webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

Inst for Energy Research IER

:{:{see robert bradley Ihs}:

merri ok:

SEE IER 2 see AEA

PJT 2025 Project 2025 is supported by climate change-denying organizations The Heartland Institute and the Institute for Energy Research.

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/

 koch

hmmn looks like subsumed:

Chamber's Institute for Energy (not to be confused with similarly named Koch front)

seems to be taking the lead on XL bs

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Several large fossil fuel corporations provide significant funding for attempts to mislead the public about climate science's trustworthiness.[273] ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundations have been identified as especially influential funders of climate change contrarianism.[274] The bankruptcy of the coal company Cloud Peak Energy revealed it funded the Institute for Energy Research, a climate denial think tank, as well as several other policy influencers.[275][276]

After the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) offered British, American, and other scientists $10,000 plus travel expenses to publish articles critical of the assessment. The institute had received more than $1.6 million from Exxon, and its vice-chairman of trustees was former Exxon head Lee Raymond. Raymond sent letters that alleged the IPCC report was not "supported by the analytical work". More than 20 AEI employees worked as consultants to the George W. Bush administration.[277]

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AI Overview

The climate and energy recommendations in Project 2025 were co-authored by individuals from conservative free-market groups, most notably the ⁠Institute for Energy Research (IER) and ⁠The Heartland Institute. These organizations reject the global scientific consensus on climate change and advocate for maximizing fossil fuel production. [1, 2,3, 4, 5] VID]

Key authors and contributors to the climate policy chapters include:

Proposed Climate/Energy Strategies:

You can read the full, unabridged policy blueprint directly via the ⁠Heritage Foundation. [1, 2]

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NO LNX PIX

Robert L. Bradley, Jr.

CEO and Founder

Thomas J. Pyle

President

Dan Kish

Senior Vice President of Policy

DC OFFICE

Dan Kish is the Senior Vice President of Policy at the Institute for Energy Research (IER). Kish has more than 25 years of experience on congressional committees focused principally upon natural resource and energy policies. His service includes the principal resource committees in the House and Senate, including six years as Chief of Staff for the Republicans on the House Resources Committee and four years on the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee staff.

Areas of expertise: Federal lands permitting and drilling rights, offshore drilling, and the history of energy policy

dan-kish-14b63817 6 26

scrape

Mary J Hutzler

Distinguished Senior Fellow

Kenny Stein

Vice President of Policy

Alexander Stevens

Manager of Policy and Communications

Alex Stevens is the Manager of Policy and Communications at the Institute for Energy Research. His research focuses on the relationship between business and government in the energy industry as well as the effects of regulation and subsidies on energy markets. Alex also manages IER’s communications and media outreach team. Alex is a graduate of Central Michigan University where he received his B.S. in political science and a graduate of Oakland University where he received his B.A. in journalism.

Areas of expertise: Free market perspective on energy and environmental issues, regulatory issues, energy subsidies, and The Jones Act

EAND E THE GOOD ONE

Inside the Project 2025 plan to gut climate regs

By Jean Chemnick | 07/18/2024

The conservative outline for a second Trump presidency offers detailed steps for weakening EPA.

A paint-by-numbers plan to weaken EPA has been prepared for former President Donald Trump by his past advisers. Francis Chung/POLITICO

There’s a playbook for how a second Trump administration could pull back climate regulations.

The EPA chapter of the much-vaunted Project 2025 blueprint is stocked with ideas for how political appointees could use a second Trump term to remake agency org charts, defang enforcement and disperse Washington-based staff to regional offices. But the document — spearheaded by the conservative Heritage Foundation — also catalogs tactics for relaxing regulation in ways that might reverberate beyond the next four years.

Former President Donald Trump has distanced himself from the initiative — a sprawling guide on how executive branch authorities and agencies could serve a conservative agenda. But many of its authors served in the first Trump administration and are likely candidates for a second one.

Dave Banks, a former Trump climate adviser, said the document would serve more as a wishlist for past and future officials than a reflection of the president’s own priorities.

“I think the big question is, are the people who wrote it going to be back in?” he said. “And I think there’s a strong likelihood that a lot of the folks who worked on Project 2025 will end up in a Trump 2.0, if that happens.”

Mandy Gunasekara, the Trump EPA chief of staff who penned the project’s chapter on EPA, left open the possibility that she might return to the William Jefferson Clinton Building that serves as the agency’s headquarters.

“That’s a question for the president to ask, and an answer for me to give with my husband and family,” she said. “And we’re not there yet.”

Most of the regulatory policies included in her 28-page chapter seem cut from the same cloth as those EPA attempted in the first Trump administration. They were rescinded under President Joe Biden or overturned in court.

But some are new, like a proposal to shrink the pool of industries required to report their greenhouse gas emissions each year to EPA.

Just the fact that the policies are being explored in a widely circulated document marks a departure from 2016. The Trump EPA transition team that formed after his surprise victory eight years ago was famously long on infighting and short on planning. Political appointees were slow to arrive and key components of Trump’s deregulatory agenda were thrown out in court.

Project 2025 would revive some of those rules. For example, the EPA chapter advises the agency to “make public and take comment on all scientific studies and analyses that support regulatory decision-making.” That dovetails with a Trump-era “secret science” rule that was vacated in 2021.

Gunasekara said an incoming EPA team could avoid similar outcomes by “applying lessons learned” from the first Trump term.

“It’s very different regulating from the inside versus applying oversight from the outside,” said Gunasekara, one of several Trump EPA officials who came to EPA from congressional committees. Gunasekara was a staffer on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under the late Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), as was Trump’s second EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler.

Mandy Gunasekara, former EPA chief of staff, left open the possibility of working for Trump if he wins the election. | Rogelio V. Solis/AP.

Gunasekara blamed first term policy failures in part on resistance from career staff — something Project 2025 would take pains to root out through extensive structural and workforce changes. She also acknowledged that the Trump administration sometimes cut corners — something she said wouldn’t be repeated.

“The biggest difference is we have a plan from Day One, we’re going to start implementing it, and we won’t be as susceptible to process problems that really sunk a couple of those final regulatory proposals and actions we took at the tail end of the administration,” said Gunasekara, who spoke by phone with POLITICO’s E&E News as she attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Gunasekara said four Trump-era political appointees helped write the chapter: David Harlow, Scott Mason IV, Justin Schwab and Clint Woods. Schwab declined to comment, and the others did not respond to requests for interviews.

The bulk of the chapter is devoted to reshaping EPA — “an agency that has long been amenable to being coopted by the Left for political ends” — into an entity suited to carry out a “conservative vision.”

The sections devoted to regulation ricochet between improbable suggestions and superspecific head-scratchers.

“It does have this kind of spaghetti-against-the-wall approach,” said James Goodwin, policy director at the Center for Progressive Reform. “Literally everything and the kitchen sink is in there.”

For example, the chapter proposes that EPA “update” the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the environment. That’s the bedrock finding behind all Clean Air Act climate regulations, and has been targeted by some of the conservative groups behind Project 2025 — such as the Heartland Institute — since the finding’s inception.

But reversing it would be a legally tricky — and potentially more complicated after last month’s Supreme Court decision curtailing agency authority.

The Trump administration’s own EPA lawyers rejected a petition by a conservative think tank to reconsider the endangerment finding. They noted in emails obtained by E&E News that it remained consistent with scientific assessments by federal research bodies.

“If they were to revisit the endangerment finding based on the latest science, it is only more dire,” said Rachel Cleetus, climate policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“If anything, the 2009 endangerment finding is softballing the kind of impacts that are now already clear around us,” she said, referring to the effects of climate change.

But the chapter also provides a menu of wonky-sounding proposals that could narrow the scope of regulations, including for climate pollutants.

“This goes beyond many of the things that they did in the first Trump administration,” said Stan Meiburg, a former EPA acting deputy administrator. “It certainly is a very ambitious document, and incorporates ideas that go all the way back to the Reagan administration.”

Maximizing cost, minimizing benefits

Many of the regulatory proposals target EPA practices around cost-benefit analysis. There’s a reason for that: It’s generally harder for an agency to justify standards if their costs exceed their benefits.

Meiburg said the Reagan-era move to embrace cost-benefit analysis gave cost considerations the upper hand.

“Costs are specific and tend to be more quantifiable, and benefits tend to be more diffuse and less quantifiable, even though, in aggregate, they are larger,” said Meiburg.

Project 2025 proposes that EPA issue a rule to ensure “consistent and transparent consideration of costs.” Gunasekara said this would likely be a “very similar rule” to one introduced by the first Trump EPA, which was later voided by the Biden administration.

The rule promulgated under Wheeler was the first of its kind, and some experts say it could face longer odds now, when courts defer less to agencies on policy.

The EPA chapter also instructs the agency to “use appropriate discount rates, focus on the benefits of reducing the pollutant targeted by Congress, identify ‘co-benefits’ separately, and acknowledge the uncertainties involved in quantifying benefits.”

Discount rates are applied to future benefits that come at a present cost — such as avoided climate risk stemming from near-term emissions reductions.

“Basically, the higher the discount rate, the less argument there is for making investments now, because why would you spend money on this when you could make that money get a higher return doing something else?” said Meiburg.

During the Trump administration, discount rates were high, so the value of avoiding future climate change was low — somewhere between $1 and $7 per ton of carbon dioxide.

Project 2025 urges the agency to “revise guidance documents” for the so-called social cost of carbon, while another chapter proposes ending its use altogether.

Co-benefits — a rule’s health and environmental advantages that aren’t tied directly to reducing a targeted pollutant — have been persona non grata with conservatives for years. But the Trump EPA did count them in its climate rules — which showed minuscule benefits due in part to low social cost values for greenhouse gases.

Jason Schwartz, policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, said sidelining benefits could make rules less legally durable.

“I think that the court says have been clear in a number of cases that it would actually be arbitrary for an agency to ignore — or to really treat differently — co-benefits or indirect costs,” he said.

Gunasekara said co-benefits would still be analyzed.

“But it should be very clear, if EPA is going after one pollutant, what are the relative costs and benefit of [reducing] that one pollutant?” she said.

The goal, she said, should be “to ensure that there is increased transparency and understanding to the American public about cost-benefit justifications for the reduction of various pollutants.”

Transparency

Transparency is one of the chapter’s prevailing themes. That’s how the document frames its bid to require the data from all scientific studies underpinning regulation to be made public — effectively barring research that utilizes anonymous datasets.

But critics warn that many of its suggestions would create information gaps that would make it harder for EPA to maintain inventories of the greenhouse gas emissions — and ultimately to regulate them.

“It’s basically like two blades of a scissors,” said Goodwin of the Center for Progressive Reform. “These cost-benefit analysis rules are demanding more information. But the other blade is making it harder for EPA to get that information in the first place. And you can see how they come together.”

EPA currently requires 41 high-emitting sectors to report their greenhouse gas emission each year. About 8,000 facilities within those sectors — chosen because they exceed certain emissions thresholds — is the basis of EPA’s annual greenhouse gas inventory. The data has numerous purposes, including as an input for EPA regulatory decisions.

But Project 2025 would limit reporting to the few sectors currently being regulated for greenhouse gas emissions — such as power plants and oil and gas production. It would exempt major emitters in other sectors, such as municipal landfills, iron, steel and cement manufacturing, and carbon capture and storage.

The chapter said this would eliminate costly requirements borne by small businesses.

“This is either a pointless burden or a sword-of-Damocles threat of future regulation, neither of which is appropriate,” the document states.

But suspending annual greenhouse gas reporting for the four years of a second Trump term could delay regulation of new sectors during a subsequent administration by depriving it of needed data. It would reduce the scope of information available to scientific agencies that track emissions.

It could also make it impossible for the U.S. to fulfill its obligations as a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which requires an annual accounting of emissions and carbon sinks. The Senate formally ratified the treaty in 1992 and the U.S. remained a party to it under Trump, even as the administration moved to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

Gunasekara said she’d urge “the next conservative administration” to withdraw from the UNFCCC as well as Paris, which she said required the U.S. to make painful cuts while giving other countries “a free pass.”

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perry doj

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https://www**.desmog**.com/institute-energy-research/

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a not-for-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code that “conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets,” according to its website.

IER, founded in 1989 from a “predecessor non-profit organization,” maintains a focuson “energy analysis and free-market energy and environmental policy” with reports and analysis criticizing plans to lower emissions and attacking renewable energy. [67], [1]

IER‘s founder and CEO is Robert L. Bradley Jr., former Director of Policy Analysis at Enron. Bradley worked for over 16 years at Enron, also working as the speechwriter for Kenneth L. Lay, and wrote “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’” (Cato Institute, 1997) where he voices his opposition of green energy. Bradley has worked with a range of free market think-tanks including the Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Institute of Economic Affairs in London, Center for Energy Economics, and theInstitute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University. [35]

The Institute for Energy Research supported and promoted both the “Spanish” and “Danish”studies critical of jobs in green energy, both of which have been debunked. [43] According to the IER, efforts to reduce emissions to curb global warming would accomplish little at too great a cost. IER has promoted studies by The American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and the Heritage Foundation on the supposed costs of climate policy. [44], [45]

Koch Connections

Documents obtained by the Republic Report revealed that Charles Koch was directly involved with the IER at its formation through theIER‘s predecessor organization, The Institute for Humane Studies of Texas. [40]According to the Institute’s articles of incorporation filed in 1984, Koch was a member of the group’s board of directors. [41]

The Republic Report reports that the Institute for Humane Studies of Texas briefly lost its charter in 1989 for failure to pay the Texas state franchise tax. Four years later, incorporation documents reveal, the group rebranded as the Institute for Energy Research, or IER. [41]

Huffington Post describes how the IER became known for its role in advocating against tax subsidies on renewable energy, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) has been criticized for its acceptance of funding from Koch family foundations, and the group’s president, Thomas Pyle, is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. [42]

The American Energy Alliance

The American Energy Alliance (AEA) is the “advocacy arm” of the Institute for Energy Research, and describes itself as a “not-for-profit organization that engages in grassroots public policy advocacy and debate concerning energy and environmental policies.” [2]

Thomas Pyle, a former Koch and oil-industry lobbyist, is the President of both IER and the American Energy Alliance. [3],[4]

IER has also been a member of the Sustainable Development Network, a group which shares staff and may have additional connections with the International Policy Network.

Stance on Climate Change

2015

“That human activity has increased the atmospheric concentration of CO2, a gas known to ‘force’ climate or increase temperatures while the Earth has warmed about 0.6 Degrees Celsius over the last one hundred years is generally accepted. How the climate works and the relationship of different variables remains to be determined.” [5]

2008

“Any discussion of climate change must keep in mind that the Earth’s climate is anextremely complex system. Even though significant advances in data collection and analysis have occurred over the past 30 years, much uncertainty remains.” [44]

“Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90% of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder than today.” [44]

“A troubling aspect of the discussion of the discussion of Global Warming is the idea that our level of scientific understanding is perfect; or that we have little left to learn. As the previous discussion has shown, this is incorrect and many scientists disagreewith the idea that the causes and consequences of warming are perfectly understood.” [44]

Funding

According to the IER website, the group is “funded entirely by tax deductible contributions from individuals, foundations and corporations. No financial support is sought for or accepted from government sources.”[1]

IER has received funding from fossil fuel interests and several conservative funding sources, including Donors Trust.The Conservative Transparency Database breaks down the Institute for Energy Research’s fundingas follows. Note that not individual funding data values have been verified by DeSmog. [6]

See attached spreadsheet for details on Institute for Energy Research funding by year (.xlsx).

no table]

Donor Total

Marshall Heritage Foundation $1,550,000

DonorsTrust $1,084,000

American Energy Alliance $800,000

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $365,090

Exxon Mobil $337,000

Searle Freedom Trust $275,000

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $235,000

American Petroleum Institute $160,000

Chase Foundation of Virginia $155,940

Charles Koch Institute $102,652

Sarah Scaife Foundation $75,000

Adolph Coors Foundation $75,000

The Randolph Foundation $60,000

Castle Rock Foundation $50,000

The Challenge Foundation $35,000

Armstrong Foundation $35,000

The Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation $31,100

Earhart Foundation $17,500

True Foundation $15,000

Dunn’s Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking $5,000

Eric Javits Family Foundation $750

Grand Total $5,464,032

990 Forms

2013, Greenpeace’s Polluterwatch project found IER and AEA have received funding from Koch for a $3.6 million anti-Obama gas price advertising campaign. AEA itself has received funding from both ExxonMobil and Koch Industries.[7]

Greenpeace has also tracked IER‘s Koch funding year over year. [66]

*Note that original tax forms prior to 1997 are no longer available for verification, so are based on values recorded by the Conservative Transparency project. [66]

[no table]

*Note that original tax forms prior to 1997 are no longer available for verification, so are based on values recorded by the Conservative Transparency project. [66]

Year Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation Charles Koch Institute Grand Total

1991* $2,000 $2,000

1997 $2,500 $2,500

1998 $2,500 $2,500

1999 $2,500 $2,500

2001 $2,500 $2,500

2002 $25,000 $25,000

2003 $10,000 $10,000

2004 $15,000 $15,000

2005 $25,000 $25,000

2006 $25,000 $25,000

2007 $125,000 $125,000

2012 $5,000 $5,000

2014 $23,628 $12,000 $35,628

2015 $66,404 $31,091 $97,495

2016 $173,380 $23,272 $196,652

2017 $94,678 $20,289 $114,967

2018 $16,000 $16,000

Grand Total $365,090 $235,000 $102,652 $702,742

Alpha Natural Resources

The Institute for Energy Resources was one of the companies named in the bankruptcy documents of major coal company Alpha Natural Resources. [8]

Key People

Leadership

Name 2007 2008[37] 2011 2012 2013[10] 2014 2015[38] 2016[39] 2017 Description

Robert L. Bradley, Jr. Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y CEO and Founder

Lisa Wallace Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Senior Vice President, Operations and Development

Thomas J. Pyle Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y President. Also director of federal affairs for Koch Industries.

Daniel Kish Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Senior Vice President, Policy

Daniel R. Simmons Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Vice President for Policy. Also task force director for the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Brian J. Kennedy Y Senior Vice President, Public Affairs

William Alfred Koetzle Y Senior Vice President of Public Policy

Thomas Tanton Y Environmental Fellow, Pacific Research Institute. Former Vice President, IER.

Board of Directors

Name 2004 2006 2007 2008[36] 2009 2011 2012 2013[11] 2014 2015 2016[1] 2017     Description

Jim Clarkson Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y President, Resource Supply Management

Preston Marshall Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y President, MarOpCo

Steven F. Hayward Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Visiting Professor atPepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and the author of the “Almanac of Environmental Trends” (Pacific Research Institute, 2011)

Richard Stroup Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Senior Visiting Professor of Economics,North Carolina State University

Wayne Gable Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y President, Gable Consulting

Trent Sebits Y Y Chairman of the Board, Pickrell Drilling Company

Robert L. Testwuide III Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Vice President, Wealth Management Advisor, Merrill Lynch

Robert L. Bradley, Jr. Y Y Y Y CEO and Founder

Douglas B. Wyatt Y Y Y Chairman, CEO, Elk Resources, Inc.

Howard Gano, Jr. Y Y Y CPA, Gano & Gano, Inc.

Nancy C. Bradley Y Y Y Secretary/Treasurer, Institute for Energy Research

Rusty Smith Y Y Manager, Kansas City Power and Light

Thomas F. Tanton Y

William M. Yeatts Y Y Chairman, Digikinetics Ltd. & RAM, Inc., Buenos Aires

James L. Johnston Y Retired Senior Economist, Amoco

Scholars

Name 2005 2006 2007 2008 2011 2012 2014 2015 2016 2017 Description

Robert J. Michaels Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Senior Fellow

Mary J. Hutzler Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Distinguished Senior Fellow

Robert P. Murphy Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Senior Economist

Charles Drevna Y Distinguished Senior Fellow. Former Oil Industry Lobbyist [9]

Roger Donway Y Y Y Y Y Senior Research Fellow

Andrew P. Morriss Y Y Y Y Senior Fellow

David W. Hutzelman Y Y Fellow, Director of Special Projects

Richard W. Fulmer Y Y Y Y Senior Fellow

Jerry Taylor Y Y Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

Joel Schwartz Y Y Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

Marlo Lewis Y Y Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Richard Gordon Y Y Penn State University, Energy Journal

Thomas Tanton Y Y Y Environmental Fellow,Pacific Research Institute

John Jennrich Y Y Y Senior Fellow

Kenneth Green Y Visiting Fellow; American Enterprise Institute

Staff

Name 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Description

Dustin DeBerry Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Director, Donor Relations

Alexandra Newell Y Y Y Y Office Manager

Jordan McGillis Y

Chris Warren Y Y Y Y Director, Communications

Mike Morrison Y Y Y Y Director, Digital Media

Kris Daniel Y Y Y Director, Development

Travis Fisher Y Y Y Economist TRUMP

Daniel Smith Y Y Manager, Digital Media and Communications

Genevieve Thornton Y Y Director, Marketing

Landon Stevens Y Policy Associate

Robin Millican Y Y Y Director, Federal Affairs

Benjamin Cole Y Y Director, Communications

Hank Butler Y Policy Associate

Johnny Russell Y Director, Digital Media

Jeffrey Hubbard Y Y Director, Digital Media

John Mavretich Y Director, Communications

Rhonda Hegazi Y Director, Businass Administration

Actions

February 17, 2021

The IER published an article which disputed the effectiveness of Germany’s renewable energy investments. It stated that: “the solar and wind units are drawing power from the grid powered mainly by coal to keep their internal workings from freezing up.” The article also contended that as a result of the increased implementation of wind and solar energy, “the possibility of blackouts is likely to become more frequent.” [88]

May 25, 2020

Tom Pyle was featured in aShaleMag.com articledescribing how he and IER were “punching above their weight for energy.” The article highlighted how Pyle and IER played a role fighting for fossil fuels. [87]

“I think we’ve made a pretty big difference in terms of these battles, these policy fights,” Pyle said of what ShaleMag described as IER‘s advocacy of “a holistic approach that considers the welfare of energy consumers, energy producers and taxpayers.”

“I think we’ve established ourselves as a bedrock, a foundation of free market, promotion of free markets and less government intervention in energy. I’m really proud of the team that we’ve built, and we’ve got a lot of great alumni spread around, both at the Hill and in other places. One of our communications directors is working for Texas Governor Greg Abbott, for example, another at the Department of Energy. Others have gone on to run other organizations. We’re just a little one issue shop, but I think we punch above our weight, and we’ve helped prevent some really bad policies from coming into fruition. We’ve been on the other side as well, where we’ve been providing some great solutions that this president has been able to achieve in the last three years,” Pyle said.

Discussing Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign’s focus on climate change legislation and renewable energy, Pyle commented: [87]

“We saw the threat. To give the former president credit, he never hid what his intentions were with respect to the energy issues and the environmental issues. He made it absolutely clear he wanted to fundamentally transform this country. And he also made it clear in many a speech that he wanted to make ‘renewable’ or ‘clean’ energy become ‘profitable’ energy. That was code for using the government to make his pet energy sources more competitive with those that work better in the market.”

Pyle said he and IER focused on attacking Obama’s descriptions of hydraulic fracturing (Fracking). [87]

“[H]e was basing this whole agenda on this myth of scarcity, and we were having none of that. From the very beginning we intended to blow a hole in those theories,” Pyle said. “One of the first projects we produced was an inventory of the natural resources that we have in this country. We found that we have more energy resources underneath our lands and shores than any other country in the world, by far. So, it was never an issue of scarcity.”

Pyle commented on the recent film by Michael Moore, Planet of the Humans. The film, which has been criticized by environmental groupsfor its factual inaccuracy, was also criticized by Josh Fox—the producer of “Gasland,” a film that highlighted some of the risks of fracking in 2010. [87]

“Josh Fox! Yeah, he’s saying Moore’s movie should be taken down because it’s ‘riddled with inaccuracies,’” Pyle commented. “‘Gasland,’ oh my gosh, are you kidding me? ‘Gasland’ is full of inaccuracies, outright lies, and they tried to use it to destroy the industry. And they were unable to do it.”

Pyle went on to describe his experience serving on President Trump’s transition team: [87]

“I was fortunate to serve on President Trump’s transition team managing his Department of Energy work and some other issues within the transition team,” he said. “And that was great because we were able to give our ideas and our blueprint for how to make this country great again, and how to make American Energy great again.”

Pyle celebrated how the Trump administration has already removed “onerous” regulations like Waters of the United States (WOTUS), and restrictions on fracking on federal lands. He claimed to have played a major role in developing the Trump “American Energy Dominance” strategy. [87]

April 2, 2020

The Institute for Energy Research suggested fossil fuels were the only reliable way to power hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. IER criticized the wind industry’s requests for subsidies: [86]

“Despite the lack of reliability of wind units, the wind industry wants additional subsidies in the bills that Congress is enacting to help businesses and the economy deal with the coronavirus,: IER claimed. [86]

It concluded: “During the coronavirus outbreak, U.S. hospitals will be stressed to capacity and will need reliable electricity to run the ventilators and to otherwise keep coronavirus patients alive. Intermittent renewables, wind and solar power, do not provide reliable power 24/7, which hospitals need. Despite their intermittency and their claims that they can compete with traditional technologies, the wind and solar industries want extensions and expansions of existing subsidies to be included in the coronavirus relief bills Congress is enacting.” [86]

February 10, 2020

The Institute for Economic Research, represented by Tom Pyle, signed on to a coalition letter opposing the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a program designed to limit carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector. [84]

The letter was also promoted byThe Heartland Institute, who introduced it as “from many of our esteemed sister think tanks.” The letter portrays TCI as a “poorly conceived, fundamentally regressive, and economically damaging proposal.” [85]

October 8, 2019

The IER published commentary by Robert Murphy titled “The Bogus ‘Consensus’ Argument on Climate Change” rejecting the conventional wisdom that approximately 97% of scientists recognize human-induced climate change. [83]

“Human activity that emits carbon dioxide,” Murphy wrote, “will make the world warmer than it otherwise would be. That observation by itself does notmean there is a crisis nor does it justify a large carbon tax.” [83]

August 2019

:{The Clear Energy Alliance }released a video:{ suggesting a recent }::{article in The Guardian}::{, GUK which advocated for }::{tree planting as one of the key solutions in combatting carbon emissions, was reasoning for why “the Green New Deal and other hairbrained ideas wasting tens of trillions of your dollars can be tossed into the trashcan.}::{” }:[80]:{, }:[81

[vid]

the Institute for Energy Research promoted the CEA video in its newsletter and produced commentary on its website, written by Robert P. Murphy, claiming “The good news about tree planting disrupts the familiar narrative about carbon taxes that even professional economists have been feeding the public for years” and that it somehow illustrates “the danger in the traditional approach of using taxes to fix alleged market failures.” [82]

Neither CEA nor IER mention that the study’s lead researcher, Tom Crowther at the Swiss university ETH Zürich, had emphasized the continued need to cut emissions in conjunction with any other plans to sequester carbon in newly planted trees. As The Guardian reported: “Crowther emphasised that it remains vital to reverse the current trends of rising greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and forest destruction, and bring them down to zero.” [81]

February 8, 2019

A report by IER entitled “The 100 Percent Renewable Energy Myth” declared that a goal of 100% renewable energy generation in the United States would be impossible due to the intermittency of solar and wind power and the land requirements necessary for building them out: [79]

“Bottom line: setting a national goal of relying upon 100 percent renewable energy within a decade would lead to catastrophe. […] Electricity is not something with which to trifle. We take it for granted in the world’s richest and most advanced economy that things will work when we want them to work, but a 100 percent renewable plan would put that in jeopardy.” [79]

The report concluded that “intermittent wind and solar cannot stand on their own” and further warned that reliance on renewable energy infrastructure would shift dependence from foreign sources of oil to rare earth minerals from China. The report also claims that wind and solar technologies are not feasible without subsidies — without mentioning the subsidiesthat go to support traditional fossil fuels. [79]

February 1, 2019

IER published a commentary article byRobert P. Murphyframing the proposed Green New Dealwithin the context of the perceived failures of the New Deal of the 1930’s. According to Murphy, citing another article by IER president Robert Bradley Jr.a Green New Deal would lead to a dramatic uptick in unemployment along with market “chaos” as a result of overreaching government regulation and selective enforcement. [78]

More concerning, according to Murphy, would be the necessary imposition of something akin to martial law in response to the inevitable resistance to government interference in energy markets:

“Expect a Green New Deal aiming to outlaw fossil-fuel usage to be a police state too, with self-interested actions towards cheaper, more reliable energies thwarting the central planners from Washington, D.C.” [78]

The commentary’s author concludes with a dire warning that a Green New Deal would ultimately result in a failed state:

“[…] the proposed Green New Deal would be a giant leap on the road to serfdom. It would create the distortions and conflicts that would engender more of the same. Its slow-motion attack on wealth creation to subsidize the inefficient and a growing class of cronies would spiral the United States toward a present-day Venezuela.” [78]

January 10, 2018

In a commentary posted on their website, IER blamed “environmentalists” and state government policies in New England and New York for increased natural gas pricing during prolonged stretches of cold weather: [77]

“Environmentalists have contributed to the problem by protesting pipeline projects. … Bad policy decisions regarding limiting pipeline capacity, banning hydraulic fracturing, and shuttering coal and nuclear power plants have caused natural gas and electricity prices to spike in the Northeast when the bomb cyclone hit.” [77]

May 10, 2018

The Institute for Energy Research, represented by Thomas Pyle, was one of three signatories of an open letter to Donald Trump requesting that he follow through on a major rollback of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for the auto industry. [75]

The open letter was sent amid concerns from the the auto industry that the rollback could result in a “regulatory nightmare,” with potentially years of litigation from California and a lack of regulatory certainty. Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motor Co., said at the company’s annual meeting, “We are not asking the administration for a rollback.”  He said, “We want California at the table, and we want one national standard.” [76]

Despite this, presidential transition team members Pyle, Myron Ebell, and Shirley Ybarra pleaded with Trump, saying “You should dismiss this concern.” The letter continues: “We agree that in an ideal world, California would negotiate with you in good faith, but we all know that is not a reality in this current political climate.” Signatories also the existing mandate would mean “those consumers who prefer trucks, SUVs, or crossovers pay more to subsidize those who buy smaller vehicles.”  [76]

“These significant increases in the average price of a car or truck are a very real regressive tax on American families that make consumers poorer and the economy weaker,” Pyle, Ebell, and Ybarra wrote.  [76]

March 19, 2018

The IER released an “analysis” titled “Electric Vehicles Beware: Customers Prefer SUVs and Pick-Ups” suggesting that global emissions targets could be difficult to reach given interest in SUVs and crossovers. “Electric vehicles […] are not making much of a dent given the interest in SUVs and pick-ups,” the report claimed. [72]

The report concluded:

“SUVs and pick-up trucks are increasing in demand–not just in the United States, but around the world—as car buyers are looking to more roomy and powerful vehicles. The demand for these vehicles is making governments worry about meeting their reductions targets for greenhouse gas emissions.” [72]

IER promoted the report on social media, suggesting that SUV demand is “bad news for electric vehicles.” [73

[twt]

september 14, 2017

In its latest “analysis,” IER promoted a study suggesting that wind turbines reduce “the productivity of surrounding vegetation.”

“Wind power is not only bird-killing, noise-polluting, eyesore-causing, cost-prohibiting and vegetative-decreasing, but its intermittency leads to periods of overproduction or power shortages that necessitate reliance on traditional technologies as back-up or on costly storage technologies,” the IER report concluded. [68]

September 8, 2017

Citing climate change denier Judith Curry, IER claimed that human activity is not contributing to sea level rise: [69]

“A recent blog post by Judith Curry, ‘The Blame Game,’ put the science back into sea level—at least the best research we have now. Yes, sea level is rising, but such is also the natural state of things coming out of the Little Ice Age that ended in the mid-19th century,” The IER noted.

Curry had written at her blog *Climate Etc.* on August 14, 2017: [70]

“Sea level has been overall rising since the last ice age, with some ups and downs. Sea level has been rising for the past 200 years. […] Humans are not going to stop sea level rise on the time scale of a few centuries by ceasing emissions of CO2.” [70]

IER concluded with “good news” that “sea level rise is much more modest than false prognosticators have led us to believe. Al Gore’s worst case scenario fooled some for a time, but no more.” It adds that “Free-market adaptation, not a futile crusade to ‘stabilize’ climate, is the obvious choice for a free, prosperous world.” [70]

Note that the idea thatsea level rise is a natural cycleis one of the numerous myths debunked by SkepticalScience. [71]

December 2016

IER President Thomas Pyle was chosento head Donald Trump‘s energy transition team after Mike McKenna stepped down. [62]

Shortly before Pyle’s appointment, he had sent a memo (see full .pdf) —obtained and published by the Center for Media and Democracy—to a private email list. Pyle’s email, featuring both the Institute for Energy Research and American Energy Alliance logos in the banner, outlined “The Trump Administration’s Energy Plan,” and included 14 policy proposals such as: [63], [64],[65]

June 13, 2016

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) was listed as a creditor in Peabody Energy’s 2016 bankruptcy filings, reports the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD/PRWatch). [58]

While the available bankruptcy documents do not list the scale or dates of funding, they outline Peabody Energy’s financial ties to a large network of groups promoting climate change denial. [59]

Prominent individuals appearing in the documents include climate deniers Willie Soon, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer and Richard Berman. The long list of organizations also includes groups such as Americans for Prosperity, American Legislative Exchange Council, CFACT, Institute for Energy Research, State Policy Network, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and dozens more. [60]

The Guardian also analysed and reported on the Peabody bankruptcy findings: [61]

“These groups collectively are the heart and soul of climate denial,” said Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigation Center, who has spent 20 years tracking funding for climate denial. “It’s the broadest list I have seen of one company funding so many nodes in the denial machine.”

The company’s filings reveal funding for a range of organisations which have fought Barack Obama’s plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and denied the very existence of climate change. […]

Among Peabody’s beneficiaries, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change has insisted – wrongly – that carbon emissions are not a threat but “the elixir of life” while the American Legislative Exchange Council is trying to overturn Environmental Protection Agency rules cutting emissions from power plants. Meanwhile, Americans for Prosperity campaigns against carbon pricing. The Oklahoma chapter was on the list. […]

“The breadth of the groups with financial ties to Peabody is extraordinary. Thinktanks, litigation groups, climate scientists, political organisations, dozens of organisations blocking action on climate all receiving funding from the coal industry,” said Nick Surgey, director of research for the Center for Media and Democracy.

“We expected to see some denial money, but it looks like Peabody is the treasury for a very substantial part of the climate denial movement.”

Notable organizations listed in the initial documents include:

Notable individuals named in the initial documents include the following:

December 13, 2015

Writing as a guest blogger on Watts Up With That, CFACT‘s executive director Craig Rucker denounced the latest UN climate change agreement: [39]

“This agreement will not meaningfully alter the temperature of the Earth, even under the U.N.’s own computer models.

“The bad news is that it plants the seeds of a new UN climate regime that left unchecked will swell into a bureaucratic behemoth.”

May 3, 2016

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) released a report critical of the Obama administration’s move away from coal power titled “Killing an American Industry: Coal”: [55]

“This should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention. President Obama kept his promise to bankrupt coal plants, and his administration has impeded domestic natural gas, oil, and coal production at every turn,” Dan Simmons, vice president for policy of the IER, told**The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Research shows these plant closures will harm all of us by increasing electricity costs and making it more difficult to keep energy intensive businesses in the United States. The Obama administration has never been serious about economic growth, and that won’t change as long as the president continues to shut down affordable, reliable energy production.”[56]

April 26, 2016

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) released a report titled “Exploring the Dangers of the Keep it in the Ground Campaign” detailing “some of the pitfalls and threats posed by the environmentalist ‘keep it in the ground’ campaigns,”reports the**:{Daily Caller News Foundation. [54]}:

“Cutting off access to the very resources that power our economy will not only raise energy costs, but also the costs of everyday products that make modern life possible for American families,” states the report.

September 1, 2015

Institute for Energy Research President Thomas Pyle issued a statement criticizing Michigan’s Governor Richard Dale Snyder for his plan to implement EPA carbon regulations: [47]

“The Snyder administration’s decision to wave the white flag and implement EPA’s carbon regulation is bad news for Michigan families. The governor claims this approach ‘retains control’ for Michigan, yet the opposite is true. Implementing this regulation, when serious legal challenges persist, effectively hands over the keys to Michigan’s energy future to unelected bureaucrats in Washington. Once Gov. Snyder signs away Michigan’s control over its energy future to Obama’s EPA, there is no turning back.

“Obama and EPA want states to think their only choices are to submit a state plan or have a federal plan imposed on them. Gov. Snyder has apparently fallen for this false choice. The real choice is between shielding Michigan from this harmful carbon regulation or helping President Obama carry it across the finish line as the sun sets on his presidency.

“Obama’s carbon regulation is a national energy tax that will burden Michiganders, especially the poor, with higher energy prices and fewer jobs, yet will have no impact on climate change. Michigan voters made clear their stance on higher energy taxes when they overwhelmingly rejected Governor Snyder’s gas tax proposal earlier this year. The governor should listen to the citizens in his state and join the ranks of several of his fellow governors by rejecting the Obama administration’s carbon regulation.”

August 17, 2015

IER President Thomas Pyle issued a statement on the approval of Shell’s permit to explore for oil in the Arctic Ocean: [57]

“The approval of this permit is a huge victory for the American people. After fulfilling all of the requirements and investing $7 billion, Shell is finally able to begin the process of exploring these areas for vast oil resources that could make America stronger. But this is about more than finding oil. This is about investing in America’s future. The resources that lie in the Arctic will boost our energy security and ensure that American families have access to affordable energy for generations and generations to come. Americans of good will wish them luck in their search.”

August 13, 2015

The Institute for Energy Research released a report titled “The Poor and Sick Suffer Under Obama’s Carbon Rule” that claims that the EPA‘s clean power plan would “cause thousands of premature deaths in the United States.”  [13]

“The EPA relies on faulty data to make exaggerated claims about the benefits of a rule that will cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars and plunge millions of families into poverty,” the report states.

August 6, 2015

IER President Thomas Pyle published an article in *Medium*responding to a previous post by EPA Chief Gina McCarthy “with his own six reasons as to why states and the American people should be wary of entrusting EPA with their energy futures.” [48]

Pyle contends in his article that the EPA‘s power plan, which he entitles a “carbon agenda” will have “no impact on climate change,” will “[hurt] Americans’ health,” “relies on threats and bribes,” and “was written by the environmental lobby,” among other criticisms. [49]

August 3, 2015

IER President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement criticizing President Obama’s Clean Power Plan: [50]

“The final version of President Obama’s ‘Clean Power Plan’ is somehow more harmful than the proposed rule. It forces states to make even steeper cuts, it guts natural gas in favor of costly renewables, and it still has no effect on climate change. While the EPA touts these adjustments to the rule as a sign of ‘flexibility’, it’s really an admission that Obama needs states to do his dirty work. But state leaders shouldn’t give in to the administration’s bribery schemes. Regardless of these cosmetic changes to the rule, the fundamental flaws remain.

“It’s important to remember that President Obama’s carbon regulation, the crown jewel of his climate legacy, has no impact on climate change. EPA’s own models [note triple faced BS] show that their carbon rule will limit global temperature rise by a mere 0.018 degrees Celsius by 2100. That’s a bad deal for the American people. State leaders should protect their citizens from Obama’s costly carbon rule by refusing to submit a plan.”

[[The study, conducted by an international team led by researchers at University of Leeds, says that even if lockdown measures continue until the end of 2021—more than a year and a half in total—the planet may only cool by about 0.018 degrees Fahrenheit by 2030.]]

{{https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-many-problems-the-epas-clean-power-plan-and-climate-regulations-primer

...

The Climate and Environmental Benefits: None

The trade-off that Americans receive for higher electricity rates, unemployment, and lower levels of prosperity is not an appealing one. Even though electricity generation accounts for the single-largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, the estimated reduction is minuscule compared to global greenhouse gas emissions. Using the “Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change,” developed with support from the EPA, climatologists Paul Knappenberger and Patrick Michaels estimate that the climate regulations will avert a meager –0.018 degree Celsius (C) of warming by the year 2100.[[14]](https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-many-problems-the-epas-clean-power-plan-and-climate-regulations-primer#_ftn14)

In fact, the U.S. could cut its CO2 emissions 100 percent and it would not make a difference in global warming...

[[13]](https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-many-problems-the-epas-clean-power-plan-and-climate-regulations-primer#_ftnref13) Kevin D. Dayaratna, Nicolas Loris, and David W. Kreutzer, “The Obama Administration’s Climate Agenda Will Hit Manufacturing Hard: A State-by-State Analysis,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2990, February 17, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/02/the-obama-administrations-climate-agenda-will-hit-manufacturing-hard-a-state-by-state-analysis.

[[14]](https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-many-problems-the-epas-clean-power-plan-and-climate-regulations-primer#_ftnref14)Paul C. Knappenberger and Patrick J. Michaels, “0.02°C Temperature Rise Averted: The Vital Number Missing from the EPA’s ‘By the Numbers’ Fact Sheet,” Cato at Liberty blog, June 11, 2014, http://www.cato.org/blog/002degc-temperature-rise-averted-vital-number-missing-epas-numbers-fact-sheet (accessed May 26, 2015).

[[15]](https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-many-problems-the-epas-clean-power-plan-and-climate-regulations-primer#_ftnref15) Paul C. Knappenberger and Patrick J. Michaels, “Current Wisdom: We Calculate, You Decide: A Handy-Dandy Carbon Tax Temperature-Savings Calculator,” Cato at Liberty blog, July 23, 2013, http://www.cato.org/blog/current-wisdom-we-calculate-you-decide-handy-dandy-carbon-tax-temperature-savings-calculator (accessed May 26, 2015).

[[16]](https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/the-many-problems-the-epas-clean-power-plan-and-climate-regulations-primer#_ftnref16) Judith A. Curry, “Statement to the Committee on Environment and Public Works of the United States Senate,” January 16, 2014, http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=07472bb4-3eeb-42da-a49d-964165860275 (accessed May 26, 2015).

}}:

June 30, 2015

The Institute for Energy Research published a study titled “The Levelized Cost of Electricity from Existing Generation Resources” (PDF) authored by Thomas F. Stacy and George S. Taylor.[14]

Thomas Pyle writes in the Wall Street Journal that the study concludes that  “scrapping the existing coal fleet to build new generators would impose expensive and unnecessary costs—and the public would foot the bill.” [15]

November 21, 2014

IER President Thomas Pyle published an op-ed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal titled “It’s time for wind tax credit to get blown away.” Some excepts below: [51]

“One of the central building blocks of the EPA’s power plant rule is increased use of wind and solar for electricity generation. But wind and solar are uncompetitive without massive taxpayer subsidies and mandated renewable portfolio standards. For wind, that takes the form of the production tax credit. […]

“Congress should reject any attempt by [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid to revive the wind production tax credit in the lame-duck session. It’s clearly a bad deal for Nevadans, enriching out-of-state billionaires at the expense of working families.”

October 2013

The Institute for Energy Research released multiple reports on wind energy. According to an article fact checking the IER‘s report, the publication “overstates the actual cost of wind energy by around 100%.”

“[E]ach of IER’s attempts to add a cost to wind energy fails due to a use of obsolete data or a critical misunderstanding of how the power grid operates. We are left with the clear conclusion of third-party data and independent assessments: Wind energy’s rapidly declining costs are keeping electricity costs low for consumers,” said Michael Goggin, senior director of AWEA. [16]

April 2012

Shortly after the Senate’s vote to block a repeal on the 4 billion a year in subsidies going to oil companies, the Institute for Energy Research compiled a report attempting to disprove the Administration’s report on a point-by-point basis.

DeSmogBlog reportshow the IER‘s report is “riddled with falsehoods and inaccurate information.”[17]

March 2012

The American Energy Alliance, the political arm of IER, launched a $3.6 million ad campaign accusing President Barack Obama as being behind an increase in gas prices. The campaign was partially funded by foundations controlled by Charles and David Koch and criticizes Obama’s decision on the Keystone KL pipeline. [18]

February 7, 2012

The IER released a study titled “Impact of EPA’s Regulatory Assault on Power Plants.” The *Huffington Post* listed this study as one of the most frequently used studies “used by pundits and special interests to attack the Clean Power Plan.” [19], [20]

Huffington Post debunks the study and as follows:

Flaws:  

August 2011

Robert Bradley, founder and CEO of the IER, spoke at the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. [22]

The Center for Media and Democracy describes ALEC as follows:

ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC‘s operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills.

October 2009

IER ran a campaign on “green jobs”criticizing the development of renewable energy resources. IER commissioned three studies on renewable energies and green jobs in Denmark, Germany and Spain. [23] An IER press release confirmed that it had commissioned the Danish study. [46]

The studies were in turn promoted by the IER in the US and by other think tanks in Europe and in Ontario, Canada. Greenpeace reported (PDF)how the Spanish study was disseminated: [24]

According to SourceWatch, the studies were conducted by a number of separate think tanks and while promoted by IER in the US, they were also used in attempt to influence policy decisions in Europe and Ontario, Canada. [33]

For example, the study on Germany was translated into German and referenced by the German media without mentioning that the study was financed by IER. The German institute that wrote the study (Rheinisch-westfaelisches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung, or RWI) didn’t acknowledge the funding from IER until they were challenged by investigative journalists. [34]

Institute for Energy Research Contact & Location

The Institute for Energy Research shares the same address and phone numbers as its 501(C)(4) subsidiary, the American Energy Alliance(as of May, 2016): [52], [53]

1155 15th St. NW, Suite 900

Washington, D.C. 20005

Phone (202) 621-2950

Fax (202) 741-9170

Media Inquiries

Chris Warren at cwarren@ierdc.org

Related Organizations

Social Media

Resources

...

---

https://thinkprogress.org/obscure-think-tank-gains-influence-1644feb0b813/

This is how the Kochs’ anti-renewable agenda becomes White House policy

Koch-tied officials “got their wish” with Trump’s attacks on climate action, environment.

MARK HANDJUL 17, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump raised eyebrows late last year when he named the head of an obscure right-wing think tank, with close ties to petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, to lead his energy transition team. Since then, officials from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) have been appointed to high-level positions at the Department of Energy where they are playing major roles in implementing pro-fossil fuel, anti-renewable energy policies.

Thomas Pyle, who serves as president of IER and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), set the tone by drafting a priority list for the new administration; at the top of the list was withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

Soon after Trump took office, newly appointed officials across the federal government started a push to prop up the fossil fuel sector, particularly the coal industry. In the spring, Energy Secretary Rick Perry directed his staff to conduct a study of the U.S. electric grid to determine if renewables were harming traditional baseload generation sources, like coal and nuclear.A former IER official, Travis Fisher, was selected to oversee the study.

A draft of the study leaked last week concluded that renewables pose no threat to the grid. The leaked draft was completed by DOE career staff, and thus is subject to change by Perry and his team of Trump appointees. A DOE spokeswoman told Bloomberg that “those statements as written are not in the current draft.” The report clarifies that the spokeswoman “wouldn’t say they are incorrect, just the draft is ‘constantly evolving.’”

In an April memo, Perry wrote that pro-renewable energy regulations issued by past U.S. administrations “threaten to undercut the performance of the grid” and have caused “the erosion of critical baseload resources” derived from coal and nuclear energy. Since Perry ordered the study, numerous analyses and reports have been published rejecting that notion.

[Rick Perry called out for ‘thinly disguised’ attempt to undermine renewable energy

Former Koch-funded think tank official selected to lead DOE study.]

“From the beginning, all signs pointed to Perry’s so-called study as a piece of coal power propaganda,” Jim Marston, vice president of clean energy for the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote in a blog post.

Fisher has been clear about his disdain for policies that encourage the growth of renewable energy: In 2015, he wrote a report on the nation’s power grid in which he recommended that policymakers eliminate the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and Mercury and Air Toxics Standards; the federal production tax credit for wind energy; state renewable energy standards; and net metering incentives for rooftop solar.

“It’s no coincidence that, now that Donald Trump is in the White House, some of the same clean energy policies that Fisher targeted for attack in his 2015 grid study for IER are now being rolled back,”Dave Anderson, the Energy and Policy Institute’s policy and communications manager wrote in a report.

IER receives funding specifically to produce research papers that attack renewable energy and promote fossil fuels, according to Jesse Coleman, a researcher with Greenpeace USA’s investigations team. Other right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute have a wide array of financial backers; IER’s funding circle appears to be much smaller.

With Koch brothers-linked groups serving as its major funders, IER “can get away with more extreme views, especially on renewable energy, than either Heritage or the American Enterprise Institute does,” Coleman explained.

IER plays “a very valuable and preconceived function within this greater Koch network.”

In May, Trump appointed Daniel Simmons, IER’s former vice president for policywho has questioned the value of promoting renewable energy sources, to oversee the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.Simmons also held a top position atAEA, which advocated for the office he now oversees at DOE to be eliminated.

Simmons is the highest-profile former IER employee to land a job in the Trump administration. Prior to joining IER, he served as director of the natural resources task force at theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing group that drafts industry-friendly model legislation for policymakers.

Another former AEA staff member, Alex Fitzsimmons, is now a senior adviser in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, E&E News reported earlier this month. While at AEA, Fitzsimmons served as manager of policy and public affairs where he wrote blog posts on “green energy cronyism” and spotlighting Jay Leno’s criticisms of ethanol.

With the financial backing of tax-exempt organizations linked to the Kochs and other right-wing donor groups, IER has been promoting its pro-coal, anti-renewable energy agenda for years. Founded in 1989, IER is a small think tank, but its tentacles spread far and wide among other right-wing groups. AEA was formed in 2008. Between 2010 and 2014, IER and AEA received more than $5 million from Koch-tied funds.

[This Koch-backed group invites you to celebrate fossil fuels on Earth Day

The contest is designed to “showcase the awesomeness of fossil fuels.”]

IER plays “a very valuable and preconceived function within this greater Koch network, which is to provide academic ammunition for the other groups that fight for the Koch brothers and the oil and gas agenda writ large,” Coleman said in an interview.

“While they seem small, they’re part of the much larger Koch network that has always given them an echo chamber and increased their reach,” he continued. “And that’s the reason we see them with such seemingly outsized influence now.”

IER founder and CEO Robert Bradley, Jr. [HACK? RIP?] is an adjunct scholar at the Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute and the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute. Bradley previously served as director of policy analysis at Enron, where he wrote speeches for company founder Ken Lay. The company collapsed into bankruptcy in late 2001 with several officials, including CEO Jeff Skilling, serving prison sentences.

A ThinkProgress review of IER and AEA’s funders (according to data provided by Conservative Transparency, Guidestar, and CitizenAudit) revealed that since 2008, its donations included at least:

Institute for Energy Research
American Energy Alliance

Prior to joining IER, Pyle worked as a registered lobbyist for Koch Industries and served as director of federal affairs for Koch Industries from 2001 through 2005. Pyle also worked as policy analyst for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX), who ranked among the top recipients of oil and gas industry funds during his time in Congress.

The Republican Party’s move further to the right, especially on energy and environmental issues, has political observers confused about how to describe its major players. Elliott Negin, a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out that the Washington Post called Simmons a “conservative scholar”when reporting his DOE appointment. As a veteran of the Koch brothers’ “climate science denier network,” the more accurate description of Simmons would be “fossil fuel industry propagandist,” Negin wrote.

Given its small size — it lists just nine current scholars and staff members on its website — IER cannot provide the Trump administration with an endless supply of anti-regulation energy officials. Industry trade groups and other right-leaning research organization are helping to fill the ranks of Trump’s energy and environmental team.

For energy and environment policy, though, IER is playing an important role in the Trump administration. “IER adheres to a very extreme brand of ‘free market’ ideology. As usually happens with other groups in the Koch network, they will specifically attack the enemies of Koch Industries’ profit centers. So… they attack solar and wind,” Coleman said.

During the presidential transition, the IER-AEA memo written by Pyle predicted that the Clean Power Plan would be withdrawn by the Trump administration. “Pyle, IER, and AEA soon got their wish,” Anderson wrote. “Trump signed an executive order that began the process of reviewing the Clean Power Plan during his first 100 days in the White House.”

With Pyle [EBELL?] serving as Trump’s energy transition team chief,IER laid the groundwork for the energy policies that are now being amplified by the administration, Coleman said. Blaming renewable energy for a decline in the coal and nuclear industries, for instance, was a talking point that clearly came from IER.

“It’s such a crazy place that [other Republicans] don’t want to be a part of it.”

John Coequyt, global climate policy director for the Sierra Club, contends that theTrump administration is having trouble finding qualified people to fill appointed positions at DOE, which has created a vacuum for a small organization like IER.

“It’s such a crazy place that [other Republicans] don’t want to be a part of it,” Coequyt said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with these [IER] guys or whether they are ultimately going to be successful. It’s hurting them that they’re such zealots.”

Release of the grid study ordered by Rick Perry has been delayed from its original late-June deadline. According to the leaked version of the study released last week, wind and solar power do not pose a significant threat to the reliability of the U.S. power grid, contradicting statements by Perry. The conclusions in the final study, after DOE’s political appointees get a chance to review it, will represent the key first test for IER’s influence on policies related to promoting fossil fuels and undercutting renewable energy sources. [FIND FINAL?]

Josh Israel contributed to this piece.

#CLIMATE, #DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, #ENVIRONMENT, #EPA, #KOCH BROTHERS

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-energy-secretary-rick-perry-orders-dubious-study-against-wind-and-solar

Secretary Rick Perry is cooking up a case to stifle further federal support of renewable wind and solar energy.He’s ordered a dubiously sourced staff study that is aimed to paint renewables as an unreliable source for the nation’s electric grid.

The study, due June 23, seeks to determine whether federal tax and subsidy policies favoring renewable energy have burdened “baseload” coal-fired generation, putting power grid reliability at risk. It is being spearheaded by Energy Department political appointee Travis Fisher, who’s associated with a  Washington policy group that opposes almost any government aid for renewable energy.

Fisher wrote a 2015 report for the Institute for Energy Research that called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat”to the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability than cyber attacks, terrorism or extreme weather.[OOPS TEXAS ERCOT]

The Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, has been the “influential force in shaping Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle Obama administration climate initiatives,’’ according to Bloomberg News.

Headed by Thomas Pyle, a former director of federal affairs for Koch Industries, IER has already delivered its fossil fuel industry wish list to the Trump administration. It’s part of the “America First Energy Plan” that was posted on the White House website on Jan. 20.

As a blueprint for quashing renewable energy research and development, Perry’s call for the study immediately signaled alarm. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) slammed the study as “anti-wind.” University of Texas’ Energy Institute experts called the question of whether renewables are killing coal “would be similar to asking in the late 1990s whether email was killing fax machines and snail mail.’’

A letter from Advanced Energy Economy, American Wind Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association disputed the administration’s premise: “Policies supporting the deployment of these technologies are not playing an important role in the decline of coal and nuclear plants. Numerous studies have conclusively demonstrated that low natural gas prices and stagnant load growth are the principal factors behind the retirements in coal and nuclear plants.’’

Energy Department officials last week sought to reassure members of its electricity policy advisory panel that a grid reliability study “is gathering a range of viewpoints from experts at DOE’s national laboratories,” reported E&E News, a Washington new organization that covers energy issues.

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/key-hires-energy-department-raise-concerns

Most people who know anything about Rick Perry know he’s a friend to the fossil fuel industry. For 14 years, he was the Republican governor of Texas, a state that contains one-third of the nation’s oil reserves and is home to oil giants ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Valero Energy. As a political candidate, Perry received millions in donations from oil and gas companies and their executives. Until recently, he was a board member of Energy Transfer Partners, the co-owner of the dirty tar sands oil transport mechanism, Dakota Access Pipeline, which was approved by Donald Trump in January and runs through Native American lands in North Dakota.

Perry supported new coal plants in Texas as well, but he also allowed a major expansion of wind energy and signed a renewable portfolio standard that aided growth in that industry. He appears to favor an all-of-the-above approach to energy production, as opposed to the severely anti-clean energy agenda Trump projects and which the conservative Heritage Foundation hoped he would adhere to. In the past, however, Perry called the science of climate change a "contrived phony mess.”

Now, as head of the Department of Energy—an agency he wanted to eliminate during his 2012 presidential bid (and the name of which he famously forgot in a televised debate)—Perry seems to be welcoming climate-change deniers into his fold while at the same time sticking up for the department’s energy efficiency and renewables programs.

The Department of Energy made headlines when disaster was narrowly averted after a tunnel collapsed at a nuclear site in Washington state and when Perry refused to join the other G7 nations in a joint climate accord at a summit in Italy.

Here’s what’s been going on behind the scenes at the Department of Energy in its first three months under Perry.

Clean Energy Enemies Join the Department

At least three staffers from conservative, anti-clean energy think tanks now have roles in the Energy Department. This comes after Thomas Pyle, a former Koch Industries lobbyist, ran Trump’s transition team for the department. Pyle is president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), a think tank co-founded and partially funded by fossil fuel industrialist Charles Koch, as well as its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance. A leaked Pyle memo obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy from December revealed Trump’s energy plan, a “fossil fuel industry wish list.”

Travis Fisher, an economist and current Energy staffer, most recently worked for IER, where he wrote columns opposing renewable energy and defending fossil fuels. Big funders of IER have included ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, several Koch-backed nonprofits and two Koch family foundations.

Fisher was once an intern at the John Locke Foundation, one of several North Carolina-based think tanks founded and funded by close Koch ally Art Pope.

On April 14, Perry issued a memo requesting a study, to be overseen by Fisher, on whether clean energy programs are hindering coal and nuclear programs. The study has caught fire from the left, with a group of Democratic senators writing to Perry with serious concerns, calling it “a thinly disguised attempt to promote less economic electric generation technologies, such as coal and nuclear, at the expense of cost-competitive wind and solar power.”

They wrote, “The notion that a 60-day review conducted by ideologues associated with a Koch brothers-affiliated think tank should supplant research and analysis conducted by the world’s foremost scientists and engineers would be a grave disservice to American taxpayers.”

Chief of staff to Perry is Brian McCormack, former vice president of political and external affairs at the Edison Electric Institute, an influential trade group for investor-owned electric utilities that has attacked residential solar access and opposed renewable energy targets and the 2007 Clean Water Restoration Act, according to SourceWatch. While there, McCormack was a key player in the institute’s campaign to take down rooftop solar energy. EEI’s PAC, funded mostly by employees in the fossil fuel industry, gives the majority of its campaign donations to Republican candidates and PACs, and the group funds independent super PACs and political nonprofits as well. At DOE, McCormack will likely help shape the future of several of the departments’ solar programs.

On May 3, the Department of Energy hired another Institute for Energy Research alum, Dan Simmons,to head the Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which Trump wants to cut by 70 percent and the Heritage Foundation wants to eliminate entirely. As vice president of policy at IER, he attacked subsidies for rooftop solar and called for increased fossil fuel exploration on federal lands.

Simmons also directed the Natural Resources Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative “bill mill” where politicians and big-business representatives, many from fossil fuel companies, work together to craft model legislation that will boost corporate profits. Finally, Simmons was a research fellow at the heavily Koch-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Now he’ll oversee a major DOE office in charge of grants, competitions and initiatives including solar funding program SolarShot and efficiency program Energy Star, which is operated by both the DOE and the Environmental Protection Association (which, in turn, is led by fossil fuel shill Scott Pruitt, who has wanted to shutter the agency for some time).

Who else will carry out the Energy Department’s agenda is largely unknown, as most top department officials are only temporary appointees. Trump has yet to nominate anyone for 20 out of 22 top Energy positions, in keeping with his slow nomination process: Out of 557 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, Trump has put forth a mere 49 nominees, according to the Washington Post.

Aside from ordering the study on coal and nuclear energy, Perry has done other things that were surely hailed by fossil fuel companies.For instance, the new Energy secretary refused to join the six other nations at the April G7 summit in signing joint declaration reaffirming commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate. Perry found out there that opposing the agreement will have significant diplomatic and political consequences; he was met with foreign diplomats who voiced concerns that the U.S. will slow down its renewable energy production, thus hampering international efforts at combatting climate change.

A Perry Push for Energy Efficiency?

Trump’s 2018 budget blueprint called for steep cuts to the Energy Department’s efficiency and renewables programs, but Congress passed only modest cuts through the end of this year: The low-carbon transportation programs will get a 3.6 percent cut, and renewables program will see a 5.6 percent cut. However, its energy efficiency programs will have a 12.7 percent increase. Fossil energy research programs will get a 5.7 percent boost.

While the signs are not very good for clean energy expansion or significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions any time soon, it seems, at least for now, that a sliver of the Energy budget will still go toward efficiency and clean energy efforts.

According to Clean Technica, Perry has been “trolling his deputy” by aggressively promoting its energy efficiency programs. Although Trump wanted to kill Energy Star, which sets efficiency standards for appliances and buildings, the DOE has been regularly posting blogs about energy efficiency jobs and touting renewables on social media, including from Perry’s own Twitter account. If the EPA and the Department of Education crumble as planned, perhaps vestiges of the Department of Energy will remain.

Over in the State Department, Rex Tillerson, who worked for 40 years at Exxon, the oil company that dangerously misled the world on climate change, recently signed an international declaration recognizing climate change, despite the many powerful climate change deniers in the White House.

Don’t expect Perry to be a warrior for clean energy, but look for instances where he may do things that are out of step with the goals of Trump, Pruitt and other members of the opposed-to-any-form-of-green-energy cohort.

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joined at hip by AEA? rev door gop staffers eg Pyle?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/08/22/174407/dirty-energy-town-hall/

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no lnx many

THE BLOG

Koch-Funded Climate Contrarians Make Mischief on Capitol Hill

With Congress about to head out of town for its summer recess, a Washington-based think tank is ramping up a campaign to foil any attempts to institute a tax on carbon emissions.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/koch-funded-climate-contr_b_3620727

By

Elliott Negin, Contributor

Senior Writer, Union of Concerned Scientists

Jul. 19, 2013,  | Updated Dec. 6, 2017

This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Institute for Energy Research economist Robert P. Murphy criticized the Obama administration's calculation of the "social cost of carbon" at a recent Senate hearing.

With Congress about to head out of town for its summer recess, a Washington-based think tank is ramping up a campaign to foil any attempts to institute a tax on carbon emissions, The Hill, a Washington political trade publication, reported this week.

"We're hoping to put the final nail in the coffin of the carbon tax," said Benjamin Cole, the communications director for the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA). "The proposal should be dead on arrival by the time lawmakers come back from August recess."

IER's campaign includes a survey of American attitudes about such a tax and a $120,000 to $150,000 radio ad buy targeting a handful of House members who, according to Cole, "are soft on the carbon tax issue."

The Hill story, however, merely described IER as a "conservative" group. That doesn't explain why a think tank named the Institute for Energy Research is so dead set against a carbon tax, given the initiative would certainly help some energy technologies, especially wind, solar and other renewables.

So why is IER so down on cutting carbon?

Because it's backed by the fossil fuel industry, that's why.

The Koch Connection

Over the last decade or so, IER and AEA have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from ExxonMobil; the American Petroleum Institute (API), the oil and gas industry's trade association; the Center to Protect Patient Rights, a secretive nonprofit group linked to Charles Koch and his brother David, the billionaire owners of the coal, oil and gas behemoth Koch Industries; and the Charles Koch-controlled Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, one of a handful of Koch family funds.

Top IER-AEA officials also are well-entrenched members of the Koch brothers' climate change contrarian network.IER and AEA President Thomas Pyle, for example, is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. IER and AEA Director of Regulatory and State Affairs Daniel Simmons, meanwhile, worked for the API-, ExxonMobil- and Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a stealthy lobby group that has been trying to repeal state standards requiring electric utilities to use more renewable energy. Before his stint as director of ALEC's Natural Resources Task Force, Simmons was a research fellow at the Koch-founded and funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Not to be outdone, IER founder and CEO Robert L. Bradley, Jr. -- a former public policy analysis director at the now-defunct Enron Corp. -- is an adjunct scholar at the Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute and the API- and Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute. He also has been a featured speaker at the API- and Koch-funded Heartland Institute's annual climate science-bashing conference, and is a member of the academic review committee at the Koch-funded Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason. The Institute for Humane Studies' chairman, I should add, is Charles Koch.

The Social Cost of Carbon

IER is doing more than trying to kill a carbon tax in its crib. Just yesterday, IER Senior Economist Robert P. Murphy testified on the "social cost of carbon" at a hearing on Capitol Hill. That's the official government estimate of the financial damage caused by carbon pollution, and it's important, as my colleague Rachel Cleetus pointed out in a recent blog, because it enables federal agencies to include the societal value of cutting carbon emissions, either directly or indirectly, when conducting traditional cost-benefit analyses of regulations.

The Obama administration recently boosted the monetary costs of carbon pollution to better reflect reality. According to Cleetus, a senior climate economist at the Union of Concerned Scientists: "The increase in the new social cost of carbon estimate is broadly consistent with what we're seeing in the scientific and economic literature on the growing risks and costs of climate change, and in fact is very likely an underestimate of the true cost of our carbon emissions.

"The increase is also consistent with the costs of climate change that we are already experiencing, such as those associated with sea level rise and rising temperatures," she continued. "Climate change is making coastal flooding, extreme heat, extreme precipitation, and other weather events worse, while we have more people and property in harm's way."

So what did Murphy tell the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works?

In the same way that fossil fuel industry-funded contrarians are still trying to manufacture doubt about climate science, Murphy tried to poke holes in climate economics. He criticized the computer models and the methodology used to arrive at the new cost estimate and underscored the subjective nature of the exercise. "Before justifying economically damaging regulations by reference to 'the' social cost of carbon," he said, "policymakers must realize the dubious nature of this concept."

Cleetus's blog provides useful context for understanding some of the key issues Murphy brought up in his testimony. For example, Cleetus agrees that the computer models used to calculate the social cost of carbon are not perfect, but not because they overstate the potential damage.

"[The computer models] don't reflect just how devastating unchecked climate change will be," she writes. "For instance, some economic analyses assume that areas of the planet will remain economically productive, even under a worst-case warming scenario. It's hard to imagine people will want to keep doing business in an underwater city or that we'll still have economic activity in places that are too hot and humid for people to walk outside for more than a few minutes without suffering from heat stroke."

Cleetus also stressed that applying the social cost of carbon when calculating the costs and benefits of government regulation is just one tool in our arsenal to combat climate change. "Congress should also live up to its responsibilities," she says, "and put a price on carbon through legislation."

IER Says Let the Free Market Do Its Magic

IER's website features an essay that acknowledges that "climate change and energy security are issues of great concern for many Americans," but states unequivocally that policies to reduce carbon emissions "would be extremely expensive, consume resources that could be directed to immediate and profound problems, and have limited potential to affect climate...."Any sense of urgency to address climate change, the essay continues, has been fueled by media hype, profit-seeking renewable-energy and carbon-pollution-control companies, scientists on the research-funding gravy train, foreign nations plotting to undermine U.S. economic strength, and opportunistic politicians.

I kid you not.

I emailed IER's communication director, Benjamin Cole, yesterday morning to find out if his organization, given its opposition to a carbon tax, would endorse any government action on climate change.

His response: "Our approach would be to allow free markets and American consumers to balance most effectively the demands of America's energy needs with environmental concerns."

I asked him to elaborate: "Does that mean you are against all pollution regulations? You would want the free market to take care of environmental pollution?"

To which he responded: "The Institute for Energy Research has not endorsed any proposal that addresses climate change. As a 501c3 research organization, we provide analysis concerning the various proposals and their potential economic and environmental impacts. But we do not advocate for any specific legislation."

For some reason, I'm not surprised. Why advocate for specific legislation when the free market will take care of it? Isn't that just what Charles Koch would say?

Correction: The original blog published on Friday, July 19, included a passage that inadvertently mischaracterized economist Robert P. Murphy's July 18 Senate testimony by taking a portion of it out of context. The caption under his photo likewise mischaracterized what he said. Elliott Negin regrets the errors, which have been corrected.

Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists.In May, he published a six-part series in the Huffington Post, Unreliable Sources: How the Media Help the Kochs & ExxonMobil Spread Climate Disinformation," which documents that leading news organizations routinely fail to disclose the fossil fuel industry funding behind climate change contrarian think tanks.

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3/15

Over the years, critics of clean energy have learned a few things about dirty politics. In their latest attempt to protect fossil fuel special interests—and stop the progress of renewable energy dead in its tracks—they have turned to a tried-and-true tactic: someone in Congress asks for a half-baked study on energy subsidies, designed to leave skewed results and certain to draw the interest of government watchdog groups. Then, a front group for the Koch brothers steps in and starts trashing clean energy, and Americans find themselves confused.

Welcome to Washington, Mr. Smith. As Mark Twain once mused, “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

This latest dustup started with a new report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which offers a snapshot in time of the different incentives for various energy sources, and was requested by several Republican members of Congress. Predictably, Watchdog.org then picked up the report and posted a story with the less-than-flattering headline, “Solar and wind energy pack a wallop—in federal subsidies.” While Watchdog.org did a good job of seeking comment from both the solar and wind industries, the real truth about clean energy incentives was consistently clouded by an organization known as The Institute for Energy Research,which—surprise, surprise—was founded by Charles Koch and former Enron executive Robert Bradley, who wrote speeches for disgraced Enron CEO—and I should add, corporate crook—Ken Lay.

For its part, EIA did what it was asked to do, but the request was narrowly defined to only include subsidies with clear identifiable impacts on the U.S. Treasury and that are provisions specific to energy. This restrictive definition leaves out some of the largest fossil and nuclear subsidies, which results in a skewed, apples-to-oranges comparison. For example, the EIA report omits:

  1. Price-Anderson nuclear insurance liability limitations (because it has no identifiable impact on the Treasury), even though American taxpayers are on the hook for an unlimited amount of money in insurance costs in the event of a catastrophic accident.
  1. It does not account for royalties on foreign crude oil being classified as income taxes, which makes these royalties eligible for the foreign income tax credit. Huh? If they were accurately classified as royalties they would be treated as expenses and would only be eligible for a deduction, instead of a tax credit. This distinction is likely worth billions of dollars a year to Big Oil.
  1. It does not count the externalities of pollution from fossil-fueled power plants as subsidies (which they are).

Additionally, EIA did not include any loan guarantees in the subsidy numbers because guarantees, or outlays, were not made in 2013. This goes for nuclear, renewables and others. But it’s important to point out, nuclear did get a disproportionate share of the loan guarantees in prior years.

To put this in some perspective, DBL Investors looked at the historical incentives given to fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables—and the numbers weren’t even close: $447 billion for fossil fuels; $185.5 billion for nuclear; and less than $6 billion for renewables—less than 1 percent of the total amount given to fossil fuels and nuclear.

In a previous iteration of this report, EIA refused a request to display subsidies per unit of energy, or per unit of capacity, because it is an invalid/misleading metric for judging subsidies. Because most subsidies are frontloaded, traditional generation—such as coal, nuclear and hydro—received their government support years or decades ago, and the plants built with that support continued to exist and generate energy in 2013—even if their support did not include substantial outlays in 2013. This is one of the key points of the widely-respected Baker Center study.

The Baker Center study also shows that solar incentives are in line with those given to other energy industries. What’s more, solar is following a similar curve in development as traditional energy sources (coal, gas, oil), which received substantial subsidies during their growth period and are still getting many of them today.

Even the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has explained, “For more than a half a century, federal energy tax policy focused almost exclusively on increasing domestic oil and gas reserves and production. There was no major tax incentive promoting renewable energy or energy efficiency.” In other words, the Koch brothers and fossil fuel interests were given a stranglehold on the marketplace—thanks, in large part, to preferential tax treatment and federal subsidies—and now they want to freeze everyone else out.

For example, by its own figures, the oil and gas industry will receive nearly $100 billion over the next 10 years in special tax breaks, including: expensing of intangible drilling costs; the domestic manufacturers tax deduction; use of the “last-in, first-out,” or LIFO, accounting method; exemption from Superfund waste cleanup taxes; and preferential treatment that reduces taxes for master limited partnerships.  And the list goes on.

In truth, the oil and gas industry has been getting substantial tax breaks since 1913, while solar has only been receiving the 30 percent Investment Tax Credit (ITC) since 2006.

Most troubling, the EIA report only looks at the “costs” to the U.S. Treasury of solar subsidies—without considering a single dime of economic benefits—or return on investment—created by one of the fastest-growing industries in America. Today, solar employs nearly 175,000 Americans—with 140,000 of those jobs created since the ITC was implemented—and we pump nearly $20 billion a year into the U.S. economy. We’re also providing enough clean electricity to power 4 million homes.

Similarly, the report does not take into account the huge amount of income taxes paid by solar developers, distributors, installers, manufacturers and employees, as well as the taxes paid by support industries including engineering, financing and legal. Nor does the report include any indirect, or induced, benefits from widespread solar development.

From an environmental prospective, the EIA report does not take into account the staggering costs from harmful carbon pollution to the health and well-being of Americans.Today, the solar industry is helping to displace an estimated 20 million metric tons of damaging carbon emissions, which is the equivalent of removing 4 million cars off U.S. highways and roads. So, through this omission, the report mistakenly dismisses the real health care costs of “dirty air,” which is associated with asthma, lung disease, heart disease and even cancer.

And finally, the report also fails to include the benefits that solar provides when it comes to national security, emergency preparedness, grid reliability, America’s clean energy future and on and on.

We’re very proud of the progress made by the solar industry in a very short period of time—and we appreciate the faith put in us by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, by both President Obama and President Bush, and by 9 out of 10 Americans who want to see an expanded use of solar nationwide. By any measurement, the solar ITC is paying huge benefits to the U.S. and to American taxpayers, and we believe it should be extended to maintain a level playing field with long-time, entrenched energy sources.

Unfortunately, you would never know any of this by reading the EIA report, or listening to the subsequent scathing attacks on solar and wind by the Koch brothers’ cronies. But before getting all worked up by their nonsense, I’m reminded of something else Mark Twain once said: “Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

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As Congress dithers for the umpteenth time over extending a key subsidy for wind energy, the industry once again is up in the air. Called the production tax credit (PTC), the subsidy helps level the playing field between wind and fossil fuels and has proven to be critical for financing new projects, helping to make wind one of the fastest growing electricity sources in the country. Given the planet needs to transition as quickly as possible away from coal and natural gas to carbon-free energy to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, who would beagainst renewing wind's tax credit?

The Koch brothers, that's who.

Charles G. and David H. Koch -- the billionaire owners of the coal, oil and gas Koch Industries conglomerate -- have enlisted their extensive network of think tanks, advocacy groups and friends on Capitol Hill to spearhead a campaign to pull the plug on the PTC. Never mind the fact that the oil and gas industry has averaged four times what the wind tax credit is worth in federal tax breaks and subsidies annually for the last 95 years.

The Koch network is fighting the wind industry on a number of fronts. Last month, Koch-funded Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) sent a letter signed by 52 House members to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, urging him to let the PTC expire. Meanwhile, a coalition of some 100 national and local groups organized by the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity sent a letter to each member of Congress asking them to do the same. And earlier this month, the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research launched an anti-PTC ad campaign and released a report claiming that only a handful of states actually benefit from the subsidy.

Malcolm Gladwell didn't include this battle in his new book David and Goliath because, given the odds, it's more like Bambi versus Godzilla.

The Kochs' Man in Congress

The fact that Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo is the Kochs' point man to scuttle the PTC in the House is a bit ironic given his state is a wind energy leader. Kansas has the second highest wind potential in the country, it has already attracted more than $5 billion in wind industry investment, and last year wind generated 11.4 percent of its electricity. With stats like that, the industry has broad bipartisan support. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Sens. Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts -- all Republicans -- are big fans.

Pompeo, who has been in Congress since only 2011, would argue that he's against all energy tax credits. For the second year in a row, he has introduced a bill that would eliminate tax breaks that benefit oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear,electric vehicles, alternative fuels, solar and wind, including the PTC, which gives wind developers a tax credit of 2.3 cents for each kilowatt-hour of electricity they produce.

But there's a catch. Although it appears evenhanded, Pompeo's bill would severely hamper wind and solar but preserve a number of oil, gas and coal subsidies, including the percentage depletion allowance, the ability to expense the costs of exploration, and the accelerated depreciation of certain kinds of "geologic property."These and other tax breaks he left out of his bill would be worth about $12.5 billion to the oil and gas industry from 2011 through 2015, according to a March 2012 Congressional Research Service report.

Why is Pompeo so down on wind? Perhaps it's because Koch Industries is headquartered in Wichita,smack-dab in the middle of his district -- and the fact that the company is by far and away his biggest campaign contributor. Since 2010, Koch Industries has given him $200,000, more than four times what his second highest contributor kicked in. Besides Koch Industries, three other oil companies are among Pompeo's top five contributors -- McCoy Petroleum, Mull Drilling and Richie Exploration -- and they're also based in Wichita.

What about the other 51 House members who signed Pompeo's letter? As it turns out, 65 percent of them received contributions from Koch Industries during the last two or three campaign cycles, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. A quarter of them, meanwhile, cashed checks from ExxonMobil. And except for two congressmen who didn't take any energy industry money, the signatories received sizable contributions from a number of other corporations that compete with wind, including coal barons Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources; oil and gas giants Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy; and Exelon, which owns the most nuclear reactors in the country.

Americans for (Koch) Prosperity Weighs In

Pompeo's letter came on the heels of a letter from the Kochs' flagship advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, calling for Congress to kill the PTC. AFP's letter, which was signed by 102 organizations, claims that "the wind industry has very little to show after 20 years of preferential tax treatment" and declares that "Americans deserve energy solutions that can make it on their own in the marketplace -- not ones that need to be propped up by government indefinitely."

Is that right? Little to show? Preferential tax treatment?

In fact, until Congress left the wind industry hanging late last year, it had been doing quite well. Even with a deep recession and slow recovery, over the previous five years -- with the help of the PTC, stimulus spending and state renewable electricity standards -- the industry doubled its electricity output, employment and private investment. In 2012, domestic manufacturers produced roughly 72 percent of the wind turbine equipment erected across the country -- nearly triple the percentage in 2006 -- and more than 13,000 megawatts of new wind generation capacity was installed. By the end of last year, there were enough wind turbines to power 15 million typical American homes -- without toxic pollutants or carbon emissions.

But AFP's complaint that the wind industry has been on the dole far too long is even more galling. What about the oil and gas industry? It's been feeding at the federal trough since 1918! On average, the industry has benefited from $4.86 billion in tax breaks and subsidies in today's dollars every year since then, according to a 2011 study by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. Renewable energy technologies, meanwhile, averaged only $370 million a year in subsidies between 1994 and 2009. The 2009 stimulus package did provide $21 billion for wind, solar and other renewables, but that support barely begins to balance the scales that have tilted toward nuclear power for more than 50 years, oil and gas for 95 years, and coal for more than two centuries.

So who signed the AFP letter? About half of the signatories are local tea party affiliates and anti-wind NIMBY groups of indeterminate size and funding. The other half are, for the most part, relatively obscure national groups, but there are a few that have attractedattention over the years for their contrarian views on climate science and renewable energy. Like AFP, those groups are awash in petrodollars. The American Energy Alliance (and its parent, the Institute for Energy Research), Competitive Enterprise Institute, Freedom Works, Frontiers of Freedom and Heritage Action (and its parent, the Heritage Foundation) collectively have received millions of dollars from Koch family foundations, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's premier trade association.

The Institute for Energy Research's Questionable Research

On December 3, the Institute for Energy Research and its political arm, the American Energy Alliance, sponsored what they dubbed the "wind welfare" summit in Washington, D.C., featuring IER founder and CEO Robert Bradley Jr., a Koch network veteran. AEA announced it would spend $40,000 on print and digital ads calling for an end to the PTC and is flying in anti-PTC advocates for meetings on Capitol Hill.

Bradley presumably highlighted the findings of a report IER released the day before claiming that a small number of states with wind resources -- Iowa, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas -- are reaping the benefits of the PTC while 30 states and the District of Columbia are "losing millions" to fund it.

The report's findings, however, don't hold up to scrutiny. Mike Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out in a recent blog that IER ignored the fact that a number of the states it identified as "net payers" are home to wind industry manufacturing facilities. There are 62 companies in Ohio making turbine components, for example, 40 in Michigan and 21 in California. Jacobs also discovered that IER downplayed the fact that "the PTC benefits consumers where wind-generated electricity adds to the supply and lowers the price of electricity, landowners who receive lease payments from the wind turbines, and local communities that collect tax payments on installed wind farms."

Jeff Spross, blogging on the Center for American Progress' ThinkProgress website, also chided IER, pointing out that most industries are not equally distributed across the country. "The oil and gas industries, for instance, benefit from a wealth of federal tax carve-outs," he wrote, "but the economic activity they generate is concentrated in just a few key states."

In other words, it's disingenuous to single out the wind industry.

Twisting in the Wind

While Congress has generously provided the fossil-fuel and nuclear-energy industries a number of permanent subsidies, it has typically granted the wind industry the PTC on a short-term basis and then wavered over renewing it. Last year the PTC expired on December 31, but as part of the "fiscal cliff" budget deal the next day, Congress extended it for the seventh time since it debuted in 1992 -- for only one year. 

This uncertainty over the PTC's status has put wind developers at a distinct disadvantage, making it difficult to attract investors and plan ahead. Last year's cliffhanger, for example, definitely did a number on the industry. Wind farm construction has fallen off dramatically compared with 2012: Only one utility-scale wind turbine was installed in the first six months of this year. Business picked up somewhat in the third quarter, with 68.3 megawatts installed, according to the American Wind Energy Association, but that's far below the average of more than 1,000 megawatts that the industry constructed in most quarters in recent years. 

Given that it takes years to plan, finance and construct a wind farm, Congress is again undermining the industry's potential by slow-walking the PTC extension this year. And that potential is tremendous. Wind currently generates about 4 percent of U.S. electricity, but by 2030 it could produce more than 20 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory also is bullish on wind and renewables writ large. Last year, it published a report that concluded today's commercially available renewable technologies could easily generate 80 percent of U.S. electricity by 2050, with nearly half coming from wind. If the Koch brothers and their allies have their way, however, it likely will take a lot longer to get there -- and it will cost a hell of a lot more.

Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/the-koch-brothers-are-sti_b_4396033.html

===

koch:

2013

Staffers from some Koch-funded nonprofit groups have continued to testify before Congress, sowing doubt about climate change in spite of scientists’ consensus that global warming exists, that it warrants concern and that it is tied to human behavior.

Recent 2013 testimony includes:

• On Feb. 5, Mary Hutzler, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that research shows America has an abundance of fossil fuel reserves that could power the nation for nearly 600 years.

Hutzler urged lawmakers to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, off the coast of the southern United States and in the Green River that runs through Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

“Our economy needs the lasting stimulus that robust energy development on federal lands and waters would provide,” she said, according to the committee transcript.

• On Feb. 14, her colleague, Daniel Simmons, director of Regulatory and State Affairs at the Institute for Energy Research, told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that environmental regulation of the oil industry is to blame for the rising cost of gasoline. He also suggested opening up the same federal lands to oil and gas drilling.

• A month later, on March 13, Hutzler testified during a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that federal subsidies of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources had failed to make America energy independent. She argued that the fuels receiving the most government money produced the least amount of energy.

• On April 24, an energy policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, testifying before the House Oversight and GovernmentReform Committee, criticized federal incentives for companies that make fuel-efficient cars.

• On April 25, Simmonsurged members of the House Committee on Natural Resources to support a bill that would allow companies to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, in waters belonging to the United States and Mexico. At the same hearing, research fellows at the Heritage Foundation also testified in favor of the bill.

• On May 7, Paul Knappenberger, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, told members of House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that carbon dioxide emissions from the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline would have an insignificant impact on climate change. He also challenged the notion of a scientific consensus linking carbon dioxide emissions to climate change.

“The more we learn, the less responsive it seems that the earth’s average temperature is to human carbon-dioxide emissions,” Knappenberger said.

And testimony last year included this:

• On Sept. 11, 2012: David Kreutzer, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, emphasized uncertainty about carbon dioxide’s role in global warming during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Kreutzer criticized the EPA’s funding of environmental programs in developing countries, adding that “the magnitude of carbon dioxide’s impact on global warming is, in fact, not settled.”

Other Koch-funded groups whose staff and researchers have testified in recent years against federal environmental regulation are the George C. Marshall Institute, the American Council for Capital Formation, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

==

===

Chamber's Institute for Energy

In March 2007, O'Dwyer's PR Daily reported that General James L. Jones, formerly the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe, had joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a lobbyist.[40]

"Jones will head theInstitute for Energy, which is to present itself as a grassroots organization. The Chamber went a similar path with the creation of the Institute for Legal Reform." Jones will focus on global warming and seek "to 'unify energy stakeholders behind a common strategy' to produce affordable and secure supplies while protecting the environment," reported O'Dwyer's, quoting Chamber president Tom Donohue.[40]

CONTINUE TO CAST DOUBT

Staffers from some Koch-funded nonprofit groups have continued to testify before Congress, sowing doubt about climate change in spite of scientists' consensus that global warming exists, that it warrants concern and that it is tied to human behavior. 

Recent 2013 testimony includes:

• On Feb. 5, Mary Hutzler, senior fellow at theInstitute for Energy Research, told members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that research shows America has an abundance of fossil fuel reserves that could power the nation for nearly 600 years.

Hutzler urged lawmakers to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, off the coast of the southern United States and in the Green River that runs through Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

“Our economy needs the lasting stimulus that robust energy development on federal lands and waters would provide,” she said, according to the committee transcript.  

• On Feb. 14, her colleague, Daniel Simmons, director of Regulatory and State Affairs at the Institute for Energy Research, told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that environmental regulation of the oil industry is to blame for the rising cost of gasoline. He also suggested opening up the same federal lands to oil and gas drilling. 

• A month later, on March 13, Hutzler testified during a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that federal subsidies of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources had failed to make America energy independent. She argued that the fuels receiving the most government money produced the least amount of energy. 

• On April 24, an energy policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, criticized federal incentives for companies that make fuel-efficient cars. 

• On April 25, Simmonsurged members of the House Committee on Natural Resources to support a bill that would allow companies to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, in waters belonging to the United States and Mexico. At the same hearing, research fellows at the Heritage Foundation also testified in favor of the bill. 

• On May 7, Paul Knappenberger, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, told members of House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that carbon dioxide emissions from the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline would have an insignificant impact on climate change. He also challenged the notion of a scientific consensus linking carbon dioxide emissions to climate change.

“The more we learn, the less responsive it seems that the earth’s average temperature is to human carbon-dioxide emissions,” Knappenberger said. 

And testimony last year included this:

• On Sept. 11, 2012: David Kreutzer, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, emphasized uncertainty about carbon dioxide’s role in global warming during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Kreutzer criticized the EPA’s funding of environmental programs in developing countries, adding that “the magnitude of carbon dioxide’s impact on global warming is, in fact, not settled.”

Other Koch-funded groups whose staff and researchers have testified in recent years against federal environmental regulation are the George C. Marshall Institute, the American Council for Capital Formation, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. 

The Heritage Foundation said large donors such as the Kochs have no influence on the research done by the conservative think tank. The Koch foundations gave $1.8 million to Heritage from 2007 to 2011, according to IRS records. The money funds general operations and not any specific programs, said John Von Kannon, vice president and senior counselor of development for Heritage.

“Our requests to them are very clear on that,” Von Kannon said.

Heritage gets most of its money from more than 600,000 individual donors, minimizing the influence of any one person or group, he said. Donors don’t ask Heritage staff to testify on Capitol Hill, he added.

“They tell us, ‘We like what you’re doing, and we want to support you,’ ” Von Kannon said.

===

Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group

Institute for Energy Research (IER)

On this page

$175,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2011 [Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2011: $235,000]

IER supported and promoted the "Spanish" and "Danish" studies critical of clean energy jobs, both of which have been debunked by credible sources. IER also argues that efforts to curb global warming would accomplish little at too great a cost, promotes ACCF/NAM** and **Heritage Foundation** studies that exaggerate the costs of climate policy, and discourages U.S. leadership on the international stage.

Robert Bradley, a former Enron executive, is the CEO of IER and one of its founders. Thomas Pyle, a former Koch and oil-industry lobbyist, is the President of IER and the American Energy Alliance, the 501c4 counterpart to IER. Politico reports that IER and AEA still receive Koch money in support of a $3.6 million anti-Obama gas price advertising campaign, although Koch foundations appear to have stopped supporting IER after 2007. The most recent available Koch foundation tax filings to IRS are for the year 2010, indicating the Kochs picked IER back up in 2011 or are funneling money through other avenues.

[hmn disputed?] AEA was founded by the **National Association of Manufacturers** and the **American Petroleum Institute to fight the BTU tax proposal in 1993, and in recent years funded by **ExxonMobil** and **Koch Industries. AEA has been active in the climate debate, from running ads repeating false claims about the costs of climate legislation to trashing clean energy at town halls around the US.

:{:{==}:

 }:

The romance between ALEC and fracking continued at this year's ALEC meeting in Utah -- an appropriate location for the frack-friendly ALEC crew. In May, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved a major shale gas project by Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in Utah's Uinta Basin -- expected to develop more than 3,600 new wells over the next decade.

In another industry-friendly move, Utah's Governor Gary Herbert, who spoke the ALEC conference's opening luncheon, signed a bill into law in March demanding that Congress hand over 30 million acres of federal land to the state by 2015 or the state will sue. According to the Associated Press, Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by ALEC. As documented by the Center for Media and Democracy's ALEC Exposed Project, ALEC drafted the "Sagebrush Rebellion Act," which was "designed to establish a mechanism for the transfer of ownership of unappropriated lands from the federal government to the states." According to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the governor's initiative would open up millions of acres of the "Wilderness Study Areas and proposed wilderness areas to oil and gas development" but in the process would cost Utah taxpayers enormously.

At the meeting, theCEO of theInstitute for Energy Research (IER) Dr. Robert Bradley was one of the featured speakers. Bradley, formerly a director of policy analysis at Enron, also spoke at the 2011 ALEC conference in New Orleans. He is also an "adjunct scholar" at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute and specializes in "global warming alarmism." IER is a non-profit group focused on global energy markets that pushes for deregulation, advances climate change denial, and attempts to discredit renewable energy sources. The group's 2010 IRS 990 form said that its focus was narrowed in on "impediments to domestic energy production, including government restrictions on access, burdensome regulations, and the favoritism of energy sources that are unsustainable in the marketplace."

The PR Bus of AEA and Koch's AFPIER received some $307,000 from Exxon Mobil between 2003 and 2007, according to the publicly traded company's "Corporate Giving Reports." IER also received a total of $235,000 from Koch Family foundations between 1997-2010, according to a Greenpeace report. Koch Industries, an ALEC member, also profits from the expansion of fracking. Unlike Exxon, because Koch is not a publicly-traded company, any corporate donations to groups like IER, AEA, or AFP are not publicly disclosed.

IER is a "partner" organization of the American Energy Alliance, a 501(c)4 organization which calls itself the "grassroots arm" of IER. Thomas Pyle is president of both organizations, and is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and former energy policy aide for former House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay, who resigned from the leadership following his indictment on conspiracy charges.Wayne Gable, also a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and former president for two of the Koch Family foundations, is on the board of both IER and AEA.

In 2011 IER and AEA launched "Energy for America" as a joint initiative with a laser point in onfracking, with an aim to "educate" the public on the practice. In October 2011, AEA and IER, in partnership with Koch Industries' astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, started a "Energy for America" bus tour to encourage the expansion of domestic exploration of oil, gas and coal, targeting U.S. Senate battleground states for the upcoming 2012 elections.

Additionally, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck is one of the three chairs of the ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force. One of its clients is Freeport LNG, which owns and operates one of the first liquefied natural gas import terminals built in the United States. According to the law firm's website, "For the last nine years, Brownstein has been the lead counsel in the structuring, strategy and development of the $1.2 billion receiving and regasification facility with commercial output capacity of more than 2.0 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day."

==

SISTER to Am Energy Alliance

IER’s President Thomas J. Pyle previously worked as a lobbyist for Koch Industries, while IER’s CEO Robert L. Bradley was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron, where he served as speechwriter for Enron CEO Kenneth Lay. 

===

 SW

http://www.**sourcewatch**.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Energy_Research

under exxon ceo tiller___, pledge to stop funding

Institute for Energy Research

The Institute for Energy Research (IER), founded in 1989 from a predecessor non-profit organisation, advocates positions on environmental issues including deregulation of utilities, climate change denial, and claims that conventional energy sources are virtually limitless.

It is a member of the Sustainable Development Network. The IER's President was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron.

IER has been established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit group. It is a "partner" organization of the American Energy Alliance[1], a 501c4 organization which states that it is the "grassroots arm" of IER.[2] AEA states that, by "communicating IER’s decades of scholarly research to the grassroots, AEA will empower citizens with facts so that people who believe in freedom can reclaim the moral high ground in the national public policy debates in the energy and environmental arena."[2] AEA states that its aim is to "create a climate that encourages the advancement of free market energy policies" and in particular ensure drilling for oil is allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in US coastal waters ...In 2009 IER run a campaign on "green jobs"attacking the expansion of renewables energies. IER commissioned three studies on renewable energies and green jobs in Denmark, Germany andSpain.[3] These studies by different think tanks were than promoted by IER and other free market think tanks in the US but also used in Europe.[4] The study on Germany e.g. was translated into German and taken up by German media - without mentioning that the study was financed by IER with its close business links. The German institute that wrote the study (called Rheinisch-westfaelisches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung, RWI) didn't acknowledge the funding from IER until they were challendged by investigative journalists.[5]

A report by the Europan NGO Corporate Europe Observatory tried to get more information on the funding of the libertarian Instituto Juan de Mariana responsible for the Spanish stuy and the Danish think tank CEPOS doing the study on wind energy in Denmark. The report states: "In their reply to CEO, Instituto Juan de Mariana affirmed that it finances all its activities through the individual donation of his over 250 individual members and that they did not receive corporate funding with the exception of a small Spanish insurance company. When contacted again to check whether the Institute for Energy Research (IER) support for the above study was financial, theInstitute stopped responding."[6]

Staff

Funding

EIN: 76-0149778

This is a 501(c)(03) public charity [1]

According to theExxonMobilsCorporate Giving Reports the IER received 307.000 US$ from the oil company or its foundation between 2003 and 2007.[7] The institute also received 175.000 US$ from Koch Industries according to a Greenpeace report.[8]

Contact Information

Institute for Energy Research

6524 San Felipe,PMB 287

Houston, Texas 77057-2611

Phone/Fax (713) 974-1918

Email: iertx AT swbell.net

Website: http://www.iertx.org

Articles and Resources

Related SourceWatch Articles

References

  1. ↑ American Energy Alliance American Energy Alliance website, accesses October 2008.
  2. ↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 "Mission Statement", American Energy Alliance website, accessed October 2008.
  3. ↑ Green Jobs Resources, IER website, accessed Dec 7 2010.
  4. ↑ For the promotion of the Spanish and Danish studies in the US and particularly Washington DC see Greenpeace, USA March 2010: Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine, accessed Dec 7 2010

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/

  1. ↑ See the broadcast Die Luege vom teuren Oekostrom (The lie of expensive green electricity) by the German public broadcaster ARD, Oct 21 2010, accessed Dec 7 2010.
  2. ↑ Corporate Europe Observatory: Concealing their sources - who funds Europe’s climate change deniers?, Dec 2010, page 7, accessed Dec 7 2010
  3. ↑ ExxonSecret Factsheet: Institute for Energy Research, accessed Dec 7 2010.
  4. ↑ Greenpeace, USA March 2010: Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine, accessed Dec 7 2010

External Articles

==

desmog 4/12

Dirty Energy Industry Front Groups Launch Misleading PR Blitz Against President Obama

The American Energy Alliance (AEA) isn’t pulling any punches with their new advertising campaign, spending millions of dollars toair 45 million ad spots on Pandora Radio. They are attempting to hang the high cost of gasoline around the neck of President Obama, using a series of arguments that actually have nothing to do with how much Americans are paying for gasoline.

Here is the YouTube version of their ad, titled “$9 Dollar Gas”:

Before dissecting their arguments, it’s important to remember that the American Energy Alliance is a non-profit organization established by the oil industry to carry out lobbying activities. As such, their donors are kept secret. However, AEA president Thomas Pyle is also the leader of a related organization called the Institute for Energy Research, which has received funding from the usual suspects – Exxon and Koch Industries. In fact, Pyle formerly served as a Koch Industries lobbyist.

Read more: Dirty Energy Industry Front Groups

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Conservative group launches broad anti-carbon tax campaign

By Zack Colman - 07/16/13 

#

A conservative energy group is rolling out a multi-pronged push ahead of the August congressional recess that aims to put the carbon tax in its deathbed.

“We’re hoping to put the final nail in the coffin on the carbon tax. The proposal should be dead on arrival by the time lawmakers come back from August recess,” Benjamin Cole, a spokesman with the Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, told The Hill in an interview detailing the plan.

The effort includes a new poll of American opinion on a carbon tax and an advertising campaign centered on five House members, among other elements.

As early as Thursday, AEA will launch a two-week radio advertising campaign that targets five House lawmakers — four Democrats and one Republican.

The ad blitz, which will cost between $120,000 and $150,000, targets Democratic Reps. Bill Owens (N.Y.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Patrick Murphy (Fla.) and William Enyart (Ill.), along with GOP Rep. Chris Smith (N.J.).

AEA chose to focus on members who have been “soft on the carbon tax issue” and reside in “marginal districts,” Cole said.

“We obviously are ones to apply pressure in any way we can,” he said.

The timing of the IER and AEA operation is designed to get energy issues on the agenda when lawmakers meet with voters in their congressional districts, Cole said.

Cole compared the upcoming recess to the summer of 2010, when the House had recently passed ObamaCare, the national healthcare law.

He said the climate change plan Obama unveiled last month — which relies on a suite of executive actions that industry, Republicans and coal-state Democrats say will slow the economy — will draw fire from voters across the country.

“We know that there’s going to be town halls that congressmen go back to their districts to hear from their constituents. We want to make sure that energy is on the plate,” he said.

The effort will attempt to blunt any possible momentum for a carbon tax, Cole said.

Of that, there appears to be little.

Taxing carbon emissions has support from some environmentalists, as well as a collection of conservative economists and advocates who say it should be coupled with lower personal tax rates. But the idea has little political traction.

Carbon tax proposals are a non-starter in the GOP-controlled House. And Republicans combined a bloc of centrist Democrats threaten to thwart a carbon tax in the Senate. On top of all that, the White House has said it won’t pursue a carbon tax.

The concept has fueled intense opposition from the right.

The IER and AEA campaign has the support of several conservative outfits, including Americans for Tax Reform, FreedomWorks and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The first piece of the rollout is an IER-commissioned poll of 800 registered voters conducted last week by The Tarrance Group that says Americans reject the idea of a carbon tax.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they oppose a carbon tax “paid by businesses of all sizes,” compared with 35 percent of those who favored the concept.

The poll doesn't take into account different schemes for a carbon tax — for example, there’s variability in policy circles when deciding whether to apply a fee at the point of carbon emissions or fossil fuel extraction.

Still, the responses differed greatly among parties. A majority of Democrats — 54 percent — favored a carbon tax, while 80 percent of Republicans rejected it.

The results of that poll will be discussed at a carbon tax event IER is hosting Wednesday. Then comes the radio ad launch.

IER will also give lawmakers a point-by-point critique of the climate change plan Obama unveiled last month before they head home.

“It’s teeing up August recess interaction with constituents,” Cole said.

Cole said that IER and AEA plan to keep the heat on lawmakers until the heads of the congressional tax-writing panels, Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), formally declare a carbon tax is off the table.

The two committee heads have demonstrated a desire to overhaul the federal tax code — and for both, time is of the essence. Baucus isn’t running for reelection in 2014, and Camp’s term as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is up after next year.

“There’s nothing that motivates a politician more than building his own legacy,” Cole said.

:{:{}:

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/311159-conservative-group-launches-broad-anti-carbon-tax-campaign#ixzz2bz7bE8Qk 

Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook}:

==

6524 San Felipe, PMB 287 Houston, Texas 77057-2611

Phone: (713) 974-1918

IER analyzes public policy related to oil, gas, coal, and electricity. According to IER's mission statement, it "articulates free-market positions that respect private property rights and promote efficient outcomes for energy consumers and producers."

IER President Robert Bradley is a Cato Institute scholarand received the 2002 Julian Simon Award from CEI. One of Bradley's areas of concentration is "global warming alarmism." IER does not publish reports, but sells publications Bradley has written for other organizations, such as the Cato Institute. These publications include "Climate Alarmism Reconsidered" (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2003) and "Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not 'Green'" (Cato, 1997).

FUNDING

Institute for Energy Research has received $307,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

2003

$37,000 ExxonMobil Foundation

Source: Institute for Energy Research website 5/04

2004

$45,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving

Climate Change and Energy Policy Issues

Source: ExxonMobil 2004 Worldwide Giving Report

2005

$65,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving

Source: ExxonMobil 2005 Worldwide Giving Report

2006

$65,000 ExxonMobil Corporate Giving

Source: ExxonMobil 2006 Worldwide Giving Report

2007

$95,000 ExxonMobil Foundation

Source: ExxonMobil 2007 Worldwide Giving Report

KEY PEOPLE

Robert L. Bradley Jr.

President

Source: Institute for Energy Research website 5/04

PEOPLE

Sen. George Allen

Source: P.R. Watch's Disinfopedia

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2 March 10 http://www.desmogblog.com/institute-energy-research-admits-it-was-behind-anti-wind-study Institute for Energy Research Admits It Was Behind Anti-Wind Study Danish journalists have confirmed that The Institute for Energy Research commissioned and paid for the anti-wind energy study released last year by a Danish think tank that claimed Denmark exaggerates the amount of wind energy it produces (it doesn’t), questioned whether wind energy reduces carbon emissions (it does), and asserted that the U.S. should choose coal over wind because it’s cheaper (it’s not when you count the true costs of coal).

The Copenhagen Post reports:

“A controversial report critical of the wind energy industry from conservative think tank CEPOS was commissioned and paid for by an American think tank with close ties to the coal and oil industries.”

That American think tank is the Institute for Energy Research, which has received $307,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998 and unknown additional sums from other oil and coal industry sources.  The Guardian reported last year that the Institute for Energy Research has received recent funding from KBR and trusts set up by Koch Industries, which has multiple ties to IER and its sister organization American Energy Alliance.

IER’s President Thomas J. Pyle previously worked as a lobbyist for Koch Industries, while IER’s CEO Robert L. Bradley was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron, where he served as speechwriter for Enron CEO Kenneth Lay. 

Pyle, Bradley and IER have direct and indirect ties to a laundry list of dirty energy industry front groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, TASSC, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.   Bradley and the IER have argued that supplies of fossil fuels are virtually limitless, and that American dependence on oil imports from Middle Eastern dictatorships “pose no threat to national security.”

IER has railed against green jobs, arguing that oil and gas are better job creators, despite the fact that investment in clean energy technology creates four times as many jobs as investment in oil and gas.  IER continues its campaign against wind energy as well, asserting recently that the Obama administration had been “caught red-handed working with Big Wind energy lobbyists.”

Yes, those scary “Big Wind energy lobbyists” pose a real threat to America.  You can’t make this stuff up folks.  Unless, of course, you work at the oil-and-coal-funded Institute for Energy Research.

Brendan DeMelle's blog desmog

http://www.desmogblog.com/institute-energy-research-admits-it-was-behind-anti-wind-study

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Wayne Gable

Director

Source: P.R. Watch's Disinfopedia

Robert  Bryce

Source: checks and balances project

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mojo josh h

No. 12: Institute for Energy Research (A.K.A. American Energy Alliance)

Meet the 12 loudest members of the chorus claiming that global warming is a joke and that CO2 emissions are actually good for you.

—By Josh Harkinson

| Fri Dec. 4, 2009

Post

Robert Bradley, the CEO of the Institute for Energy Research, is a former director of policy analysis at Enron, where he once wrote speeches for Ken Lay. While most experts blame Enron's failure on a lack of government oversight, Bradley cites too much government meddling. In his new book, Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy, he writes that Enron's collapse "is yet another case of unintended consequences from government intervention."

Bradley is now committed to keeping the government from regulating carbon. His 2003 book, Climate Alarmism Reconsidered, argues that carbon dioxide "is not a pollutant but a building block of a living and vibrant biosphere." He's even willing to diss his former employer to make his point, suggesting that CO2 foes are as self-centered as Enron was when it pushed for a climate treaty and subsidies for its wind and solar divisions. "The 'green' energy crusade that Enron in some ways fathered is much more about corporate welfare than true energy sustainability," he writes.

Since April, IER's advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, has beenairing television ads in the districts of key members of Congress, stressing the potential costs of Waxman-Markey. One ad claimed that an MIT study found that the bill "could cost our families more than $3,100 per year in new taxes." But the author of the study, professor John Reilly, has said that the number was a misrepresentation of his work and "just wrong." Confronted with that response, Bradley replied that Reilly had since confirmed to the Weekly Standard "that households will in fact pay this amount." But Reilly told me that his estimate of Waxman-Markey's true cost is just $223 per household by 2020 and maintained that the use of the larger number "was incorrect." Other AEA ads have been called out for similar distortions.

The IER's American Energy Freedom Center is chaired by former Virginia Sen. George "Macaca" Allen. Thomas Pyle, the president of the American Energy Alliance, was a policy analyst for former Rep. Tom DeLay before becoming director of federal affairs for Koch Industries.

In 2007, the most recent year for which tax filings are available, IER had a budget of nearly $1 million. In May, the Guardian reported that IER has received donations from Exxon, KBR, and trusts set up by Koch. Asked who funds the Institute for Energy Research, Bradley would say only that its money comes from "individuals, foundations, and corporations—including energy companies."

Click here for the previous member of the dirty dozen.

Click here to return to the main page.

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