Happy Labor Day. Guess what your Koch brothers were up to this holiday weekend.

If you guessed giving $1 million to back Prop. 23, "an effort to suspend California's global warming law," you're right!

But really. Only a million dollars? Pikers. I mean, compared to …

Valero Energy Corporation and Tesoro Petroleum Corporation, two Texas refining companies, [who] have together donated more than $4.5 million to the campaign to repeal AB 32, the state’s clean air and energy law.

But! Good news! The AP also reports:

According to the Los Angeles Times, a spokeswoman for Flint Hills Resources said the company "may consider additional support."

And why are the Koch brothers and these other Good Corporate Citizens™ giving so much money to this proposition? Because they care about the little guy! Not about whether he and his kids can breathe or stay out of floods, but his "jobs!"

This proposition to overturn California's Global Warming Act of 2006 is called the "California Jobs Initiative." You know, kind of like the tobacco lobby-backed proposition from 1994, which was spun as an "anti-smoking" proposition that would Protect the Children™. And more recently, like George W. Bush, who gave his environment-killing agenda items names like "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests."

Hurrah for not being bullshitted by billionaires, who only care about Your Best Interests™!

Oh, one other thing: you'll also be delighted to know that despite a concerted effort to avoid getting pinned down about where she stands on this, Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina finally announced -- on the Friday before Labor Day Weekend, but that's probably a coincidence, amirite? -- that she stands with Big Pollution and supports Prop. 23. And we know Carly Cares™ about jobs. After all, when she was running Hewlett-Packard, she added, what, negative ten thousand of them?

If you want to learn more about where the money is coming from and going to, here are some starting points:

• Ballotpedia Prop. 23 page: a good executive summary of the issues and the players, with lots of solid reference links.
  
  
• The Sacramento Bee's CapitolAlert blog, posts tagged "2010 ballot initiatives."
  
  
• Cal-Access: the California Secretary of State's official database of campaign contributions. Layout is a bit clunky, but if you're willing to dig, the information is there. Start here or here, perhaps.
  
  
• OpenSecrets.org's page on the oil and gas industry. This is a national effort, so you'll also be able to find out where, and who, else the likes of Valero, Tesoro, and the Koch brothers are seeking to buy.
  
  
• Sen. Barbara Boxer's campaign website, featuring a section called "Get the Facts on Fiorina."
  
  
• LA Times: article on the Koch brothers' donation and a good opinion piece by Steve Lopez.
  
  

One final note: Louise Bedsworth, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, said in back in spring it's likely campaign spending on this ballot measure will set a new record. That means well more than $150 million burned up on buying ads and politicians. I wonder how many jobs we could create for that. With bonus cleaner air thrown in.

(h/t: TC and PF, via email, for the heads-up about the Koch AP story | pic. sources: Wonk Room and Open Salon)