of the United States.

The tour is necessary for the AFP, as Americans do not believe that President Obama should be blamed for high gasoline prices. A staggering 61% of Americans say that the blame lies on the shoulders of the energy companies, and 59% say that some of the blame lies with the oil speculators. These numbers are not sitting well with the oil industry, and the AFP tour is just one of many oil industry tactics to try to shift public opinion using misinformation.

AFP’s “Running on Empty” campaign has scheduled stops in Virginia, Michigan, and Ohio in the upcoming days, to “teach” Americans about the numerous ways in which President Obama is making them pay higher prices at the pump.

AFP conveniently ignores the fact that gas prices were north of $4 a gallon during the Bush administration, when they peaked at $4.12, as pointed out by protesters who showed up at one of AFP’s early gas tour events in Nebraska.  But in the alternate reality that AFP is creating to enable Koch’s further oil profits, it’s somehow all Obama’s fault.

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From Koch Industries’ roots as “the biggest company you’ve never heard of”, David and Charles Koch have become household names for funding climate change denial and efforts to steer the United States away from a clean energy future.  They suffered a little hiccup when California voters failed to buy the arguments of the dirty oil interests bankrolling Prop 23.  Then, when David Koch was booed at the Nutcracker ballet just before Christmas, it started to look like the tides were shifting on public opinion around the billionaire brothers. 

Despite the headway made in holding the Koch Brothers to account, they’ve creeped their way into Canada. 

Well, let me be clear.  It’s not as though Koch Industries is a totally foreign force in Canada. Koch and its subsidiaries currently operate in seven Canadian provinces, and according to a Greenpeace report, Koch has held multiple leases in Alberta’s tar sands, and since the 1990s the Koch Pipeline Company has operated the pipelines that carry tar sands crude from Canada into Minnesota and Wisconsin where Koch’s Flint Hill Resources owns oil refineries.

On the policy development front, they’ve busily bankrolled Canada’s Fraser Institute to the tune of $175,000 between 2005 and 2008 to ensure Canada remains in the Stone Ages when it comes to environmental policy.  

This time though, it’s gotten political.  According to Chris Genovali’s piece in the Huffington Post, renewable energy in Ontario is under attack by the Kochtopus.

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This piece was co-written by Ryan Koronowski, Alliance for Climate Protection Research Director and Josh Nelson, Alliance for Climate Protection New Media Director.

This week, CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” spoke with Tim Phillips, the head of the front group Americans for Prosperity that’s funded by the oil company Koch Industries. Mr. Phillips was up to his old tricks. While acknowledging that he is not a scientist, he said that to believe climate science isn’t “far from settled” would be “arrogance.”

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I just got word that Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is planning on protesting a presentation Al Gore is making tomorrow night in Portland, Oregon.

Under the guise of the “teabagger movement” AFP will do what it does best, which is protesting clean energy and green jobs.

It’s hard to believe this is much of a grassroots “teabagger” movement when the organizers get so much money from the largest private energy company in the United States.

Below is everything you need to know about AFP and their president Tim Phillips that we’ve pulled from our research database.

All this will be passed on to the local Portland media to ensure that they include this important context in any reporting they do on this story. If you’re from Portland or know anyone from the area, please pass this around to local bloggers and media.

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An organization called “Americans for Prosperity” has been working overtime to fight government action on climate change and greenhouse gas reduction strategies. You might remember their State-by-State grassroots “Hot Air Tour”.

The Hot Air tour’s tagline was “Exposing the Ballooning Costs of Global Warming Hysteria.” More recently the AFP ran a $140,000 TV ad campaign in Viriginia promising to “expose the hypocrisy and outrageous economic costs of so-called global warming regulations, taxes, and green energy plans.”

So who’s behind the AFP? And why are they so bent on seeing further delay in government action on an issue that the top scientists at the nation’s best institutes are saying needs to be dealt with now?

Our research team at DeSmog has put together a briefing note on the AFP, their history and most importantly who funds them.

AFP, and its former incarnation the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, are the third largest recipient of funding from the Koch Family of Foundations, which is run by the ultra-conservative oil baron Charles G. Koch. The Koch Family of Foundations has been a major funding source for many of the think tanks that are in the business of delaying action on climate change issues.

What follows is the information we’ve pulled together on the AFP and the Koch Family of Foundations.

You can find our permanent page on the AFP here: Americans for Prosperity - research and background information.