David Koch (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File) The Koch-Keystone connection: Brothers are the largest lease holders in Canada's oil sands It's getting harder for the Koch brothers to insist that they have no financial stake in the pipeline

UPDATE 3/20/2014 7PM: An earlier version of this post misstated the previous report's findings. The Koch brothers were first estimated to hold 2 million acres, an amount of land potentially worth $100 billion.

The Keystone XL pipeline isn't just about oil and gas companies. It's also about the Koch brothers and their vast influence over the Republican party. That influence extends as well to Canada's oil sands, the the Washington Post reports: a subsidiary of Koch Industries, owned by bros Charles and David, is the land's largest lease holder.

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The parcel of land controlled by the Kochs covers 1.1 million acres, according to the International Forum on Globalization, a liberal think tank. That's an area roughly the size of Delaware, and more than what's owned by Royal Dutch Shell, Conoco Phillips, Suncor, Exxon Mobil, Chevron or any of the Chinese companies that have invested in the oil sands.

An earlier report from IGF put the Koch's land holdings at nearly 2 million acres, an amount, it estimated, that put them in a position to reap as much as $100 billion from Keystone. This new report revises down the estimate, but an oil sands expert at the University of Alberta who was contacted by the post called the holdings "significant." The Kochs, for their part, continue to insist that they have no financial stake in the pipeline -- but it's getting a lot harder to believe them. Here's more from the Post: