incharitable STEVELMAN
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FIU https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1743&context=lawreview
125pp
Volume 20 Number 1 Article 7 Fall 2025 Uncharitable Think Tanks Faith Stevelman New York Law School, faith.stevelman@nyls.edu
STEVELMAN
220 FIU Law Review
Faith Stevelman
As people debate whether the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is good policy, what’s being overlooked is that it’s likely unlawful as the work product of a charitable think tank. (Think tanks nearly always are qualified as charities under the tax code.) }:}:
To reinforce think tanks’ educational mission, tax law sets rigorous content requirements for their materials. It also bans them from campaigning, sharply limits their lobbying, and prohibits their benefiting private parties. The doctrines are intended to keep think tanks charity-worthy educators, but they have not succeeded. Ironically, the failure reflects other features of tax law that incentivize using think tanks as politicized advocates. }:
:{:{Tax law offers donors anonymity and offsets the cost of donations through the charitable deduction. And because think tanks are government-approved educators, their messaging enjoys enhanced credibility, hence often greater influence.}:
No other advertising, lobbying, campaigning vehicle, or even other nonprofit form, confers this set of advantages. Part I lays out the paradigm of charitable education that is intended to govern think tanks’ affairs. To provide a contrast with the modern ones, it presents a portrait of old school think tanks—described as “universities without students.” }:
Next it explores the historic difficulty of finding legal rules to define charitable education for public-facing speakers like think tanks. The factual core of the article, Part II, describes think tanks that publish climate denial and obstruct climate-friendly laws. It is the first account of such think tanks in legal scholarship—a void that’s surprising because the phenomenon is ongoing since the 1990s.
:{:{The facts reveal the need to reform think tanks’ status in tax exempt law. They also tell a story of importance in itself—how government subsidized, formally charitable actors have thwarted understanding of climate change and stymied positive law reforms. The facts provide a foundation for future research in climate law, lobbying and campaign finance, and political theory and sociology. In another scholarly first, Part III applies each of the four core doctrines for charities to think tanks. In addition to flouting the content standards foR}:
:{:{charitable education, it finds think tanks persistently benefit private persons, engage in banned campaigning, and lobby beyond their limits. This conduct all violates the legal standards for charitable educators. Accordingly, Part IV proposes that the IRS should recognize modern think tanks as § 501(c)(4) nonprofits, not charities. As § 501(c)(4)s, they could be bold advocates without violating the law. The educational speech, private benefits, lobbying, and even most campaigning limits would fall away. No longer government-endorsed educators, they would have to earn their influence.}:
Nor would donors receive tax deductions for gifts. Section 501(c)(4)s think tanks would still provide donors anonymity, but at least politically active § 501(c)(4)s are receiving scrutiny from law reformers. The use of charitable think tanks as conduits for dark money, in contrast, has remained invisible until now. ...}:
TOC P 27 ACTUAL
II. THINK TANKS’ CLIMATE DENIAL AND LEGAL OBSTRUCTION……………………………………………………………187 A. A Survey of Some DOTTs....................................................... 188 1. The American Enterprise Institute ......................................188 2. The Heritage Foundation.....................................................189 3. The Cato Institute ................................................................ 192 4. George C. Marshall Institute/CO2 Coalition.......................195 5. The Heartland Institute........................................................ 197 6. C-FACT............................................................................... 198 7. State Policy Network, Texas Public Policy Foundation......199 8. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, Myron Ebell ............202 9. ALEC................................................................................... 204 B. Some Donors and Gifts............................................................ 206 1. DOTT Contributions and a Thought Experiment................206 2. Some Corporate Donations .................................................208 3. Some Private Foundations...................................................212 4. Giving by Wealthy Individuals ...........................................215 C. Ways and Means DOTTs Have Achieved Influence................218 1. Using Scientists to Refute Climate Science ........................218 2. Think Tanks’ Websites........................................................ 226 3. Mass Market Books............................................................. 227 4. School Textbooks................................................................ 228 5. A Faux University Online ...................................................230 6. New Approaches: The State Financial Officers Foundation............................................................................... 234
Confirmation Battles: Conservative/Laissez-Faire Judges..238 8. Luxury Retreats for Judges..................................................240 9. Amicus Briefs...................................................................... 242 10. DOTT Facts, in Conclusion...............................................245 III. THINK TANKS VIOLATING § 501(C)(3)……………………………245
PT 2
A. A Survey of Some DOTTs
- :{:{The American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a formerly scholarly think tank now devoted mostly to advocacy and opinion commentary. In 2003, Lee Raymond, then ExxonMobil’s CEO, was elected Vice Chairman of AEI’s board of trustees;113 and ExxonMobil has reportedly donated $1.6 million, at least, to it.114 Despite its prestigious history, AEI has disseminated, and still disseminates, substantial D&O. For example, in 2007, ExxonMobil offered academic researchers $10,000 to publish criticisms of the IPCC’s climate science.115 Turning to AEI’s website, two recent posts stand out. “Why Climate Misinformation Persists,” a post dated July 25, 2024, attacks the integrity of mainstream climate scientists.116}:
(Impugning the integrity of climate scientists is a common D&O trope.117) Without accompanying evidence, AEI Senior Science and Technology Fellow, Roger Pielke, Jr., proposes that climate scientists falsify their data to support their “alarmist conclusions.” Again without factual support, Pielke asserts, “[M]any in the climate community . . . appear to believe that achieving emissions reductions is so very important that its attainment trumps scientific integrity.”118 In a different AEI post, Pielke states that climate variability (which he concedes is observable) is not proof of human-caused climate change, which he claims }:
:{:{remains unproven.119 (As mentioned earlier, more than 99% of expert, peerreview-publishing climate scientists refute this position.120)}:
Because of his leadership at AEI, Pielke frequently is invited to speak to the media and testify before Congressional committees. For example, he opined about climate change at a Republican-led Senate Budget Committee hearing in 2023. As part of the Congressional record, Pielke stated that climate change remains unproven.121 Notably, despite being a leader of AEI’s science center, Pielke does not have a Ph.D. in the sciences.122 Indeed, according to the biographies posted on the center’s webpage, not one of its six “scholars” has a Ph.D., or even an M.A., in the sciences.123 Given AEI’s stature, it presumably could recruit elite scientists to its Science and Energy Center were politics not a factor in their remit.}:
2. The Heritage Foundation The Heritage Foundation was established in 1973 with funding from Joseph Coors, a scion of the brewing fortune.124 As mentioned above, it is the
:{:{most influential of the activist, conservative think tanks.125 Heritage is a preferred waystation for aspiring but out-of-administration Republican politicians and staffers126—providing them a professional home where they can network and publish their opinions, while hoping to return to office. This staffing practice colors Heritage’s public messaging, influencing it to be polemical, not factually intensive research. A signal Heritage practice is producing policy compendia for Republican presidential candidates. The first was the 1980 Mandate for Leadership, authored for Ronald Reagan’s presidency.127}:
(Heritage insiders estimate that his administration implemented roughly half of the Mandate’s proposals by the end of its first year.128) These documents are, effectively, expansive lists of desired policy reforms; they’re not in-depth policy analyses or factually intensive reports, as evident from the most recent one, the Mandate for Leadership, 2025 (known as “Project 2025”).129 The fundamentally political (not educational) character of Project 2025 is also reflected in more than half of its authors/contributors having objective ties to the First Trump Administration. 130 This would not in itself mean it couldn’t be educational (for § 501(c)(3) purposes), but it shows other factors and goals were at play.131 For example, Kevin D. Roberts, currently its president, }:
NOTES
125 Heritage’s role in producing Project 2025, and the Trump Administration’s pursuit of a multitude of the climate unfriendly positions presented therein, has established Heritage as primus inter pares. Author Thomas Medvetz describes Heritage’s founding as a transformational moment marking the rise of the new “advocacy” think tanks. THOMAS MEDVETZ, THINK TANKS IN AMERICA 95 (2012). 126 See Flynn Nicholls, Ex-Trump Officials Involved in Project 2025: Full List, NEWSWEEK (July 10, 2024, at 03:33 ET), https://www.newsweek.com/project-2025-ex-trump-contributors-republicanselection-1922933 [https://perma.cc/LF68-TGE9]. 127 For an insider’s commentary on the original MANDATE, see Afterword - Onward! - Edwin J. Feulner, at 02:59 (SUBSTACK) (“First published in January 1981, the original Mandate served as a conservative plan of action for the Reagan Administration, providing much of the blueprint for the Reagan Revolution. It contained more than 2,000 detailed, actionable policy recommendations to move the federal government in a conservative direction. . . . On January 21, 1981, at the first meeting of his Cabinet, President Reagan distributed copies of the MANDATE, and many of the study’s authors were recruited into the administration to implement its recommendations.”). In his essay, Feulner states that President Reagan implemented nearly half of the MANDATE’s recommendations. See generally Edwin J. Feulner, Onward, in MANDATE FOR LEADERSHIP: THE CONSERVATIVE PROMISE 2025, THE HERITAGE FOUND. (2023). 128 Feulner estimates that President Reagan implemented nearly half of the MANDATE’s recommendations. Feulner, supra note 127, at 885. According to Lee Edwards’s account, Reagan’s team implemented roughly around 60% of the 2,000 proposals by the end of his first year. See EDWARDS, supra note 124. 129 See generally MANDATE FOR LEADERSHIP: THE CONSERVATIVE PROMISE 2025, THE HERITAGE FOUND. (2023). 130 Id. 131 Many Project 2025 authors/contributors were hopeful to do more than supplying “policy oxygen” to the second Trump Administration—several have obtained leadership positions in it. Elena Shao & Ashley Wu, The Many Links Between Project 2025 and Trump’s World, N.Y. TIMES, (Oct. 22, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/22/us/politics/project-2025-trump-heritagefoundation.html [https://perma.cc/G8FS-GSBW] (approximately half of the MANDATE’s authors had END
P 191
:{described Heritage’s raison d’être as “institutionalizing Trumpism”132— hardly a credibly educational goal. Indeed, Project 2025’s climate change proposals exemplify denial and legal obstruction.133 The New York Times reported on a leaked training video for incoming Project 2025 staffers that showed a former Trump Administration official emphasizing the need to reverse Biden-era climate protections.134
Indeed, a major objective of Project 2025 is to cripple the EPA’s and other regulations on climate change.135 Its introduction pillories “the Left’s love affair with environmental extremism,”136 in language reminiscent of § 501(c)(3)’s prohibition of overzealous, emotive expression. The document refers to environmentalism as “a pseudo-religion meant to baptize liberals’ ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the holy water of environmental virtue.”137 Misleadingly, the Mandate claims President Biden’s energy policies caused “a sharp spike in global energy prices.”138 It admonishes that his administration’s “climate fanaticism” will need a “whole-of-government unwinding.”139}:
NOTES
OBJective ties to the first Trump Administration); see also New Trump Administration Packed with Project 2025 Architects, AM. FED’N OF GOV’T EMPS. (Nov. 25, 2024), https://www.afge.org/article/new-trumpadministration-packed-with-project-2025-architects/ [https://perma.cc/4JWL-7RN9]. 132 Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Inside Heritage Foundation’s Plans for ‘Institutionalizing Trumpism’, N.Y. TIMES (Jan. 21, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/magazine/heritage-foundation-kevinroberts.html [https://perma.cc/68QN-LZPW]; see also Jonathan Mahler, How One Conservative Think Tank Is Stocking Trump’s Government, N.Y. TIMES (June 20, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/magazine/trump-government-heritage-foundation-think-tank.html [https://perma.cc/NHB9-TBAZ] (“The Heritage Foundation is a marketing company, a branding agency—it sells its own Heritage neckties, embroidered with miniature versions of its Liberty Bell logo— and a policy shop rolled into one. But above all, Heritage is a networking group. It has spent decades fashioning itself into the hub of a constellation of conservative individuals and organizations united by their opposition to government regulations—from taxes to gun control to environmental protections—and socially progressive causes like same-sex marriage.”). 133 See generally A GUIDE TO MAJOR CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL EXCERPTS IN THE PROJECT 2025 REPORT, BERKELEY L. CTR. FOR L., ENERGY, & THE ENV’T (Aug. 2024) (helping to break down the climate implications of the massive, 900-page document by excerpting its most salient climate proposals). 134 Neil Vigdor & Simon J. Levien, What Is Project 2025, and Why Did Trump Distance Himself from It During the Campaign?, N.Y. TIMES (Nov. 6, 2024 ), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/trump-project-2025.html [https://perma.cc/9VNXAUM5]. 135 See, e.g., Amy Westervelt, Everything You Need to Know About Project 2025’s Plan for the EPA, Drilled (Nov. 5, 2024), https://drilled.media/news/newsletter-Project2025 [https://perma.cc/EFY4- 3KVY]. For its larger ambitions to dismantle administrative agencies, see Selwyn D. Whitehead, The Project 2025 Mandate: Implications for the Administrative State and the U.S. Constitution, DAILY J. (July 19, 2024), https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/379782-the-project-2025-mandate-implications-forthe-administrative-state-and-the-u-s-constitution [https://perma.cc/6LKD-5H7M]. 136 MANDATE FOR LEADERSHIP, supra note 129, at 11. 137 Id. 138 Id. at 257. 139 Id. at 6
:{:{In quintessential legal obstruction, Project 2025 calls for “eliminating federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands, curtailing federal investments in renewable energy technologies, and easing environmental permitting restrictions and procedures for new fossil fuel projects such as power plants.”}:140 It advocates breaking up and/or downsizing the climate “alarmist” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service (a subdivision of the former)141—proposing to replace them with private corporations.
It also calls for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act,142 including its green energy provisions, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)143—the cornerstone of U.S. environmental law since Richard Nixon enacted it in 1970. Though presented by a formally educational body, the proposals’ enactment would undermine the nation’s capacity to produce quality science on climate. Most fundamentally, because of the paucity of facts and analysis in it, Project 2025 fails the methodology test, thus vitiating Heritage’s charitable status.
- :{:{The Cato Institute}:
Brothers Charles and David Koch founded and/or were leaders of several prominent D&O think tanks. In 1977, Charles became a co-founder of the Cato Institute,144 the leading libertarian think tank in the U.S. In 1984, Charles and David founded Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE)145—a charitable think tank that claims one of its victories was leading the defeat of President Clinton’s energy tax plan.146 (Having given $2 million to the}:}:
:{:{libertarian party in 1980, David became its Vice-Presidential candidate in that year’s election.147 While his estate remains extremely influential, David died six years ago, in 2019.) In 2012, Cato created a “Center for the Study of Science.”148 Reflecting its libertarian ideals, rather than producing original science, Cato’s center manufactured doubt about the accuracy of climate science in order to forestall protective laws. Cato hired leading contrarian scientist Patrick Michaels to head the Center.149}:
(Michaels150 and Richard Lindzen151 were standouts among contrarian scientists because they had top training to do climate research.) In 2010, Cato published a book Michaels edited with the conspiratorial title, Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know. 152 In it, Michaels asserts that mainstream climate change science is fundamentally inaccurate, and that any climate changes, rather, will be “far from catastrophic.”153 Riffing on the term “global }:
NOTES
(“By 1993, when Bill Clinton became President, Citizens for a Sound Economy had become a prototype for the kind of corporate-backed opposition campaigns that have proliferated during the Obama era. The group waged a successful assault on Clinton’s proposed B.T.U. tax on energy, for instance, running advertisements, staging media events, and targeting opponents. And it mobilized anti-tax rallies outside the Capitol—rallies that NPR described as ‘designed to strike fear into the hearts of wavering Democrats.’”). 147 Adam Eichen, How David Koch’s 1980 Fantasy Became America’s Current Reality, THE NEW REPUBLIC (Aug. 27, 2019), https://www.newrepublic.com/article/154849/david-koch-1980-fantasy [https://perma.cc/X99N-HZMD]. 148 Cato Announces Newly Expanded Center for the Study of Science, CATO INST. (Sept. 18, 2014), https://www.cato.org/news-releases/2014/9/18/cato-announces-newly-expanded-center-study-science [https://perma.cc/MAJ9-GBG3] (“The Cato Institute announced today the expansion of its Center for the Study of Science. Founded in 2012, the Center for the Study of Science was created to provide marketbased ideas that could transition policy regarding energy consumption, environmental standards, and other science-related issues away from government planners.”). 149 Id. Michaels’s leadership of the Center was announced in the press release. 150 As stated on his biographical page on Heartland’s website, Michaels had a B.A. and M.S. in biology from the University of Chicago and received a Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. See Patrick Michaels, HEARTLAND INST., https://heartland.org/aboutus/who-we-are/patrick-michaels/ [https://perma.cc/2T9Y-UQSV]. But see Scott Waldman, Influential Climate Denier, Dies at 72, ClimateWire, E&E NEWS BY POLITICO (July 19, 2022, at 06:31 ET), https://www.eenews.net/articles/patrick-michaels-influential-climate-denier-dies-at-72/ [https://perma.cc/2YGV-35UP] (As expressed by James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and expert on climate change, “Pat was a cherry-picker, searching for bits of data in which the facts, for a limited period, seemed to contradict the community’s view on human-caused climate change . . . . Overall, he was selling bullshit, and perhaps he knew that, but he thought that climate scientists were exaggerating, so he continued even as facts piled up against him. If only he had been right.”). 151 Lindzen had a Chair in meteorology at MIT from 1983 until his retirement in 2013. Richard S. Lindzen, PROGRAM IN ATMOSPHERES, OCEANS & CLIMATE, http://paocweb.mit.edu/people/rlindzen [https://perma.cc/EL3J-U4Y3]. 152 See generally PATRICK J. MICHAELS & ROBERT BALLING JR., CLIMATE OF EXTREMES: GLOBAL WARMING SCIENCE THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW (2010). 153 Id.
:{:{warming,” Michaels described his view as “luke-warmism,”154 in order to highlight that climate changes will be benign. In the same vein, in 2011, Michaels was the editor of a collection of Cato-published, anti-regulatory essays titled, Climate Coup: Global Warming’s Invasion of Our Government and Our Lives. 155 The volume presents opinion essays mostly lacking factual support. Michaels had dismissed the veracity of modern climate science in an earlier publication, stating “there is no scientifically credible model for future warming.”156}:
Michaels was also less than truthful about the scope of the financial conflicts pertaining to his climate writing. Appearing before the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment in 2009, he testified that only about 3% of his net worth came from “energy sector industry sources.”157 But one year later, live on CNN television, he told the moderator roughly forty percent of his net worth came from fossil fuel-linked sources.158 (Michaels faced a potential perjury investigation.159)
:{ But Cato overlooked both the lack of scientific support for Michael’s views and his very public misstatement about financial conflicts in hiring him to lead its science center in 2012.
Several other national, multi-issue think tanks produce significant quantities of D&O. Among the most notable are the Hoover Institution, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Hudson Institute, the Mercatus Center, and the Federalist Society.160 Like all the think tanks discussed herein, each is a § 501(c)(3) educational organization.161 The remainder of this section discusses more specialized DOTTs.}:}:
:{:{George C. Marshall Institute/CO2 Coalition}:
:{There are twenty-five or so smaller think tanks that produce, or have produced, substantial D&O.162 A notable one is the George C. Marshall Institute, founded in 1984. Marshall was reconstituted as the “CO2 Coalition,” in 2015, and is still operating. Each of Marshall’s three founders were trained physicists—all ex-“Cold Warriors” who channeled their fears of government overreach into fending off climate change laws.
In 1989 (coincidentally the year the Berlin Wall fell), Marshall published a report by them entitled, Scientific Perspectives on the Greenhouse Problem. It contested the primacy of accumulating atmospheric greenhouse gases in causing climate change,163 attributing its origin, instead, to “normal” solar variation. (Presumably, government action could do nothing about that, were it true.)}:
Marshall soon reissued the research in book form under the title, Global Warming: What Does the Science Tell Us?164—thereby making its assertions widely available to the public.165 Although Seitz, Jastrow, and Nierenberg were climate science outliers by 1990, the think tank’s Washington, D.C., office wrangled an invitation for Nierenberg to meet with George H.W. Bush’s senior staff. John Sununu, the president’s Chief of Staff, received this solar variation research so enthusiastically that it’s given partial credit for stopping the administration’s }:
:{:{momentum to act on climate change.166 On the campaign trail, Bush had pledged to counter the “greenhouse effect” with the “White House effect.”167 But with backing from the patriotic sounding “George C. Marshall Institute,” his administration changed course.168 And although Bush subsequently signed the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change at the 1992 Earth Summit, his U.S. representatives insisted the treaty contain only voluntary targets and timetables for greenhouse gas reductions.169 Marshall’s successor, the CO2 Coalition, is equally contrarian and “activist”170 on climate change.171}:
In line with the aphorism “the best defense is a good offense,” it advocates that more CO2 in the atmosphere will benefit living organisms.172 Its website hosts many examples of D&O. Like other DOTTs, the CO2 Coalition regularly produces and submits comment letters to government agencies.173 For example, in 2022, one of its scientist affiliates, William Happer, co-authored a letter to the SEC denying there was a scientific basis for its climate risk disclosure rule.174}:
notes
166 Leslie Roberts, Global Warming: Blaming the Sun, 246 SCI. 992, 993 (Nov. 24, 1989) (“A slim, unrefereed report that many scientists have dismissed as biased and misleading is said to be at least partly behind the White House’s recent temporizing on climate change.”). 167 The pledge was made when Bush was Vice President, and running for the presidency, at a campaign stop in Michigan. It was repeated in the press and read into the Congressional Record by Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. See 101 CONG. REC. 8467 (May 9, 1989). 168 See generally Begley, supra note 162 (“Bush was torn. The head of his Environmental Protection Agency, William Reilly, supported binding cuts in greenhouse emissions. . . . Avoiding mandatory cuts was a huge victory for industry.”). 169 Kathy Sessions, Products of the 1992 Earth Summit, U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY (April/June 1993), https://www.epa.gov/archive/epa/aboutepa/products-1992-earth-summit.html [https://perma.cc/Q7SF-7GRV]. 170 Jason Murdock, Climate Change Deniers Exploit Facebook Loophole to Spread Fake Science, NEWSWEEK (June 25, 2020, at 06:56 ET), https://www.newsweek.com/facebook-co2-coalition-factchecking-ads-fake-content-science-climate-change-1513311 [https://perma.cc/YQT9-C2J7] (“Members of the group—which argues carbon dioxide from fossil fuels will ultimately be beneficial for the planet— told E&E News they want to use the platform to reach a bigger audience, despite opposition from scientists trying to expose their claims. . . . The CO2 Coalition says ‘available scientific facts have persuaded Coalition members that additional CO2 will be a net benefit.’ It lobbies in favor of the ‘the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy.’”).
:{:{:{:{The Heartland Institute }:
Heartland was founded in 1984 by libertarian financier David H. Padden, who earlier had been a founding board member at Cato.175 Its early work included helping Philip Morris spread doubt about secondhand smoke’s harmful effects, and it also had campaigned against smoking bans.176 Heartland is likely the most strident DOTT.177 Its modus operandi is the opposite of the old guard think tanks—through its website, popular and instructional books, conferences, and other means, it actively has cultivated a niche as a provocateur. }:}:
In December 2019, for example, Heartland engaged nineteen-year-old German social media influencer Naomi Siebt to speak at a counter-conference it convened alongside the UN’s COP25. Regaling Siebt as the “Anti-Greta,”178 Heartland’s chief media strategist, James Taylor, described paying her roughly $2,000 per month to narrate climate videos aimed at younger audiences.179 Heartland’s annual (contrarian) climate 175 }:
notes
According to an obituary published by Cato, Padden has also been a director at other conservative/libertarian think tanks including: Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Acton Institute, the Binomics Institute, the Foundation for Economic Education, and the Center for Libertarian Studies. The connections illustrate the networked nature of conservative/libertarian think tanks. See David Boaz, David H. Padden, RIP., CATO INST. (Oct. 4, 2011), https://www.cato.org/blog/david-h-padden-rip [https://perma.cc/GSV8-ZBQN]. 176 ORESKES & CONWAY, supra note 163, at 233–34 (“The Heartland Institute is known among climate scientists for persistent questioning of climate science, for its promotion of ‘experts’ who have done little, if any, peer-reviewed climate research and for its sponsorship of a conference in New York City in 2008 alleging that the scientific community’s work on global warming is a fake. But Heartland’s activities are far more extensive, and reach back into the 1990s when they, too, were working with Philip Morris.”). 177 See generally Banerjee, supra note 3 (“Hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations such as ExxonMobil and wealthy individuals such as the billionaires Charles and David Koch have supported the development of a sprawling network, which includes Heartland and other think tanks, advocacy groups and political operatives. They have cast doubt on consensus science, confused public opinion and forestalled passage of laws and regulations that would address the global environmental crisis. It is one of the largest, longest and most consequential misinformation efforts mounted against mainstream science by an industry. Climate denial, thanks to the network’s influence, has become a core message of the Republican Party, now in control of the White House and Congress.”). 178 Desmond Butler & Juliet Eilperin, The Anti-Greta: A Conservative Think Tank Takes on the Global Phenomenon, WASH. POST (Feb. 23, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/climateenvironment/2020/02/23/meet-anti-greta-young-youtuber-campaigning-against-climate-alarmism/ [https://perma.cc/UKU3-CJVG] (“In December, Heartland headlined Naomi at its forum at the UN climate conference in Madrid, where Taylor described her as ‘the star’ of the show. Last month, Heartland hired Naomi as the young face of its campaign to question the scientific consensus that human activity is
p 198
:{:{:{conferences garner extensive, international media attention180—despite no mainstream climate scientists attending.
Another Heartland anecdote reveals the most blatant propaganda uncovered in this research. In Chicago, in the summer of 2012, Heartland sponsored a digital billboard featuring a giant photo of Ted Kaczynski (the “Unabomber”) above text stating, “I Still Believe in Global Warming, Do You?”181 }:}:
:{The billboard clearly (if impliedly) messaged that believing in climate change is irrational and dangerous—presumably to shame people into voting against politicians who supported action, including in the upcoming elections.182 6.
C-FACT
Another smaller, but vocal, DOTT is named the “Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow,” or “C-FACT.” Obviously chosen carefully (“SeeFact!”), the acronym is ironic given the organization’s penchant for spreading misleading propaganda.183 Like all the DOTTs, C-FACT has enormous visibility online, especially via social media. Marc Morano, C-FACT’s communications director, previously had been a political aide to Senator James Inhofe, a notorious climate denier.184 C-FACT’s website hosts }:}:
notes ....
monthly wage’ from the institute. According to official figures, the average net monthly income in Germany is just under €1,900 (£1,590, $2,066).”). 180 For a discussion of Heartland’s contrarian conferences, see, for example, Andrew C. Revkin, Skeptics Dispute Climate Worries and Each Other, N.Y. TIMES (Mar. 8, 2009), https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/science/earth/09climate.html [https://perma.cc/KFC3-8JZA] (“The three-day International Conference on Climate Change organized by the Heartland Institute, a nonprofit group seeking deregulation and unfettered markets—brings together political figures, conservative campaigners, scientists, an Apollo astronaut and the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus. . . . But two years after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with near certainty that most of the recent warming was a result of human influences, global warming’s skeptics are showing signs of internal rifts and weaking support.”). 181 Carol Felsenthal, Chicago’s Heartland Institute, the Group Behind the Unabomber Billboard, CHI. MAG. (June 14, 2012, at 11:40 ET), https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/felsenthalfiles/june-2012/chicagos-heartland-institute-and-its-unabomber-billboards/ [https://perma.cc/V7RNSH8X]. 182 Group Provokes Re...
:{:{Morano’s “ClimateDepot,” which serves as a clearinghouse for D&O materials (including Morano’s own) that can easily be reposted to social media. Even a quick glance at C-FACT’s website reveals a falsehood. A post from 2024 states that the academic journal NatureCommunications crowned ClimateDepot the “most effective source of climate communication on Earth!”185}:
:{But in fact the referenced article critiques the disproportionate coverage afforded to climate deniers in the media, given the scientific consensus.186 Hence, rather than praising his effectiveness as a climate journalist, the NatureCommunications article critiques the excessive coverage Morano and other deniers receive.187
In sum, Morano’s assertion of proven journalistic preeminence, stated on C-FACT’s website, is a misrepresentation—hence a violation of the methodology test.
- State Policy Network, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Over sixty state-level think tanks form a network actively opposing climate regulations, among others.188 They benefit from mutual collaboration, as well as support from the “State Policy Network” (SPN), }:}:
notes
...a POST (Feb. 26, 2015), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/02/26/jim-inhofessnowball-has-disproven-climate-change-once-and-for-all/ [https://perma.cc/SD8V-DCAN]. 185 About Marc Morano, CLIMATE DEPOT: A C-FACT PROJECT, https://www.climatedepot.com/about/ [https://perma.cc/63YJ-MHKS] (“Welcome To Climate Depot, the most effective source of climate communication on Earth! That’s the conclusion published in a “peerreviewed” scientific journal on August 13, 2019, so we suppose it must be true.”). 186 For the linked journal article, see Alexander Michael Peterson, Emmanuel M. Vincent & Anthony LeRoy Westerling, Discrepancy in Scientific Authority and Media Visibility of Climate Change Scientists and Contrarians, 10 NAT. COMMC’NS, 2019, at 1, 2 (confirming variation among outlets based on political orientation and other factors). 187 Morano and his backers fought back against the suggestion they were obtaining excessive coverage, claiming the journal had advocated for their being blacklisted, which was untrue. See Craig Rucker, Journal “Nature Communications” Climate Blacklist, CFACT (Aug. 16, 2019), https://www.cfact.org/2019/08/16/journal-nature-communications-climate-blacklist/ [https://perma.cc/5246-HKD9]. For more research on the disproportionate media coverage enjoyed by climate change deniers, given the current scientific certainty, see Rachel Wetts, In Climate News, Statements from Large Businesses and Opponents of Climate Action Receive Heightened Visibility, 117 PNAS 19054, 19054 (2020)
p 200 = 39
:{:{:{national think tank.189 Focused on influencing state-level public opinion, laws, and regulations, these think tanks commonly get little or no national media coverage—yet they have an enormous impact in thwarting climatefriendly government action.190 Jane Mayer reported that in 2011 alone, SPN spent $79 million to promote conservative state laws and policies.
In response to questioning from Mayer, SPN’s President, Tracie Sharp, stated, “Every think tank [in SPN’s network] . . . rallies around a common belief: the power of free markets and free people to create a healthy, prosperous society.”191 }:}:
:{With SPN’s support, the state-based DOTTs present opposition to environmental protections as resistance to tyrannical government overreach.192
The most influential state DOTT is the Texas Public Policy Foundation, founded in 1987.193 In line with oil’s importance to Texas’s economy, 194 it is a vigorous proponent of unfettered fossil fuel use. TPPF operates an “educational” unit devoted to producing climate denial and another that}:
189 See About State Policy Network, STATE POL’Y NETWORK, https://www.spn.org/state-policynetwork-about/ [https://perma.cc/YL4Y-RDJR] (“State Policy Network is the only organization in the country dedicated to building and mobilizing a Durable Freedom Infrastructure in the states.
This means we support leaders and organizations building the necessary capacities—like research, litigation, advocacy, investigative journalism, voter insights, and leadership training—to secure wins that outlast election cycles and help change the culture and policy landscape of the state in favor of freedom. SPN supports a powerful movement of 64 independent state think tank affiliates and over 100 national partners across the 50 states.”) 190 Jane Mayer, Is Ikea the New Model for the Conservative Movement? THE NEW YORKER (Nov. 15, 2013), https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservativemovement [https://perma.cc/UW2Y-B65N] (statement from SPN’s president about the group’s commitment to defeating climate change regulations, inter alia). 191 Id. 192
:{At the time of writing, this phenomenon has overtaken federal government policy and executive action. Russel Vought, previously a leader at the Heritage Foundation and now Director of the Office of Management and Budget, is a leader in this initiative. See, e.g., Coral Davenport, Inside Trump’s Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations, N.Y. TIMES (Apr. 15, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/us/politics/trump-doge-regulations.html [https://perma.cc/4SEC4MWZ]. 193
For commentary on TPPF’s climate/energy focus and prominence, see, for example, Christopher Hooks, Why is Texas’ Leading GOP Think Tank Suddenly All-in on an Anti-Wind Crusade?, TEX. OBSERVER (Aug. 23, 2018), https://www.texasobserver.org/why-is-texas-leading-gop-think-tanksuddenly-all-in-on-an-anti-wind-crusade/ [https://perma.cc/W2ZS-SV8W]. See also Mark Hand, Think Tank in the “King of the Red States” Assumes Power in Trump’s Washington, THINK PROGRESS (Jul. 31, }:}:
:{:{spearheads obstructing climate laws and regulations.195 Both were operated under the banner of the “Fueling Freedom Project.” The mission of the Project, as expressed on TPPF’s webpage, was to: Explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels—how civilization has been transformed and the human condition improved through the development of this energy resource;}:
:{Build a multi-state coalition to push back against the EPA’s unconstitutional efforts to take over the electric power sector by regulating CO2 via the Clean Power Plan; :{End the regulation of CO2 as a pollutant.}: We support state and national efforts to oppose the Clean Power Plan, pass legislation/resolutions, file lawsuits against EPA, and promote the passage of measures to protect states from EPA overreach.196
For roughly a decade, Fueling Freedom was led by Kathleen Hartnett White, who had joined TPPF in 2008. White co-authored a book under TPPF’s imprimatur titled, Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy. The book presents the so-called “moral case” for continued reliance on fossil fuels.}:
(This “moral case” is a meme in conservative/libertarian circles—it informs PragerU’s videos, described infra.) The book proudly displays its science contrarianism, its introduction commencing with the declaration, “most of what you think you know about energy—and what our kids are being taught about energy—is flat-out wrong.”197 Undeterred by a lack of science training,198 from her position at TPPF White boldly condemned the ...}:
notes
195 The litigation-oriented unit is named “the Center for the American Future.” A summary of its recent litigation is advertised on TPPF’s website. Eric Oldfather, TPPF’s 2023 Year in Litigation, TEX. PUB. POL’Y FOUND. (Dec. 31, 2023), https://www.texaspolicy.com/tppfs-2023-year-in-litigation/ [https://perma.cc/FB6D-RN7L]. Charitable litigating-think-tanks are commonly referred to as “public interest law foundations”—irrespective of their ideological orientation. Within tax law, they are governed by a separate doctrine from educational think tanks. See Rev. Proc. 92-59, 1992-2 C.B. 411; Rev. Rul. 76- 5, 1976-1 C.B. 146 (“The key factor distinguishing the work of public interest law firms from that of private firms is that the cases handled by the public interest law firms would not be economically feasible for the private firms.”)
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:{:{:{...IPCC’s climate reports as inaccurate.199 She publicly argued that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere would be benign or even beneficial.200 White’s departure from TPPF, in 2016, coincided with President Trump’s nominating her to lead his Council on Environmental Quality.201
The nomination underscores the operation of DOTTs and DOTT leaders as political advocates. 8. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, Myron Ebell The Competitive Enterprise Institute, an elite Washington, D.C.-based think tank, has for decades campaigned against climate regulations.202}:}:
Its influence on U.S. climate policy is exemplified by the career of Myron Ebell, one of its leaders. Having joined CEI in 1999, Ebell rose to direct its Center for Energy and the Environment.203 He retired from CEI only in 2024, after twenty-five years in its leadership ranks. Like Pielke and White, Ebell adamantly and unqualifiedly rejected anthropogenic climate change; and Ebell too lacked science training.204 }:
notes
fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
She was accepted into Princeton’s Ph.D. program in East Asian Studies winning the Jonathan Edwards award for academic excellence.”). 199 KATHLEEN HARTNETT WHITE, TEX. PUB. POL’Y FOUND., FOSSIL FUELS: THE MORAL CASE 30 (June 2014) (“IPCC science claims of 95 percent certainty that human activity is causing climate calamity are more like the dogmatic claims of ideologues and clerics than scientific conclusions. . . . This claim of 95 percent confidence however is pulled from thin air without any statistical analysis.”). 200 White’s views about global warming and greenhouse gases are described in Marianne Lavelle, Trump Pick for Top Environment Post Carbon Dioxide Is ‘The Gas of Life’, INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS (Oct. 13, 2017), https://www.insideclimatenews.org/news/13102017/trump-kathleen-hartnett-white-ceqnominee-climate-change-fossil-fuels-supporter-texas/ [https://perma.cc/668G-32S2] (“‘An invisible, harmless trace gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, CO2 is a plant food.’”). See also Elliott Negin, Trump Nominee Kathleen Hartnett White Ignores Climate Change in Her Own Backyard, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS (Nov. 9, 2017, at 09:30 ET), https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/kathleen-hartnett-whiteclimate-change/ [https://perma.cc/AX9P-TRF5]. 201 Her nomination was ultimately withdrawn. White House Withdraws Nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White to the Council on Environmental Quality, PACE UNIV. (Feb. 5, 2018), https://www.lawlibrary.blogs.pace.edu/2018/02/05/white-house-withdraws-nomination-of-kathleenhartnett-white-to-the-council-on-environmental-quality/ [https://perma.cc/S7WZ-E2ZS]; see also Brady Dennis & Chris Mooney, Trump Taps Climate Skeptic for Top White House Environmental Post, WASH. POST (Oct. 13, 2017), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energyenvironment/wp/2017/10/13/trump-taps-climate-skeptic-for-top-white-house-environmental-post/ [https://perma.cc/XDT9-388L]. 202 As stated on its webpage, “[t]he
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:{:{In a 2007 interview with Vanity Fair, Ebell told the reporter that computer models predicting climate change “don’t even pass the laugh test.”205 He launched invectives against climate science in frequent television appearances.206 While at CEI, Ebell chaired a trade consortium called the “Cooler Heads Coalition”—even now lauded on CEI’s website for “question[ing] global warming alarmism.”207 CEI’s website also celebrates its leading the “decade-long fight to defeat cap-and-trade legislation.”}:
:{It also takes credit for leading the successful effort to “convince President Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate treaty.”208 At CEI, Ebell exemplified the role of modern think tank leaders as political firebrand. For instance, in 2002, having obtained an EPA report acknowledging anthropogenic climate change, Ebell emailed George W. Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality, and convinced it to repudiate the report and replace the EPA’s leader.209
When, in 2005, Senators McCain and Lieberman united to support cap-and-trade legislation, Ebell declared it “a shameless con game,” and helped kill its passage.210}:
:{In 2012, when AEI convened a bipartisan conference of experts to evaluate a proposed carbon tax, “Ebell received a leaked copy of its agenda and sprang into action rallying climate denialists to attack AEI”211—a stunning example of one elite think tank attacking another for being too moderate on climate.
In 2016, when Ebell was still at CEI, Trump appointed him to lead his presidential transition team for the EPA.212 As described by a colleague at Cato (also a vocal climate change denier), Ebell’s strength lay in “marshaling allies, building a skeptic movement and enforcing that political orthodoxy as}:}:
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:{:{:{best he could in the Republican Party.”213 This made CEI and Ebell famously influential, but they are not skills or actions associated with true educational leaders.
9. ALEC
The American Legislative Exchange Council is principally devoted to authoring model conservative and libertarian-oriented bills and presenting them to state legislators for enactment. Extraordinarily influential, it has aptly been dubbed a “conservative bill mill.”214 }:}:
Opposing climate-protections is one of ALEC’s priorities.215 For example, in the coal-producing state of Kentucky, ALEC responded to a 2015 EPA utility reform proposal by persuading the state’s legislature to prohibit coal’s replacement.216 Nor is ALEC secretive about its modus operandi, notwithstanding that § 501(c)(3)’s 213 The colleague was Jerry Taylor, who also had been a climate change denier. Vinik, supra note 209. 214 Svante Myrick, The Conservative Juggernaut That’s Quietly Writing the Majority Out of U.S. Laws, THE HILL (Oct. 9, 2023, at 10:30 ET),
:{https://www.thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4244299-theconservative-juggernaut-thats-writing-the-majority-out-of-us-laws/ [https://perma.cc/6KGC-P862]
(“[F]or decades millions of Americans have been living under laws that ALEC had a direct hand in. And those laws are overwhelmingly friendly to corporations and disastrous for regular people.”); see also Jeffrey Harris, ALEC: 50 Years of Attacking Environmental Protection and Democracy, GREENPEACE (Oct. 3, 2023), https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/alec-50-years-of-attacking-environmental-protectionand-democracy/ [https://perma.cc/H9KN-HH2P]
(“An estimated 98% of ALEC’s funding comes from corporations and well-known conservative foundations established by the Koch, Bradley, Mercer, Searle, and Coors families, among others.”). See generally Nancy Scola, Exposing ALEC: How ConservativeBacked State Laws Are All Connected, THE ATLANTIC (Apr. 14, 201...}:}:
Uncharitable Think Tanks 205
:{:{language strictly limits charities’ legislative lobbying.217 Indeed, ALEC maintains an online archive of model bills it has authored and circulated.218 Some bills have even (accidentally) been introduced to state legislatures with ALEC’s authorship showing.219}:
Notwithstanding the embarrassment to the negligent legislators, this demonstrates ALEC’s goal—directly to mold state law making. Along with model bills, ALEC provides state law makers with “issue alerts,” “talking points,” and “press release templates”220 intended to help them communicate with their constituencies—to clarify, they are not fact-intensive or analytically rigorous educational briefs in line with the methodology test.
ALEC also publishes an annual statement of policy “solutions” it supports, available on its website. Like Heritage’s Mandates, these are essentially summaries of favored policies and goals—neither factually well supported nor thickly reasoned.221 A current ALEC initiative relevant to climate change action is especially striking. It is spearheading state-based campaigns to criminalize certain live fossil fuel infrastructure protests.222
At least twenty-two states have enacted a version of ALEC’s anti-protest bill, including Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Kansas, West Virginia, and Indiana.223 Some of these laws provide for incarceration for up to ten years or million-dollar fines upon conviction, 217
:{For a list of model “anti-environmental” laws composed by ALEC, see Alec’s Polluter Agenda, CTR. FOR MEDIA & DEMOCRACY (2017), https://www.alecexposed.org/images/c/c9/ALEC_on_the_Environment_Final_PDF.pdf [https://perma.cc/2HLK-PW8U]. 218 ALEC’s website includes a page describing its position on climate change under the heading, “Global Climate Change is Inevitable.” ALEC Energy Principles, AM. LEGIS. EXCHANGE COUNCIL, https://www.alec.org/model-policy/alec-energy-principles/ [https://perma.cc/JX8L-FFUL]. 219
For an example, see Brendan Fisher, ALEC Politicians Caught Plagiarizing ALEC Bill, Drafting Error and All, CTR. FOR MEDIA & DEMOCRACY’S PRWATCH (Jul. 7, 2014, at 20:10 ET), https://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/07/12526/alec-politicians-caught-plagiarizing-alec-bill-draftingerror-and-all [https://perma.cc/R274-CA9K]. 220 ALEC IN FLORIDA, COMMON CAUSE 4 (2012). 221
The most recent example is 2025 Essential Policy Solutions, American Legislative Exchange Council. See generally 2025 ESSENTIAL POL’Y SOLS., AM. LEGIS. EXCH. COUNCIL (2025). 222 For analysis of the phenomenon arguing it’s likely unconstitutional, see Benjamin Cramer, Envirodemic: Unconstitutional Restrictions on Environmental Protests From the Attacks of 2001 to the Struggles of 2020, 14 L.J. SOC. JUST. 79, 82–89 (2021). See also Alleen Brown, Oklahoma Governor Signs Anti-Protest Law Imposing Huge Fines on “Conspirator” Organizations, THE INTERCEPT (May 6, 2017), https://www.theintercept.com/2017/05/06/oklahoma-governor-signs-anti-protest-law-imposinghuge-fines-on-conspirator-organizations/ [https://perma.cc/X3JY-PZCR]. 223 See Cramer, supra note 222; Nina Lakhani, Revealed: Rightwing US ...}:}:
:{206 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163
or both. In March 2025, a version of the legislation originally proposed by it was introduced in the U.S. Senate.224 B.}:
:{:{Some Donors and Gifts 1. DOTT Contributions and a Thought Experiment}:
:{:{ Confidentiality prevents researchers from gaining a complete, accurate account of D&O think tanks’ donors and gifts. Time periods are arbitrarily truncated, and tallies of gifts to charities are often lumped together with gifts to § 501(c)(4)s. Journalists usually treat voluntary disclosures as being complete—not realizing they usually are cherry-picked to flatter donors’ reputations.}:
The best research on donors and gifts to DOTTs is Brulle et al.’s Obstructing Action: Foundation Funding and US Climate Change CounterMovement Organizations, published in 2021.225 Brulle and his co-authors tallied annual gifts to nonprofits noted for producing D&O.226 They then correlated the gift totals with the amount of climate denial the entities produced (as a proportion of their total messaging). Looking retrospectively from 2018, the endpoint of their data, the authors concluded that $40 million was the average support annually obtained and directed to climate denial by this cohort. 227
Their key findings can be summarized as follows: 228 • Donors are remarkably concentrated, a small group of private foundations constituting the core funders. The top 1% of donors accounted for 67% of grants; the top 10% of donors accounted for 94% of grants. • Similar concentration obtained at the recipient side: seven DOTTs (5%) received 50% of all grants.
The top three recipients in the second study—AEI, Heritage, and the Hoover 224 See Safe and Secure Transportation of American Energy Act, S. 1017, 119th Congress (2025– 2026). 225 Robert J. Brulle et al., Obstructing Action: Foundation Funding and US Climate Change Counter-Movement Organizations, CLIMATE CHANGE, May 15, 2021, at 1–7 (“to determine the amount and sources of income for the CCCM organizations, IRS data were extracted from both the National Center for Charitable Statistics and the Foundation Center for the period 2003 to 2010. . . .The final sample for analysis consisted of 140 foundations making 5,299 grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations.”).
Unfortunately, the study combines the tallies for § 501(c)(3) and § 501(c)(4) bodies. 226 The cohort of entities studied mostly were think tanks, but some § 501(c)(4)s appear to have been included. 227 Id. The study shows a peak amount of $52 million in 2012. }:}:
...
Uncharitable Think Tanks 207
Institution—also led in the earlier one, with only slight shifts otherwise.229 • From 2010 on, the top funders were Donors Trust, Donors Capital Fund, and the Scaife, Bradley, and Koch family foundations. The Devos family foundations rose to join the ranks of the top ten. • Grants channeled through Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund accounted for 13.7% of the total. • 74% of all contributions came from completely unidentified sources. • }:}:
After AEI, Heritage and Hoover, the largest recipients were Cato, the Manhattan Institute, the Hudson Institute, the Mercatus Center, the Acton Institute, the State Policy Network, the Reason Foundation, Heartland, and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. From 2003 to 2018, Brulle and his co-authors tallied total gifts to this cohort of $9.77 billion 230—a sum that refutes the mistaken notion that charitable giving is small dollars, and influential only at the margin. Now for the thought experiment.
Because corporate transactions are often counted in billions, it’s possible that $40 million annually for think tanks’ climate denial and legal obstruction doesn’t sound like a large sum. This would be a mistake. The thought experiment involves computing how many top-of-their field law professors could be employed annually with $40 million. Brian Lieter, a law professor writing regularly on legal education, proposes $200,000 per year as a rough salary estimate for elite professors at top-ranked U.S. law schools.231 Based on that estimate, $40 million would employ two hundred law professors to write climate denial and legal obstruction material full time—sixty hours per week being a rough estimate ...}:
208 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163
:{:{of professors’ schedule. In addition, a corps of two hundred D&O-writing law professors would be sufficiently large to place one of them on the faculty of every AALS-affiliated law school in the U.S. 232—constituting a stunningly influential presence.233 Hopefully, this thought experiment makes plain that $40 million could fund a great deal of persuasive denial and legal obstruction by think tanks.}:
2. Some Corporate Donations
:{:{ By law, corporations are obligated to disclose giving to think tanks, and other charities, only in the rarest circumstances. ExxonMobil’s and the Southern Company’s gifts to DOTTs are discussed below, as examples, but even for them the data is sparse and muddy—coming mostly from leaks, investigative journalists, and anecdotal corporate reports. In the case of the Southern, a specialized law, long repealed, was helpful.}:
Giant corporations like ExxonMobil and the Southern routinely invest huge sums in advertising, and also public and government relations. The Introduction mentioned ExxonMobil’s early use of trade associations, including the American Petroleum Association.234 Giving to think tanks supplements these traditional expenditures, while conferring the unique trio of advantages described earlier—donor anonymity, tax subsidized cost, and superior credibility. }:}:
ExxonMobil is estimated to have donated over $33 million to think tanks between 1998 to 2014. 235 The figure is likely misleadingly, however—far too
notes
232 There are 174 member schools and nineteen fee-paying schools in the American Association of Law school ranks. See Member Schools, ASS’N AM. L. SCHS., https://www.aals.org/memberschools/#::text=Founded%20in%201900%2C%20there%20are,Association%20of%20American%20L aw%20Schools [https://perma.cc/Y74C-TU8C]. 233 It’s notable, also, that many of the authors writing for D&O think tanks are part-timers— ”fellows” holding positions analogous to adjunct faculty, with their primary employment being elsewhere. This would “stretch” the amount of D&O content $40 million would pay for. Furthermore, because think tank content is routinely and mostly costlessly reposted to social media, this would also expand the amount of climate denial and legal obstruction in circulation, without adding cost. ...
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:{:{low—because it’s principally based on the company’s voluntary, effectively unregulated Giving Reports.236}:
The height of ExxonMobil’s DOTT giving likely occurred between 1993 and 2005, when Lee Raymond was CEO.237 Raymond remained an outspoken, unabashed climate denier238—but corporate management knew better. Discovery in recent litigation has revealed the company’s scientists informed management, at least by 1977, that continued combustion of fossil fuels would harm the climate.239
After 2006, the new CEO, Rex Tillerson, led the firm’s climate media strategy. The public saw Tillerson support U.S. participation in the Paris Accord. But behind the scenes, ExxonMobil continued to fund think tanks’ climate denial and legal obstruction, making $6.5 million in contributions between 2008 and 2015.240 In 2023, even the business-friendly Wall Street Journal criticized it for using think tanks “to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and}:
notes
[https://perma.cc/XJ95-JBRS] (“In total, the ExxonSecrets database has found over $33M going to over 60 different organizations since 1998, the year after the Kyoto Protocol was launched. The data is drawn from Exxon’s published “Giving” reports and IRS Form 990s for ExxonMobil Foundation.”); see also BANERJEE ET AL., supra note 2. 236 On the absence of mandatory corporate charitable giving disclosure and motives for corporate philanthropy, see generally Faith Stevelman Kahn, Pandora’s Box: Managerial Discretion and the Problem of Corporate Philanthropy, 44 UCLA L. REV. 579 (1997) (examining the absence of publicly available data on corporate giving and providing legal arguments for law reform mandating public reporting). On the limited exception that had existed, prior to 2005, on account of the Public Utility Holding Company Act, see infra notes 247–249 and accompanying text. 237 For an overview of Exxon’s and other oil companies’ connection with API, and API’s powerful influence on Capitol Hill, see generally Chris McGreal, How a Powerful US Lobby Group Helps Big Oil to Block Climate Action, THE GUARDIAN (Jul. 19, 2021, at 06:00 ET), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/19/big-oil-climate-crisis-lobby-group-api [https://perma.cc/XR24-BMHQ]. 238 STEVE COLL, PRIVATE EMPIRE: EXXONMOBIL AND AMERICAN POWER 81, 83 (2012...
:{:{210 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163 climate change.”241 It has also recently come to light that ExxonMobil funded famous climate contrarian, Dr. Willie Wei-Hock Soon, as discussed infra. 242 Utility companies reliant on fossil fuels have an obvious interest in funding think tank D&O.}:
The Southern Company is one of the largest coalfired utilities in the U.S., based on customer size. The firm and its subsidiaries gave more than $30 million to DOTTs and DOTT-affiliated § 501(c)(4)s between 1993 and 2004.243 As late as 2017, Southern’s CEO Tom Fanning told CNBC there was “no reliable evidence” for carbon dioxide being the principal cause of climate change.244 Although Southern’s advertising boasts of its increased use of cleaner, alternative energy,245 the company remains a top three U.S. greenhouse gas producer.246}:
notes
241 The subtitle of the news report is “Internal Documents Show What the Oil Giant Said Publicly Was Very Different from How it Approached the Issue Privately in the Tillerson Era.” Christopher M. Matthews & Collin Eaton, Inside Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change, WALL. ST. J. (Sep. 14, 2023, at 05:30 ET), https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/exxon-climate-change-documentse2e9e6af [https://perma.cc/LRG2-PWDT]. Nevertheless, historically the Journal was far more reluctant, in comparison to other major news outlets, to tie climate change to negative impacts in its news reports. See Lauren Feldman P. Sol Hart & Tijana Milosevic, Polarizing News? Representations of Threat and Efficacy in Leading US Newspapers’ Coverage of Climate Change, 26 PUB. UNDERSTANDING SCI. 481, 493 (May 2017). 242 See infra, Part II.C.1; see also Suzanne Goldenberg, Work of Prominent Climate Change Denier Was Funded by Energy Industry, THE GUARDIAN (Feb. 21, 2015, at 16:32 ET), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/21/climate-change-denier-willie-soon-fundedenergy-industry [https://perma.cc/5S5X-JAJ8]. 243 For a comprehensive account of the Southern’s multi-prong assault on climate change awareness and the growing momentum for climate legal protections, see DAVID ANDERSON, ENERGY & POL’Y INSTITUTE, SOUTHERN COMPANY KNEW 22 (2022) (“For this report, the Energy and Policy Institute conducted a new review of annual U5S and U-13-60 reports that Southern Company was required to file with the SEC from 1993 through 2004. The annual reports included itemized lists of Southern Company’s political expenditures, donations, and money paid for outside services.”). In total, there were $62 million in expenditures; the Energy and Policy Institute collected and posted them to an online spread sheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSbMJ9kClHudrFyp954lccYmkJElVIh9VlVeOzmfm0ZmqJHaaYKrEBms5AejB3aC9AQi9dcA1zGNfH/pubhtml. The Southern also paid $32 million to for-profit lobbyists and PR firms for D&O in these years. Id. at 33 (describing how the VP of PR at a Southern affiliate also served as the president of the ICE campaign; that Southern Company pledged $125,000 to the ICE campaign, and how its polling recommended its campaign target “older, less-educated” males with radio ads, including ones from the Rush Limbaugh Show). 244 Matthew J. Belvedere, Like the New EPA Chief, Southern Company’s CEO Doesn’t See CO2 As Main Reason for Climate Change, CNBC (Mar. 28, 2017, at 12:29 ET), https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/28/like-the-new-epa-chief-southern-companys-ceo-doesnt-see-co2-asmain-reason-for-climate-change.html [https://perma.cc/9444-7RSY] . 245 For Big Oil and Gas, Greenwashing Is the New Climate Denial, EARTHJUSTICE (Oct. 13...
:{:{2025] Uncharitable Think Tanks 211}:
Prior to 2005, Southern’s donations to charities, including DOTTs, were a matter of public record. Such disclosures were mandated by the Public Utility Holding Company Act.247 The SEC’s widely applicable S-K corporate disclosures do not require such corporate reporting.248 Hence, when PUHCA was repealed in 2005, Southern’s contributions disclosures ceased.249 Its filings showed contributions to American Council for Capital Formation, ALEC, the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Federalist Society, Frontiers of Freedom Institute, and the Independent Women’s Foundation250—all D&O think tanks.
We know also that the Southern, too, was also a principal funder of Dr. Soon’s contrarian climate research.251 The history of Southern’s early knowledge and denial of climate change is analogous to ExxonMobil’s. For example, in 1991, Southern funded a national PR campaign by the Information Council on the Environment featuring the rhetorical question, “Who told you the earth was warming . . . Chicken Little?” above an image of a cartoon chicken.252 Roughly two-thirds of the above cited $30 million went to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), a § 501(c)(4).253
:{EEI was part of funding the (earlier mentioned) campaign to “reposition global warming as theory.”254
More recently, it lobbied against 247 Public Utility Holding Company Act, 15 U.S.C. § 79 to 79(z)-6 (2000). 248 17 C.F.R. § 229 (1982). 249 It was repealed by The Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-58, 119 Stat. 594 (2005), codified in 16 U.S.C. §824p(a) (2005). 250 PUHCA mandated utilities report gifts via annual forms U5S and U-13-60. 251 Anderson, Kasper, & Pomerantz, infra note 252, at 56–58; see, e.g., Kert Davies, Willie Soon Harvard Smithsonian Documents Reveal Southern Company Scandal, CLIMATE INVESTIGATIONS CTR. (Feb. 21, 2015), https://www.climateinvestigations.org/willie-soon-harvard-smithsonian-documentsreveal-southern-company-scandal/ [https://perma.cc/27E5-7SJB] (creating links to the underlying documentation yielded by the FOIA request); see infra notes 330–332 and accompanying text.}:}:
also supr and ores...
212 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163
:{:{the Biden Administration’s plan to speed the transition to greener energy.255 Notably, EEI has an affiliated think tank—the Edison Foundation for Electric Innovation. (Their connection is noted for the first time here, as reflected in searchable records, at least.) Although the think tank maintains a website, it presents no details about its educational programs.}:
:{And it describes the board of trustees as comprised of electric company CEOs—which doesn’t foster confidence in its educational bona fides.256
3. Some Private Foundations
As grantmakers, private foundations are an exception to the rule of confidentiality. Tax law requires private foundations to itemize their grants in searchable Form 990-PFs.257 But foundations increasingly are avoiding such transparency through the use of charitable funds managers, called “donor advised funds” (DAFs). 258 If they employ a DAF, foundations need only disclose the DAF as the recipient, not the ultimate charitable beneficiary. }:
:{Nor does the DAF need to report where the gifts go, because the DAF itself is not a private foundation. In sum, where DAFs manage private foundations’ giving, there is no longer a public record of the ultimate charitable recipients of their grants.259
In just this way, the foundation namesakes of the Kochs, Scaifes, Mellons, DeVoses, Bradleys, Popes, Coors, now Elon Musk,}:}:
notes
260 and major 255 Nichola Groom & Valerie Volcovici, Top US Utility Group Opposes Emissions Plan for Existing Gas Plants, REUTERS (Aug. 1, 2023, at 11:35 ET), https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/top-us-utility-group-opposes-emissions-planexisting-gas-plants-source-2023-08-01/ [https://perma.cc/JYH5-3U62]. See generally Kirkland, supra note 252. 256 About the Institute for Electric Innovation, EDISON FOUND., https://www.edisonfoundation.net/ [https://perma.cc/W6RP-JDT5]. 257 Private foundations are required to file Form 990-PF, Return of Private Foundation, annually with the IRS. This document is subject to public inspection and includes a complete list of grants made during the year, including the recipient’s name and address, the grant amount, and the grant purpose. 258 The Pension Protection Act formally recognized DAFs as charitable giving vehicles, putting an end to questions of the legitimacy of DAFs. Section 4966(d)(2)(A) of the I.R.C. defines a DAF for tax purposes. Further regulations for DAFs are likely. See generally Alexander L. Reid et al., Proposed Regulations Define Donor Advised Funds, 41 J. TAX’N INV. 47 (2024). For in-depth analysis of the cutting-edge of modern philanthropy practices, see generally DANA BRAKMAN REISER & STEVEN A....
2025] Uncharitable Think Tanks 213
...corporations’ foundations are able to make anonymous gifts to § 501(c)(3)s.261 And the size of DAF-intermediated giving is enormous. The 2023 Form 990 for Donor’s Trust—the most significant DAF for our purposes—shows (outgoing) donations of $358 million for that year. }:}:
And although we cannot see the recipients, because Donors’ Trust markets itself as an ally of conservative/libertarian causes, we should presume that DOTTs are well represented among them.262 Indeed, tax law favors foundations’ giving to think tanks, because they are § 501(c)(3)s, over giving to more politically deregulated nonprofits, like § 501(c)(4)s.
This is because foundations face excise taxes if their grants underwrite beneficiaries’ political activities.263 Because the presumption has been that think tanks, as charities, undertake little or no political activities, “expenditure responsibility” doesn’t apply when foundations give to them.264 Hence, giving to politicized think tanks enables foundations to accomplish goals they otherwise could not, at least without greater expense and administrative burden.265
:{There is some public information about private foundations’ giving— principally because foundations’ use of DAFs has become widespread only recently.266
For example, the Searle Freedom Trust’s Form 990 for 2018 (available online) includes an itemized list of its grantees, including DOTTs. The Trust made contributions of $6.55 million to DOTTs for that year. The }:}:
214 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163
long list of think tank grantees appears in the footnote accompanying this text.267 For 2019, the Bradley Foundation made DOTT donations of more than $2 million. Recipients included Cato, CEI, the CO2 Coalition, Heritage, TPPN, and ALEC.268 The Sarah Scaife Foundation has also made large gifts to DOTTs. Its Form 990 for 2021 shows just under $8 million going to them.}:}:
:{The DOTTs that received Scaife Foundation grants are virtually identical to the ones that received Searle Foundation grants, described above.269
Jane Mayer, in Dark Money, and Brulle et al., quoted supra, highlight the Koch, Scaife, Pope, DeVos, Bradley, Searle, Davis, John Templeton, Dunn, and Smith Richardson foundations’ large gifts to politicized think tanks.270}:
But the Koch family foundations, under the direction of Charles and David Koch principally, have outstripped the others in terms of the size and influence of their DOTT giving. Greenpeace’s investigative unit found that between 1997 and 2018, Koch-affiliated foundations gave more than $145.5 million to 90 nonprofits, including DOTTs.271 Indeed, Charles and David Kochs’ network of foundations, think tanks, §501(c)(4)s, and university programs remains unparalleled. 272 Its growth, 267
Gifts are listed in thousands: Buckeye Institute ($350), Cato ($400), CO2 Coalition ($75), CEI ($65), Federalist Society ($400), Fraser Institute ($125), Heritage Foundation ($300), Hoover Institution ($50), Hudson ($150), Manhattan Institute ($700), Mercatus Center ($550), Pacific Research Institute ($175), PragerU Foundation ($150), Property and Environmental Research Center ($331), Reason Foundation ($905), State Policy Network ($1,180), Texas Public Policy Foundation ($225).
See Form 990 Searle Freedom Trust (2018), https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6956376-Searle-FreedomTrust-2018-990/ [https://perma.cc/D8GE-EZ27]. 268 Waldman, supra note 261
(“Fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, the foundations have supported groups that worked with the Trump White House to roll back vehicle emissions standards and to ease restrictions on power plant pollution and water protections, public tax filings show. They have quietly funded presidential advisers who worked to conduct a hostile White House review of climate science and to restrict EPA’s use of scientific research when crafting public health protections.”).
:{The money would not exclusively funded D&O, but environmental law and regulations are a favorite target of the Foundation.
See also Lee Bergquist, Bradley Foundation Helps Fund Groups Opposing Climate Regulation, J. SENTINEL (May 17, 2017), https://projects.jsonline.com/news/2017/5/17/bradleyfoundation-helps-fund-groups-opposing-climate-regulation.html [https://perma.cc/YT94-J7K8]. 269
Gifts are listed in thousands: Acton ($275), AEI ($ 1,450), ALEC ($100), Atlas [Economic Research] Foundation/Fund ($120), Buckeye ($185), Cato ($180), CO2 Coalition ($200), C-FACT ($160), CEI ($450), Federalist Society ($350), Fraser ($60), FreedomWorks Foundation ($275), Heartland ($200), Heritage ($1300), Hudson Institution ($580), Institute for Energy Research ($80), Manhattan Institute ($570), Mercatus ($350), National Center for Public Policy Research ($80), Pacific Research Institute ($250), Reason Foundation ($300). See Sarah Scaife Foundation, Form 990 (2021), }:}:
p 54 215
:{:{scale, and effectiveness became so striking that it earned the nickname “the Kochtopus” in the media. Richard Fink—a former economics professor who rose to become a senior Koch adviser—had presented an essay to the brothers prefiguring this kind of novel, transformational entity.273 Published in 1996, and inspired by Hayek’s writings on institutions and social progress,274 the essay became known as The Structure of Social Change. 275}:
Charles and David nurtured this network of wealthy foundations and politicized nonprofits as a lifelong preoccupation.276 4. Giving by Wealthy Individuals While there are glimmers of information, this Article uncovered no definitive public records of natural persons’ gifts to DOTTs. For example, based on public statements, it’s impossible to distinguish between wealthy individuals’ pledges and gifts to be paid from their affiliated family foundations.
The same is true for CEOs. It’s often impossible to distinguish when the public pledges they make are individual commitments versus gifts to be paid by their companies (at the CEO’s behest, perhaps). Still, there are reasons to believe wealthy Americans have increased their giving to ideologically oriented think tanks in recent decades. The larger and increasingly concentrated share of wealth held by the richest Americans 2019 alone, the Charles Koch Foundation donated more than $112 million to 225 distinct campuses and campus-rooted think tanks.
:{ See INCREASED FUNDING, INCREASED INFLUENCE, KOCH UNIVERSITY FUNDING UPDATE, 2005–2019, UNKOCH MY CAMPUS (May 2021); see also Koch Foundation Buys Academic Slots, NAT’L COAL. AGAINST CENSORSHIP (Nov. 13, 2014), https://www.ncac.org/fepparticles/koch-foundation-buys-academic-slots [https://perma.cc/U4YD-ZGZH]. 273 For additional commentary on Fink’s treatise and the Kochtopus, see Ben Jervey, Documents Show Koch Network’s ‘Structure of Social Change’ in Action, DESMOG (Aug. 19, 2019), https://www.desmog.com/2019/08/19/kochs-americans-prosperity-structure-social-change/ [https://perma.cc/J4R5-K5UX]. 274
For a scholarly discussion of the nexus between large scale philanthropy and social movements, including discussion of the Kochs, Richard Fink and Fink’s intellectual indebtedness to Hayek, see Timothy Wyman-McCarthy, In Search of the Political: How Social Movements Enter Liberal Social Change Projects 124–26 (Sept. 2023) (Ph.D. Dissertation, U.C. Berkeley) . 275 Fink’s essay was published in Philanthropy Magazine, Winter 1996, under the title, “From Ideas to Action: The Role of Universities, Think Tanks, and Activist Groups.”}:}:
...gap
:{:{earlier). And David (again) was not only a co-founder of Citizens for a Sound Economy, but also a former vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party. Beyond their ideological commitments, the brothers’ stakes in Koch Industries gave them enormous financial incentives to give to DOTTs.}:
Based on data from 2022, Koch Industries ranked twenty-third among U.S. corporate producers of direct greenhouse gas emissions.283 Charles and the heirs to David’s estate, collectively, own more than 80% of the company’s stock—a stake estimated to be worth over $110 billion. 284 Furthermore, Charles made an express public declaration of his intention to continue his philanthropic giving posthumously.285
He has pledged $5.3 billion of Koch Industries stock to two ideologically-partisan § 501(c)(4)s he established for this purpose.286 The same is true of billionaire Barre Seid—he made a gift of stock worth $1.65 billion to a new § 501(c)(4), Marble Freedom Trust, that he created.287 Leonard Leo, made famous by his leadership of the Federalist Society, was appointed to be Marble Trust’s sole trustee.288 In sum, although the information is incomplete, there are strong indications that wealthy individuals are making, and have for many years made enormous gifts to ideologically partisan nonprofits, including DOTTs.}:
218 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163
:{:{C. Ways and Means DOTTs Have Achieved Influence 1.}:
Using Scientists to Refute Climate Science A dozen or so scientists have formed the tip of the spear of think tanks’ climate denial.289 Patrick Michaels 290 and Richard Lindzen 291 were mentioned above. But apart from Lindzen, peer review publications by this cohort are sparse. And few of them had positions as full-time academic scientists, at least in relevant fields. These factors made them more beholden to D&O think tanks for speaking events, publicity, and/or funding. They also formed an insular group—often meeting and presenting alongside one another at DOTT events.292 One of the most prominent scientists in this group was Dr. “Willie” Wei-Hock Soon;
Soon’s career is discussed in depth here because it is in many respects exemplary. Dr. Soon received a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from USC in 1991.293 Shortly thereafter he moved to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).294 The Harvard name gave Soon leverage in obtaining
NOTES
:{:{289 See generally ORESKES & CONWAY, supra note 163 (describing the careers of Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, Frederick Seitz, S. Fred Singer, Sherwood Idso, William Happer, and Freeman Dyson, the most prominent members of this cohort other than Dr. Soon); DAVID LIPSKY, THE PARROT AND THE IGLOO (2024) (discussing the careers of S. Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz).}:
Seitz became a climate denier after an illustrious career that included serving as president of Rockefeller University). For an updated account of prominent climate denier scientists, and where they received support, see Maxine Joselow, He Won a Nobel Prize. Then He Started Denying Climate Change.,
WASH. POST (Nov. 16, 2023), https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/16/john-clauser-nobel-climate-denial/ [https://perma.cc/EZV3-45QT] (discussing John F. Clauser as well as Will Happer, Richard Lindzen, and Willie Soon). 290
:{:{For a description of Patrick Michaels’s career, see supra note 150. 291 While at MIT, Lindzen maintained affiliations with Cato, Heartland, and the CO2 Coalition (previously the Marshall Institute). Lindzen’s views on climate change provoked criticism from his peers. After he authored a public letter to then-President Trump, urging U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accord, twenty-two of his MIT colleagues authored an open letter to the university’s president, expressing their disagreement with his views. Zahra Hirji, Climate Contrarian Gets Fact-Checked by MIT Colleagues in Open Letter to Trump, INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS (Mar. 6, 2017), https://www.insideclimatenews.org/news/06032017/climate-change-denial-scientists-richard-lindzenmit-donald-trump/ [https://perma.cc/X8EP-Q8K5] (“The MIT staff addressed specific inaccuracies in Lindzen’s letter, including his assertion that ‘carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.’”). 292}:
For a review of the evolving, but consistently overwhelming, consensus about human causation and accelerating warming in Earth’s temperatures, see generally John Cook et al., Consensus on Consensus: A Synthesis of Consensus Estimates Human-Caused Global Warming, ENV’T RSCH. LETTERS, Apr. 2016, at 1; Cook et al., supra note 21, at 1....}:}:}:
LOTS ON WILLIE I DL 4/14/26
2025] Uncharitable Think Tanks 219
DOTT sponsorships.295 And promoting Soon as a “Harvard scientist” who
rejected that human behavior principally was causing climate change
benefited the DOTTs’ credibility, too.296 However, some obfuscation was
involved in this, because CfA is not formally part of Harvard University.297
CfA’s lack of university affiliation also highlights that Soon’s career wasn’t
governed by formal academic practices and standards like tenure and peer
review, for example.
Dr. Soon became embroiled in two controversies. The first was a hugely
public peer review controversy. It was described in detail in the Chronicle
for Higher Education 298 and in an essay written by an editor who left the
:{:{journal at issue.299}:
To elaborate, in 2003, the journal Climate Research}:
published a paper on climate change co-authored by Dr. Soon and a
colleague, Dr. Sally Balunias.300 Technically the paper was a literature
review. Nevertheless, its conclusion was that, “[a]cross the world, many
records reveal that the [twentieth] century is probably not the warmest nor a
uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.” It also observed
NOTES
295 Goldenberg, supra note 240 (“In the relatively small universe of climate denial Soon, with his
Harvard-Smithsonian credentials, was a sought-after commodity. He was cited admiringly by Senator
James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who famously called global warming a hoax. He was called to
testify when Republicans in the Kansas state legislature tried to block measures promoting wind and solar
power. The Heartland Institute, a hub of climate denial, gave Soon a courage award.”).
296 For an example where the Harvard name was mentioned at the event, see David Hasemyer, A
Weak Link to Harvard-Smithsonian Gave Star Power to Climate Contrarian Willie Soon, INSIDE CLIMATE
NEWS (Mar. 4, 2015), https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04032015/weak-link-harvard-smithsonian-
gave-star-power-climate-contrarian-willie-soon/ [https://perma.cc/MWY7-GYQP] (“‘The audience ate
up what Soon had to say,’ said Mulkey, who described the group as pro-industry. ‘It’s like, here’s this
Harvard scientist telling us all the other scientists are lying to us.’”). Paul Basken,...
04 – [Vol. 20:163
that, “[o]verall, the [twentieth] century does not contain the warmest anomaly
of the past millennium in most of the proxy records, which have been
:{:{sampled world-wide.”301}:
In 2003, given expert climate scientists’ confidence}:
in anthropogenic climate change, this was a radical conclusion.
The research paper, accordingly, immediately garnered vocal
publicity—negative and positive. Several scientists cited in it vocally
objected their data had been misrepresented.302 Others declared the paper’s
methodology was fundamentally flawed. Thirteen climate scientists
:{:{published a detailed public rebuttal.303}:
Yet in July 2003, on the positive side,}:
Senator James Inhofe waved a copy aloft on the Senate floor—declaring,
“The 1,000-year climate study that the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics has compiled is a powerful new work of science.”304 He had its
conclusions—casting doubt on anthropogenic climate change—entered into
:{:{the Congressional record.305}:
But this was not the last word. Climate}:
Research’s incoming Editor-in-Chief resigned in acknowledgment of the
research’s flaws and the flawed peer review process. Then three more
members of Climate Research’s ten-member editorial board resigned.306
Finally, the managing director of the journal’s parent company issued a mea
culpa for publishing the article.307 Hence, even for Soon, because producing
peer review climate (denial) science was nearly impossible, ongoing support
from the DOTTs became crucial...
2025] Uncharitable Think Tanks 221
The second controversy involved money—undisclosed financial
conflicts behind Dr. Soon’s research funding.308 Some background is
necessary to understand the financial conflicts story. CfA did not pay Dr.
Soon directly. As was true of a minority of CfA’s other scientists, his
continued employment depended on obtaining external grants.309 Unlike the
common pattern in which CfA scientists obtained grants from NASA and the
National Science Foundation, however, Soon’s funding almost exclusively
came from wealthy private patrons.310 Later discovered grant contracts show
donations made by ExxonMobil,311 the Southern Company,312 the Charles G.
Koch Charitable Foundation,313 the Texaco and Mobil Foundations, the
notes
308 It was later disclosed that CfA did not have a conflicts of interest policy at the time. David
Hasemeyer, Smithsonian Gives Nod to More ‘Dark Money’ Funding for Willie Soon, INSIDE CLIMATE
NEWS (Apr. 5, 2016), https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05042016/willie-soon-climate-change-
contrarian-harvard-smithsonian-donors-trust-dark-money/ [https://perma.cc/CR92-U7HY] (“The
Smithsonian Institution’s new transparency policy hasn’t kept prominent climate contrarian Wei-Hock
‘Willie’ Soon from reeling in $65,000 in ‘dark money’ to fund a secret research project.”).
309 Id. (illuminating funding channels); see also Kert Davies, Willie Soon Scandal: Topics for
Smithsonian Inspector General, CLIMATE INVESTIGATIONS CTR. (Feb. 25, 2015),
https://climateinvestigations.org/willie-soon-scandal-topics-for-smithsonian-institution/
[https://perma.cc/YE6V-R9N3]; Hasemyer, supra at note 308 (“Though employed by the prestigious
institution, Soon had to attract outside funding for his research and entire salary to keep his job.”).
310 Formally, CfA was the recipient, but the grants were earmarked for Soon’s researc...
222 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163
Electric Power Research Institute,314 Donors Trust,315 and the American
Petroleum Institute.316 At least one of the contracts expressly provided that
the donor was to remain confidential.317 Leaving aside two grants from the
Mount Wilson Observatory, after about 2002, virtually all Dr. Soon’s funding
came from fossil fuel-linked sources.318 This information about Soon’s
funding was uncovered only by extraordinary effort and luck. Kert Davies, a
respected climate investigative reporter, made a successful Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request319 based on CfA’s link to the Smithsonian
Institute, a government affiliated body. After Soon’s funding contracts at CfA
became public, the New York Times reported that the donors named above...
notes
314 Vidal, supra note 311 (“Documents provided to Greenpeace by the Smithsonian under the US
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the Charles G. Koch Foundation, a leading provider of
funds for climate sceptic groups, gave Soon two grants totaling $175,000 (then roughly £102,000) in
:{:{2005/6 and again in 2010.}:
In addition, the American Petroleum Institute (API), which represents the US}:
petroleum and natural gas industries, gave him multiple grants between 2001 and 2007 totaling $274,000,
oil company Exxon Mobil provided $335,000 between 2005 and 2010, and Soon received other grants
from coal and oil industry sources including the Mobil Foundation, the Texaco Foundation and the Electric
Power Research Institute.”).
315 Hasemeyer, supra note 308 (“Since 2011, the 50-year-old Soon has received nearly $389,000
from Donors Trust, and his only current grants are from Donors Trust. Presently, he is working on a project
as part of a $209,864 Donors Trust Grant he won in 2013. He also has applied for another Donors Trust
grant of $53,527, according to Harvard-Smithsonian records.”).
316 Goldenberg, supra note 242 (“Over the last 14 years Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-
Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, received a total of $1.25m from Exxon Mobil, Southern Company,
the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a foundation run by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, the
documents obtained by Greenpeace through freedom of information filings show.”)...
2025] Uncharitable Think Tanks 223
channeled over $1.2 million to him between 2001 and 2011.320 The sum was
later raised to $1.5 million. 321
It’s crucial to realize that DOTT-backed contrarian scientists were not
contesting fine points of mainstream climate research; rather, they
fundamentally dismissed it. Dr. Soon’s statements quoted below are
representative. He claimed his work demonstrated that CO2 emissions were
not the primary cause of climate change.322 (It did not.) He asserted that more
atmospheric CO2 would benefit living organisms.323 Without evidence, he
accused the IPCC scientist Michael Mann of falsifying his data.324 At a
Heartland panel, in September 2019, Dr. Soon said, “There is no such thing
as a climate catastrophe, these people are talking nonsense. It’s unbelievable
that we have to answer all this craziness.”325 In August 2018, at a presentation
entitled “The Global Warming, Climate Change Hoax,” he told an audience
of young people that CO2 is “merely a bit player” in climate change.
Elsewhere he asserted that “[n]o experimental data exists supporting the view
that the Earth’s climate is anomalous or changing in a dangerous manner.”326
Also in 2018, he co-signed a public letter addressed to the Board of the
Museum of Natural History stating, “It is quite likely that future generations
will benefit from the enrichment of Earth’s atmosphere with more carbon
dioxide.”327 Along with Lindzen, Soon signed a 2017 public letter urging...
notes
320 Gillis & Schwartz, supra note 313 (“He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from
the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his
scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least
eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his
work.”).
321 Kert Davies, Willie Soon Scandal: Corporate Funding Year by Year, CLIMATE
INVESTIGATIONS CTR. (Feb. 27, 2015), https://climateinvestigations.org/willie-soon-scandal-corporate-
funding-year-by-year/ [https://perma.cc/RK9B-FKEC].
322 Willie Soon, It’s the Sun, Stupid!, ICEAGENOW (Mar. 5, 2009), https://archive.is/Zwg6q.
[https://perma.cc/5RL...
224 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163
President Trump to withdraw from the Paris Accord.328 Soon was also a
founding member of Climate Exit, a group urging that the “world must
abandon this suicidal Global Warming crusade.”329
The DOTTs had a principal role in supporting Dr. Soon’s public career.
Soon held the position of senior scientist at the Marshall Institute.330
Heartland’s website lists Dr. Soon, still, as a policy advisor.331 Soon regularly
spoke at Heartland’s annual contrarian conferences, including in 2019, 2018,
:{:{2017, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2009, and 2008.332}:
In a co-authored op-ed in the}:
Wall Street Journal, Soon referred to himself as the chief science researcher
at the Center for Science and Public Policy.333 The latter think tank’s
webpage still lists Dr. Soon as its chief science advisor.334 In 2016, Dr. Soon
spoke at an energy conference sponsored by Heritage and TPPF, which they
billed as the “premier energy and climate policy event in America.”335 In
2020, Soon appeared in C-FACT’s documentary, Climate Hustle 2: Rise of
:{:{the Climate Monarchy.336}:
In 2018, in California climate litigation, Dr. Soon}:
served as the climate science expert in an amicus brief filed by Heartland to
give the court a “climate tutorial.”337 Dr. Soon contributed to the Institute for
notes
328 See Petition, Lindzen Attachment (Feb. 23, 2017), https://www.desmog.com/wp-
content/uploads/files/Climate%20denier%20Paris%20withdrawal%20petition.pdf
[https://perma.cc/3TEB-VH8V] (claiming it had 300 eminent scientist signatories, but upon inspection,
that assertion was largely bogus).
329 After Brexit, Clexit, CLEXIT.NET (Aug. 1, 2016),
https://web.archive.org/web/20160804173707/http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit.pdf
[https://perma.cc/33BZ-MWUM] (“If the Paris climate accord is ratified, or enforced locally by compliant
governments, it will strangle the leading economies of the world with pointless carbon taxes and costly
climate and energy policies, all with no sound basis in evidence or science.”); see also CLEXIT.NET, LIST
OF CLEXIT MEMBERS, http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit-members.pdf.
330 Willie Soon, INDEP. INST., https://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=4035
[https://perma.cc/T3AB-5M5P].
331 Willie Soon, HEARTLAND INST., https://heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/willie-soon/
[https://perma.cc/CS4M-KVZ...
2025] Uncharitable Think Tanks 225
Public Affair’s book, Climate Change: The Facts 2017.338 Despite its claim
to being authoritative, the book included only contrarians’ writings.339 In
2016, Dr. Soon participated in Freedom Force International’s 3rd Congress,
:{:{titled Global-Warming: An Inconvenient Lie.340}:
Also in 2016, he was the}:
opening presenter at a three-day conference sponsored by Doctors for
Disaster Preparedness, an affiliate of the Oregon Institute for Science and
:{:{Medicine.341}:
In 2015, Dr. Soon was a featured speaker at a Heartland, C-}:
FACT, and CEI “counter-conference” to the UN’s COP21.342 A video of the
proceedings was reposted to Heartland’s website under the heading “Stop the
Climate Treaty.”343 In 2014, Heartland critiqued the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment
climate report—Soon excoriated the findings as inaccurate.344 In 2013, a
subsidiary of C-FACT sponsored Dr. Soon’s participation in a college
campus speaking tour across the Midwest.345 Publicity for the tour
inaccurately referred to him as a “Harvard” astrophysicist.
In sum, the DOTTs leveraged the most effective way to attack the
accuracy of climate science. In order to undercut the public will for climate
protective law reforms, they used contrarian scientists to muddy public
understanding. After the late 2010s, when the science demonstrating
anthropogenic climate change had become virtually irrefutable, the
contrarians became less useful to the DOTTs. Instead of denial, many DOTTs
switched to climate legal obstruction.
notes
338 Willie Soon & Sallie Baliunas, A Brief Review of the Sun-Climate Connection, With New
Insight Concerning Water Vapor, in CLIMATE CHANGE: THE FACTS 2017 163 (Jennifer Marohasy, ed.,...
226 FIU Law Review [Vol. 20:163
- Think Tanks’ Websites
During the period of this research, climate denial and legal obstruction
material was posted on the website of every DOTT discussed herein. Indeed,
think tanks’ websites are currently the most effective medium for spreading
D&O. In addition to publishing original content, they provide a springboard
for recirculating D&O online, especially via social media. A sampling of
DOTT websites was presented supra. Among them were Pielke’s posts at
AEI; Marc Morano’s ClimateDepot posts at C-FACT; the Fueling Freedom
materials at TPPF; and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 (available
online).
Three additional examples are presented here to reinforce that the
process is ongoing.
• Heartland’s President James Taylor is featured in a July 2024
video, posted on its website, entitled What Climate Alarmists
Are Hiding from You.346 Its preface states, “To keep the public
panicked about climate change, alarmists in the media and
government need to hide from you the actual facts and data
about the earth’s climate.” While he condemns the veracity of
modern climate science, Taylor himself has no advanced
science training.347
• C-FACT’s website hosts a series called, “Climate Fact Check,”
presented in a dual-column format. An entry from June 2024,
presented a Washington Post article summarizing science
research on increasing extreme wildfires.348 In the opposite
column, C-FACT’s post claimed that the Post’s article is false
and presents a different science article—as if it demonstrated
the truth.349 But scrutinizing the two science articles, it becomes...
2025] Uncharitable Think Tanks 227
clear they address complementary but different subjects, and are
not conflicting. Hence, C-FACT’s post wrongly accused the
Post’s article of being inaccurate and was itself false.
• Based at Stanford University, the Hoover Institution is an elite,
multi-issue, conservative think tank that publishes substantial
D&O. Beginning in 2024, and through at least June 2025,
Hoover’s website featured an essay by NYU law professor,
Richard Epstein, entitled A Climate Change Emergency?.350
The essay’s subtitle states, “There simply is no evidence of an
impending climate emergency.” Epstein’s post opens with a
note of reasonable skepticism (“We should therefore proceed
with caution . . .”), but his conclusion (“there is no evidence of
a climate emergency”) is unabashed denial. While he is a giant
in the law and economics movement, Epstein has no advanced
science training.351
- Mass Market Books
Mass market books are excellent channels for spreading D&O.
Inexpensive and ubiquitous, such books typically undergo no fact-checking.
(This is true for websites, too, of course.352) Sociologists Riley Dunlap and
Peter Jacques have documented think tanks’ role in funding and/or publishing
the bulk of D&O books.353 Their first study, covering the 1990s to 2005,
found that of 141 climate denial popular books surveyed, 92% were
published by a DOTT or had an author or editor affiliated with one.354 The
second study, covering 2000 to 2010, showed a slight reduction in think tan...
school textbooks...
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