With Donald Trump’s election, however, that group, the Institute for Energy Research, has moved suddenly from the fringe to the center of power. The president-elect has sent the group’s president, a former Koch Industries lobbyist named Thomas Pyle, to the Energy Department to take charge of its transition. But a Department of Energy guided by Koch principles could still create complications. The industrial-scale desert solar operations that power tens of thousands of California homes, for example, were built with considerable financial backing from the Energy Department. Pyle’s groups, the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, reject the findings of most mainstream scientists regarding climate change.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 05, 2016 10:52 UTC