Taking Our Red Pen to the RSC Response

We’ve been hard at work with organizers at George Washington University to help them shut down a Koch-funded center on campus that has been linked to climate misinformation. GW’s Center for Regulatory Studies (RSC) almost universally advocates against regulation and relies primarily on researchers with ties to groups funded by the Koch family. The Trump administration acted on many of the center’s polluter-friendly recommendations, such as reducing the costs that the government attributes to greenhouse gases and raising the bar for issuing new energy efficiency standards.

Despite the deep ties to corporate friendly pseudo-science, GW administration has refused to divest from either Koch funding or the RSC, hence the student action. This is especially frustrating as just last year (after student agitation) the school committed to full divestment from fossil fuels, carbon neutrality by 2030, and reversing GW’s entire 200 year carbon footprint. With its historic commitments to divest from fossil fuels in June, GW has the opportunity to be one of the nation’s leaders in combating climate change. Unfortunately, by maintaining the RSC, they are still complicit in the climate crisis.

In February, student organizers marched to GW President LeBlanc's house and taped their demands to his front door. Our letter to GW administration went live right after, and we’re continuing to put pressure on the school to live up to their climate change promises. Our organizing has not gone unnoticed. The RSC put out an official statement in response, claiming they have been misrepresented. Fortunately, the facts are on our side, and we took the opportunity to go through their statement so folks can find out for themselves the role the RSC actually plays in all of this.