In recent years, the industry has increased its sway among Republicans, supporting a rightward shift toward sharp cutbacks of Social Security and Medicare and the rollback of environmental protections. And the Kochs find themselves well positioned to influence the Trump administration, with many allies in important cabinet and transition posts.

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma, has received contributions from Kochpac, the political action committee of Koch Industries. Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Pruitt after entrusting the agency’s transition to Myron Ebell, who is a director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an advocacy organization that has received funding from the Kochs’ charitable foundations, and who has been hostile to the work of the E.P.A.

But numerous polls show that a majority of American voters continue to support many environmental regulations, including those that govern carbon dioxide emissions. And there is significant support among voters, even in red states, for renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which the Kochs have long worked to quash.

Fueling U.S. Forward seeks to narrow that schism by courting public support. The group is set to air ads in Virginia and Indiana, the news site Environment & Energy reported in September. The ads portray fossil fuels as the driver of human progress.

“This moment we’re in didn’t just happen. We didn’t just arrive here by luck — a world where billions of people have greater opportunities came about through years of progress,” a preview posted on the group’s site states. In the backdrop is video of people driving, turning on lights and plugging in appliances.

We got here, the ad says, by “harnessing the power of the earth and the natural fuels of soil and rock.”

It remains unclear who else, apart from the Kochs, is financing Fueling U.S. Forward. It is registered as a nonprofit business association, a designation that allows its involvement in both lobbying and political activities. But because it is so new, it has not yet made public filings detailing its financial and other activities.