Heritage Foundation

Heritage Foundation

Background

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich to โ€œformulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.โ€1โ€œAbout Heritage,โ€ Heritage Foundation. Archived April 19, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/s9HcE

The Heritage Foundation has been a fervent opponent of the Kyoto Protocol and its online database of โ€œpolicy expertsโ€ includes many climate change skeptics such as Patrick Michaels, Sallie Baliunas, Thomas Gale Moore, Robert Balling, and Fred Singer.2ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Heritage Foundation. Archived June 7, 2019. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/hqSo0 3โ€œPolicy Experts,โ€ PolicyExperts.org. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/d0aiz

The Heritage Foundation has had considerable influence over Republican politicians. It is estimated that two-thirds of the policy recommendations it made in 1981 were adopted by the Reagan Administration. The Heritage Foundation has been described as โ€œthe most effective media operation in American politics.โ€4Carl Deal. The Greenpeace guide to anti-environmental organizations. Odonian Press, Emeryville, Calif. Distributed through Publishers Group West, 1993. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ucmdl 5Norman Solomon. โ€œThe Media’s Favorite Think Tank,โ€ Extra!โ€ July/August 1996. Archived October 14, 2005. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmogBlog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/SM1B0

Jim DeMint, former South Carolina Republican Senator, became Heritage Foundation president in 2013. According to The New York Times, this marked a shift in the foundation: โ€œLong known as an incubator for policy ideas and the embodiment of the party establishment, it has become more of a political organization feeding off the rising populism of the Tea Party movement.โ€6Jennifer Steinhauer and Jonathan Weisman, โ€œIn the DeMint Era at Heritage, a Shift From Policy to Politics,โ€ New York Times, February 23, 2014. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/dHred

Heritage is a former member of the Cooler Heads Coalition (as of 2004).7โ€œThe Cooler Heads Coalition,โ€ GlobalWarming.org. Archived April 12, 2004. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/lWnpt Thomas A. Roe, a member of the board of trustees of the Heritage Foundation, founded the State Policy Network in 1991 as a way to promote conservative policies at the state level.8โ€œAbout SPN,โ€ State Policy Network. Archived November 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/3EQAV

It was also behind the right-wing news website Townhall.com. In 2005, Townhall.com split from The Heritage Foundation โ€œin order to expand the scope of Townhall.com’s mission to inform, empower and mobilize citizens for political change.โ€ In 2006, it was acquired by Salem Communications.9โ€œTownhall.com – the Leading Conservative and Political Opinion Website,โ€ TownHall.com. Archived November 24, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/5Nl0E

The Heritage Foundation has been a member of the Atlas Network, a group that has been described as “The Johnny Appleseed of antiregulation groups,”10โ€œAtlas Economic Research Foundation,โ€ SourceWatch profile. for as long as the Atlas Network has shared its membership directories.11Global Directory: United States,” Atlas Network. Archived January 8, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/5Igb4

Heritage Foundation & Project 2025

โ€œProject 2025 is a plan to rapidly โ€˜reformโ€™ the U.S. government by shuttering bureaus and offices, overturning regulations, and replacing thousands of public sector employees with hand-picked political allies of Trump,โ€ DeSmog has reported.12Sam Bright. โ€œTrump Will โ€˜Killโ€™ Climate Budgets, Key Ally Tells Heritage Event,โ€ DeSmog, October 7, 2024.

โ€œIt also proposes a range of radical anti-climate policies, including slashing restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrapping investment in renewable energy, and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency.โ€

E&E News reported on the plan in 2023, writing it was “a plan for demolishing the federal governmentโ€™s efforts to counter climate change.”13Scott Waldman. “Conservatives have already written a climate plan for Trumpโ€™s second term,” E&E News, July 26, 2023. Archived June 3, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/kQk9T

“Called Project 2025, it would block the expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy; slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agencyโ€™s environmental justice office; shutter the Energy Departmentโ€™s renewable energy offices; prevent states from adopting Californiaโ€™s car pollution standards; and delegate more regulation of polluting industries to Republican state officials,” E&E News wrote.14Scott Waldman. “Conservatives have already written a climate plan for Trumpโ€™s second term,” E&E News, July 26, 2023. Archived June 3, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/kQk9T

“‘Project 2025 is not a white paper. We are not tinkering at the edges. We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,’ said Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, which compiled the plan as a road map for the first 180 days of the next GOP administration. ‘Never before has the whole conservative movement banded together to systematically prepare to take power day one and deconstruct the administrative state’,” E&E News reported.15Scott Waldman. “Conservatives have already written a climate plan for Trumpโ€™s second term,” E&E News, July 26, 2023. Archived June 3, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/kQk9T

According to The Heritage Foundation, โ€œ[o]rganized by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 has brought together 45 (and counting) right-of-center organizations that are ready to get into the business of restoring this country through the combination of the right policies and well-trained people. The Projectโ€™s foundation is built on four interconnected pillars.16Spencer Chretien. โ€œProject 2025,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived October 7, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/pQWhc

The Heritage Foundation lists Spencer Chretien as the Associated Director of the โ€œ2025 Presidential Transition Project at The Heritage Foundation.โ€ According to his profile, โ€œ[f]rom 2020-2021, Chretien was a Special Assistant to President Donald J. Trump and Associate Director of Presidential Personnel, helping to identify, recruit, and place hundreds of political appointees at all levels of government.โ€17โ€Spencer Chretien,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived August 28, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/iLJRp He previously served at the American Legislative Exchange Council, Citizens Against Government Waste, and FreedomWorks.18โ€œCitizens Against Government Waste,โ€ SourceWatch. Archived October 9, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/aTKhS

Chretien describes the project as having four โ€œinterconnected pillars,โ€ including the first as its policy book โ€œMandate for Leadership.โ€19โ€œProject 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” Retrieved from DocumentCloud. Contributed by Hansi Lo Wang (NPR). Donald Trump has reportedly repeatedly disavowed the document, which BBC described as a โ€œโ€˜wish listโ€™ for the next Republican president,โ€ saying, “I have nothing to do with Project 2025.โ€20Mike Wendling. โ€œProject 2025: The right-wing wish list for another Trump presidency,โ€ BBC, September 11, 2024. Archived October 9, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/9x11T

The second pillar is an โ€œonline personnel database,โ€ which The Heritage Foundation describes as a โ€œConservative LinkedInโ€ that would launch in March.21Spencer Chretien. โ€œProject 2025,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived October 7, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/pQWhc

The third is the โ€œPresidential Administration Academy,โ€ which they describe as โ€œinteractive, on-demand training sessionsโ€ for conservatives who make it into the administration.22Spencer Chretien. โ€œProject 2025,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived October 7, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/pQWhc

The fourth is the โ€œPlaybook, which will take the policy ideas expressed in Mandate for Leadership and transform them into an implementation plan for each agency to advocate to the incoming administration.โ€23Spencer Chretien. โ€œProject 2025,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived October 7, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/pQWhc

Project 2025 Advisory Board & Funding

According to the Project 2025 website, its advisory board is a โ€œbroad coalition of over 100 conservative organizations [that] has come together to form the project pillars.โ€24โ€œAbout,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived November 12, 2024.

DeSmog reported that six family fortunes were responsible for more than $120 million of donations going to Project 2025โ€™s Advisory Groups since 2020:25Joe Fassler. โ€œ6 Billionaire Fortunes Bankrolling Project 2025,โ€ DeSmog, August 14, 2024.

Another investigation published at DeSmog and The Guardian revealed that Shell USA Company Foundation, A U.S. foundation associated with the Shell oil company, donated to at least fourteen groups listed on Project 2025โ€™s advisory board, including the Heartland Institute and the Heritage Foundation.28Geoff Dembicki. โ€œRevealed: Shell Oil Nonprofit Donated to Anti-Climate Groups Behind Project 2025,โ€ DeSmog, August 15, 2024.

Centre for Climate Reporting Investigation of Russell Vought

The nonprofit Centre for Climate Reporting did an undercover investigation of Project 2025, including an interview with Russell Vought, one of the key authors of the plan.29โ€œUndercover in Project 2025,โ€ YouTube video uploaded by user โ€œCentre for Climate Reporting,โ€ August 15, 2024. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

CNN reported how the Centre โ€œspun an elaborate fiction, with a journalist and a paid actor posing as the brother and son-in-law of a reclusive New Mexico investorโ€ to get the footage.30Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash, and Kyung Lah. โ€œHidden-camera video shows Project 2025 co-author discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term,โ€ CNN, August 15, 2024. Archived November 12, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/hJgMc

While Trump publicly distanced himself from Project 2025 during the election, Vought said during the interview that Trump had previously praised Vought for doing a โ€œfantastic jobโ€ at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He also claimed that Trump has โ€œblessedโ€ his organization and โ€œheโ€™s very supportive of what we do.โ€31โ€œRemarks by President Trump at Signing of Executive Orders on Transparency in Federal Guidance and Enforcement,โ€ trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov. Archived October 7, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/F5Eeq

โ€œI see what heโ€™s doing is just very, very conscious distancing himself from a brand,โ€ Vought said. โ€œItโ€™s interesting, heโ€™s in fact not even opposing himself to a particular policy.โ€

He also said Trump had โ€œbeen at our organization, heโ€™s raised money for our organization, heโ€™s blessed it โ€ฆ heโ€™s very supportive of what we do.โ€

During the July 25, 2024 meeting, Vought discussed Trumpโ€™s public plan to carry out one of the largest deportations in US History, saying it could help โ€œsave the country.โ€

Once the deportation plan started, โ€œyouโ€™re really going to be winning a debate along the way about what that looks like,โ€ Vought said. โ€œAnd so thatโ€™s going to cause us to get us off of multiculturalism, just to be able to sustain and defend the deportation, right?โ€32Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash, and Kyung Lah. โ€œHidden-camera video shows Project 2025 co-author discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term,โ€ CNN, August 15, 2024. Archived November 12, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/hJgMc

Rachel Cauley, a spokesperson for Voughtโ€™s nonprofit, the Center for Renewing America,  commented on the video, claiming, โ€œIt would have been easier to just do a [G]oogle search to โ€˜uncoverโ€™ what is already on our website and said in countless national media interviews. But thank you for airing our perfect conversation emphasizing our policy work is totally separate from the Trump campaign, as we have been saying.โ€33Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash, and Kyung Lah. โ€œHidden-camera video shows Project 2025 co-author discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term,โ€ CNN, August 15, 2024. Archived November 12, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/hJgMc

About a week following the conversation, the director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, stepped down and was also leaving the Heritage Foundation.34Steve Contorno and Kristen Holmes. โ€œProject 2025 director steps down amid backlash from Trump,โ€ CNN, July 30, 2024. Archived October 7, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/UMae1

CNN summarized Voughtโ€™s role with Project 2025 and the Trump administration: 

โ€œVought served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump, where he made a name for himself as a policy wonk committed to the MAGA movement. In public, Trump repeatedly praised Vought for doing an โ€œincredibleโ€ and โ€œfantasticโ€ job at OMB.

โ€œAfter Trump left office, Vought started the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit that describes itself as the โ€˜tip of the America First spear.โ€™ CRA was one of many right-leaning groups that partnered on Project 2025, a more than 900-page blueprint for Trumpโ€™s second term that was led by the Heritage Foundation. Vought personally authored the projectโ€™s chapter on the executive office of the president, and his group contributed to several other chapters of the plan as well.

โ€œVought also served as the policy director of the Republican National Convention committee that rewrote the GOPโ€™s official platform this year โ€“ a sign of how central he is to Republicansโ€™ policy goals.โ€35Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash, and Kyung Lah. โ€œHidden-camera video shows Project 2025 co-author discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term,โ€ CNN, August 15, 2024. Archived November 12, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/hJgMc

Trump picked Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget again in 2025, The New York Times reported, noting his appointment would typically require Senate confirmation.36Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan. โ€œTrump Picks Key Figure in Project 2025 for Powerful Budget Role,โ€ The New York Times, November 22, 2024. Archived December 9, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/Dqv4E

โ€œVought, the first-term White House budget chief who began implementing Schedule F at the Office of Management and Budget, is set to return to the same role as Trump is pledging to reinstate Schedule F,โ€ The Washington Post reported.37Lisa Rein and Jeff Stein. โ€œFederal employees scramble to insulate themselves from Trumpโ€™s purge,โ€ The Washington Post, December 8, 2024. Archived December 9, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/TnHxu

The Guardian noted that Vought is one of several Trump picks who have direct ties to Project 2025:38Rachel Leingang. โ€œProject 2025: the Trump picks with ties to ultra-rightwing policy manifesto,โ€ The Guardian, December 9, 2024. Archived December 9, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YbOQt

  • James Braid โ€” chosen by Trump as the director of the Office of Legislative Affairs. Braid taught a course as part of Project 2025โ€™s leadership training program.
  • Brendan Carr โ€” Trumpโ€™s nominee to chair the Federal Communications Commission. Carr wrote Project 2025โ€™s chapter on the FCC.
  • Monica Crowley โ€” named for a state department role. Crowley was a contributor to Project 2025
  • Pete Hoekstra โ€” Trumpโ€™s pick for ambassador to Canada. Contributor to Project 2025โ€™s โ€œMandate for Leadershipโ€ document
  • Tom Homan โ€” Picked as Trumpโ€™s โ€œborder czar.โ€ Homan is a contributor to Project 2025 and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
  • Karoline Leavitt โ€” Incoming White House press secretary. Leavitt appeared in training videos for Project 2025.
  • Stephen Miller โ€” Pick for deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller is president of the America First Legal Foundation. America First Legal was listed as a supporter of Project 2025 and appeared as a member of its advisory board.
  • Peter Navarro โ€” named by Trump as a senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. He wrote a chapter for Project 2025 called The Case for Fair Trade.โ€
  • John Ratcliffe โ€” Trump offered the role of CIA director. Ratcliffe was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and is listed as a contributor to Project 2025.
  • JD Vance โ€” Trumpโ€™s vice president, JD Vance, has ties to the Heritage Foundation.

Tory Candidate Ties to Heritage Foundation

DeSmog reported several U.K. Tory candidates had ties to the Heritage Foundation, including:39Adam Barnett. โ€œProject 2025: Tory Candidates Have Ties to Group Drafting โ€˜Dangerousโ€™ Trump Agenda,โ€ DeSmog, August 14, 2024.

  • Robert Jenrick โ€” Gave February 2024 to the Heritage Foundation
  • Priti Patel โ€” Gave November 2021 speech to the Heritage Foundation
  • Oliver Dowden โ€” Gave February 2022 speech to the Heritage Foundation
  • Liz Truss โ€” Gave April 2023 speech to the Heritage Foundation
  • Lord David Frost โ€” Gave a June 2023 speech to the Legatum Institute think tank and introduced Kevin Roberts, who he described as โ€œone of the U.S.โ€™s foremost fighters for conservative ideas.โ€ He also described the Heritage Foundation as โ€œAmericaโ€™s premier conservative think tank.โ€
  • Nadhim Zahawi โ€” Met with Heritage Foundation in September 2022 while Conservative chancellor at a โ€œministerial roundtable,โ€ according to government records.
  • Nigel Farage โ€” gave a 2015 speech to the Heritage Foundation about the prospects of a U.K. referendum on European Union membership.

Project 2025 Training Videos

ProPublica and Documented obtained over 14 hours of training videos from Project 2025, part of its  Presidential Administration Academy.40Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey. โ€œWatch: 14 Hours of Never-Before-Published Videos From Project 2025โ€™s Presidential Administration Academy,โ€œ ProPublica, August 10, 2024. Archived October 8, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/6qV3S 41Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey. โ€œInside Project 2025โ€™s Secret Training Videos,โ€ ProPublica, August 10, 2024. Archived October 9, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/zovgp

In one of the videos, conservative activist and  former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Trump administration, Bethany Kozma, commented:42โ€โ€™Eradicate Climate Change References From Absolutely Everywhereโ€™,โ€ YouTube video uploaded by user โ€œProPublica,โ€ August 9, 2024. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

โ€œIf the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,โ€ Kozma said.

โ€œWhen I think of climate change, I immediately think of population control, donโ€™t you? I think about the people who donโ€™t want you to have children because of the โ€˜impact on the environmentโ€™,โ€ she added.

E&E News also reported on the leaked videos.43Robin Bravender. โ€œLeaked Project 2025 videos: โ€˜Eradicateโ€™ climate references,โ€ E&E News, August 12, 2024. Archived September 26, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/tKOG4

According to ProPublica and Documented, 29 of the 36 speakers have previously worked for Trump in some capacity.44Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey. โ€œInside Project 2025โ€™s Secret Training Videos,โ€ ProPublica, August 10, 2024. Archived October 9, 2024. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/zovgp

DeSmog Reporting on Project 2025

Other Resources on Project 2025

  • Project2024Admin.com โ€” Court Accountability Action (CAA) website with research and analysis on Project 2025
  • Project 2025 Index โ€” Search within the Project 22025 plan by term.  Developed by the Autonomy Institute 501(c)(3).

Donald Trump’s โ€œShadow Transition Teamโ€

Politico reported in 2016 that the Heritage Foundation was one of the most influential forces behind Donald Trump‘s transition team.45Katie Glueck. โ€œTrumpโ€™s shadow transition team,โ€ Politico, November 22, 2016. Archived November 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/AdrXn

โ€œPart gatekeeper, part brain trust and part boots on the ground, Heritage is both a major presence on the transition team itself and a crucial conduit between Trumpโ€™s orbit and the once-skeptical conservative leaders who ultimately helped get him elected,โ€ Politco’s Katie Glueck writes.

Three sources with conservative groups said that Heritage employees were tracking resumes, looking to staff Trump’s administration with conservative appointees. One source described the effort as a โ€œshadow transition teamโ€ and โ€œan effort to have the right kind of people in there.โ€46Katie Glueck. โ€œTrumpโ€™s shadow transition team,โ€ Politico, November 22, 2016. Archived November 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/AdrXn

The transition team is being assisted from Heritage officials including: 47Katie Glueck. โ€œTrumpโ€™s shadow transition team,โ€ Politico, November 22, 2016. Archived November 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/AdrXn

A source reported that Rebekah Mercer had also been working with Heritage to recruit appointees for positions at the undersecretary level and below.48Katie Glueck. โ€œTrumpโ€™s shadow transition team,โ€ Politico, November 22, 2016. Archived November 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/AdrXn

Stance on Climate Change

2016

โ€œ[C]limate change [โ€ฆ] is a contentious and unproven scientific theory.โ€ โ€” Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow and manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation.49Hans von Spakovsky. โ€œThe Left’s Climate Inquisitionโ€™s New Target,โ€ The Daily Signal, April 8, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/6ElPn

โ€œRegardless of oneโ€™s opinions on the degree to which climate change is occurring, regulations associated with the Paris accord will have no meaningful impact on the planetโ€™s temperature.โ€50Nicolas Loris. โ€œTop 5 Reasons Congress Should Reject Obamaโ€™s Climate Change Treaty,โ€ The Daily Signal, April 19, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/FYmpk

2010

โ€œWhat I conclude from a policy standpoint is that global warming is clearly not a crisis and should not be addressed as one โ€ฆ None of the scary stuff about global warming is true, and what is true about global warming, what the science actually tells us about man’s role in changing the climate, is far from terrifying.โ€ โ€” Ben Lieberman, Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment at The Heritage Foundation.51Ben Lieberman.โ€The Economics of Global Warming Policy,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, June 16, 2010. Archived April 20, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/TPGCH

2009

โ€œGlobal warming will not hurt the U.S. economy.โ€52Conn Carroll. โ€œStudy Shows Global Warming Will Not Hurt U.S. Economy,โ€ The Daily Signal, January 6, 2009. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/whGeJ

On Carbon Emissions

2016

โ€œI think the serious people, the economists that have looked at this, understand there is a cost to reducing carbon emissions, because CO2 is a necessary byproduct of their most affordable and reliable energy sources, which are the natural resources of coal, natural gas, and petroleum. To take that choice away from people forces them to more expensive sources of energyโ€ โ€” David Kreutzer, research fellow in energy economics and climate change at The Heritage Foundation.53Chris Woodward. โ€œThere’s a cost to reducing carbon emissions,โ€ OneNewsNow.com, April 18, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/hnG0F

Funding

The following is based on data compiled by the Conservative Transparency Project and updated with data from publicly available 990 forms. Note that not all funding information has been verified by DeSmog.54โ€œThe Heritage Foundation,โ€ Conservative Transparency. Data retrieved May 28, 2016.

View the attached spreadsheet for additional information on The Heritage Foundation’s funding by year (.xlsx).

Heritage Foundation Funding

Heritage Action for America Funding

ExxonMobil Funding

According to ExxonSecrets, Heritage Foundation has received $780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.55ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Heritage Foundation. Archived June 7, 2019. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/hqSo0

Koch Funding

According to Greenpeace, The Heritage Foundation received $6,130,201 from Koch foundations from 1997 to 2017.56โ€œThe Heritage Foundation: Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group,โ€ Greenpeace USA. Archived March 14, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/p3KBb

990 Forms

Key People

View key people by year below or view the attached spreadsheet if Heritage Foundation’s key People (.xlsx).

Policy Experts

The Heritage Foundation maintains a project of PolicyExperts.org, which maintains a list of US57US Experts,” Policy Experts. Archived July 21, 2023. and International “experts.”58“Intl Experts,” Policy Experts. Archived July 21, 2023.

ExxonSecrets noted that Heritage Foundation’s Policy experts have included notable climate change deniers such as:59FACTSHEET: HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HERITAGE,” ExxonSecrets. Archived July 15, 2016.

View a full, searchable list of Heritage Foundation’s policy experts below, as of 2023:

Actions

January 24, 2025

Alexander Frei, Kevin D. Dayaratna, and Austin Gae wrote a Heritage Foundation Special report titled โ€œCalculating the โ€˜Social Cost of Carbonโ€™ with the GIVE Model: An EPA Model Not Ready for Prime Time.โ€60Alexander Frei, Kevin D. Dayaratna, and Austin Gae. โ€œCalculating the โ€˜Social Cost of Carbonโ€™ with the GIVE Model: An EPA Model Not Ready for Prime Time,โ€ The Heritage Foundation special report No. 308 (January 24, 2025). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

The paper summary suggests that the models used by the Biden Administration to calculate the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC), specifically the Greenhouse Gas Impact Value Estimator (GIVE), are โ€œhighly susceptible to user manipulation.โ€

They alleged that โ€œConsequently, lawmakers canโ€”as the Biden Administration didโ€”manipulate the SCC by specifying assumptions that align with desired outcomes, thereby engaging in circular logic to produce and justify predetermined regulatory policies.โ€

โ€œAs a result, the authors strongly advise lawmakers against using these models in regulatory policy,โ€ they concluded in the summary.

In their concluding policy recommendations, the authors suggested that โ€œthe EPA should eliminate the use of SCC in any and all federal permitting and regulatory rule-making.โ€

They went further to suggest permanently banning any use of SCC in policy: โ€œLawmakers should pursue legislation to prohibit use of the SCC in policymaking in order to prevent future Administrations, of either party, from using the SCC.โ€

December 11, 2024

Willie Soon, Ronan Connolly, and Michael Connolly wrote a Heritage Foundation special report titled โ€œThe Unreliability of Current Global Temperature and Solar Activity Estimates and Its Implications for the Attribution of Global Warming.โ€61Willie Soon, Ronan Connolly, and Michael Connolly. โ€œThe Unreliability of Current Global Temperature and Solar Activity Estimates and Its Implications for the Attribution of Global Warming,โ€ The Heritage Foundation special report No. 305 (December 11, 2024). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œThe scientific debate is still ongoing, and the scientific community is not yet in a position to establish whether the observed temperature changes since the 1800s are mostly natural, mostly human-caused, or a mixture of both,โ€ they claimed in the report summary.

They concluded, โ€œWe think that the IPCC did not provide a strong enough argument for its choice of the available global temperature trends.โ€

โ€œWe therefore conclude that the IPCC was overconfident and premature in its detection and attribution statements. The scientific debate remains ongoing. In our opinion, the scientific community is not yet in a position to establish whether the observed temperature changes since the 1800s are โ€˜mostly natural,โ€™ โ€˜mostly human-caused,โ€™ or โ€˜a mixture of both.โ€™ The scientific debate about how much global warming is manmade and how much is natural has not been resolved. We hope that in its Seventh Assessment Report, the IPCC will not continue with its scientifically weak approach.โ€

December 5, 2024

The Heritage Foundation released a special report (No. 304) titled โ€œAir Quality and Public Health: Is There a Link?โ€ by S. Stanley Young and Warren B. Kindzierski.62S. Stanley Young and Warren B. Kindzierski. โ€œAir Quality and Public Health: Is There a Link?โ€ (PDF), The Heritage Foundation special report No. 304 (December 5, 2024). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. 

According to the reportโ€™s summary, โ€œThis Special Report shows that the research cited by the EPA does not show a causal relationship between PM2.5 and poor health outcomes. Hence, the link between PM2.5 and public health should not be taken seriously.โ€

Young and Kindzierski also claimed that โ€œany effect from man-released greenhouse gases, measurable climate change, and health effects from PM2.5 is entirely unproven.โ€

โ€œ[T]he PM2.5โˆ’adverse health link is far less certain than what the EPA would have us believe,โ€ they claimed.

They concluded that โ€œWith no detected causal effects and given persistent, hidden problems in PM2.5 health research, any purported material link between PM2.5 and public health is entirely unsupported and should not be taken seriously.โ€

December 4, 2024

The Heritage Foundation released a special report attempting to disprove the EPAโ€™s claim of a connection between climate change, ozone, and asthma.63S. Stanley Young and Warren Kindzierski. โ€œClimate Change, Ozone, and Asthma: Is There a Connection?โ€ (PDF)The Heritage Foundation special report No. 303 (December 4, 2024). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog

โ€œTaken together, the current information from chamber studies, observational studies, and animal toxicology studies does not offer credible support for an ozoneโ€“asthma hypothesis that is aggregated by modeled projections of climate change. The EPAโ€™s claims that an increase in the abundance of ozone in the future will lead to climate-related health effects, including asthma, are not supported,โ€ S. Stanley Young and Warren Kindzierski wrote in conclusion.

November 7, 2024

Susan Crockford wrote a Heritage Foundation special report titled โ€œDefying Predictions: How Increased CO2 and Innovation Are Mitigating Effects of Drought on U.S. Crops and Forest Productivity.โ€64Susan Crockford. โ€œDefying Predictions: How Increased CO2 and Innovation Are Mitigating Effects of Drought on U.S. Crops and Forest Productivity,โ€ The Heritage Foundation special report No. 299 (November 7, 2024). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œContrary to predictions that changes in climate are going to cause forest, cropland, and rangeland productivity to decline over time, recent data show that the known fertilizing effect of additional carbon dioxide (CO2)โ€”which is literally food for plantsโ€”has offset many of the predicted adverse effects by enhancing drought tolerance and plant growth,โ€ Crockford claimed in the reportโ€™s summary.

In her conclusion, Crockford claimed that โ€œWhile almost all recent forest fires are ultimately human-caused, arson fires are a category apart.โ€ She added, โ€œBlaming recent forest fires on climate change comes with a specific, unique risk.โ€

Crockford concluded, โ€œBecause a demonstrable link between recent fires and rising CO2 levels is tenuous at best, as the evidence presented in this Special Report shows, climate scientists and their supporters in the media should perhaps avoid labeling forest fires as a clear signal of human-caused climate change until the evidence supporting such a position is more convincing.โ€

October 16, 2024

Roy Spencer wrote an article that appeared in ArcaMax, republished at The Heritage Foundation, titled โ€œClimate Change: The Science Doesnโ€™t Support the Heated Rhetoric.โ€65Roy Spencer. โ€œClimate Change: The Science Doesnโ€™t Support the Heated Rhetoric,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, October 16, 2024. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/2tOrZ

โ€œOther than modest warming, there has been little change in any kind of severe weather that can be attributed to global greenhouse gas emissions,โ€ Spencer claimed in the piece.

According to Spencer, โ€œThe exaggerated projections of climate models have led many countries to adopt extremist โ€˜Net Zeroโ€™ goals, aiming for no CO2 emissions at all by 2050. This is essentially impossible since the world continues to run on fossil fuels as our dominant energy source.โ€

He alleged that โ€œwe have been misled by the vested interests who financially benefit from convincing the citizens we are in a climate crisis.โ€

โ€œClimate change is big business for a lot of players. That includes a marching army of climate scientists whose careers now depend on a steady stream of funding from governments,โ€ Spencer added.

In a section titled โ€œThe Good News,โ€ Spencer wrote: โ€œAs a climate scientist, I agree that our greenhouse gas emissions produce some warming. But is this necessarily a bad thing? Ten times as many people die from cold weather than from hot weather. Agricultural yields of corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice continue to break records nearly every year. Growing seasons at high latitudes have been lengthened. It has been estimated that the agricultural benefits of more CO2 (which is necessary for life on Earth) has totaled trillions of dollars.โ€

He concluded, โ€œStop believing everything you read about climate change. Youโ€™ve been misled. There is no climate crisis.โ€

October 1, 2024

Susan J. Crockford produced a โ€œspecial reportโ€ for the Heritage Foundation titled โ€œResilient Wilds: Unmasking the Surprising Adaptability of U.S. Ecosystems to Climate Change,โ€ where she claimed to โ€œprovide convincing evidence that warming-associated changes in ecosystems, regardless of cause, are more likely than not to have an overall positive or neutral impact on the survival of the most critical animal species that they support.โ€66Susan J. Crockford. โ€œResilient Wilds: Unmasking the Surprising Adaptability of U.S. Ecosystems to Climate Changeโ€(PDF), The Heritage Foundation special report no. 294 (October 1, 2024). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

Crockford also claimed in her conclusion that โ€œContrary to past projections, massive loss of sea ice either has not happened (the Antarctic) or has not caused harm to ice-dependent species (the Arctic).โ€

โ€œConsequently, there seems to be little rationale for lawmakers and the public to worry unduly about the effects of future human-caused global warming on the animal inhabitants of natural landscapes,โ€ Crockford wrote.

DeSmog has noted that Susan J. Crockford, who describes herself as a โ€œzoologist with more than 35 years experience, has regularly published reports for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which are often echoed by an extensive network of climate change denial blogs, conservative news sources like Breitbart, and climate change denial think tanks and organizations.

She has said that โ€œโ€˜polar bear expertโ€™ describes me just as well as โ€˜dog evolution expert;โ€™ however, she has not published in any peer-reviewed journals on polar bears.67โ€œOn being a polar bear expert, among other things,โ€ Polar Bear Science, March 12, 2015. Archived July 09, 2024. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/2Ctjt  

Crockford has claimed her GWPF reports are peer-reviewed. However, an undercover Greenpeace investigation cast doubt on the validity of the GWPFโ€™s internal review process, noting that only the groupโ€™s internal advisory council generally reviewed documents rather than the genuine, rigorous, and often anonymized, peer review of a traditional scientific journal.68โ€œUnstable thinking about polar-bear habitat,โ€ The Arctic Journal, October 7, 2015. Archived October 12, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/jtmeW

July 22, 2024

Roy Spencer wrote Heritage Foundation commentary that originally appeared in the National Review titled โ€œHot Summer? Donโ€™t Sweat It.โ€69Roy Spencer. โ€œHot Summer? Donโ€™t Sweat It,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, July 22, 2024. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/cz0kF

โ€œResearch has shown that there could easily have been warmer years during the Medieval Warm Period of 1,000 years ago. No one knows for sure. And some of the warming in the last 150 years could well be just a recovery from the โ€˜Little Ice Ageโ€™ that ended during the 19th century,โ€ Spencer wrote, linking to a report by Ross McKitrick

Discussing climate change models, Spencer claimed, โ€œThese models run hot, which would suggest that some caution is required when using them as a base for public policy.โ€

According to Spencer, โ€œAn important issue that is seldom discussed is the fact that warming over the past 150 years is simply assumed to be anthropogenic (human-caused). But increasing CO2 in the atmosphere from fossil-fuel burning has perturbed the energy budget of the climate system by only 1 percent compared with the average 235โ€“245 Watts per square meter in and out of the climate system.โ€

He concluded, โ€œAltogether, irresponsible reporting deliberately sensationalizing the weather is not a reason for consternation or concern. People should enjoy their summer and not worry about the sky falling down, because it wonโ€™t.โ€

June 20, 2024

Heritage Foundationโ€™s director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth wrote an article that originally appeared in The Daily Caller and the Heritage Foundation republished titled โ€œBidenโ€™s Hypocrisy on Climate Change Is Painfully Obvious.โ€70Diana Furchtgott-Roth. โ€œBidenโ€™s Hypocrisy on Climate Change Is Painfully Obvious,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, June 20, 2024. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/5uTOk

In the article, Furchtgott-Roth claimed that โ€œTemperatures have varied for centuries.โ€

Citing a Heritage Foundation report by Roy Spencer, she added, โ€œClimate models are not reliable and accurate enough to attribute global warming to human activities. The observed rate of global warming over the past 50 years has been weaker than that predicted by almost all computerized climate models.โ€

She went on to cite a Daily Signal article by meteorologist Joe Dโ€™Aleo and the Heritage Foundationโ€™s Kevin Dayaratna to claim that โ€œAlthough carbon dioxide emissions and temperatureโ€”both in America and globallyโ€”have increased over the latter parts of the 20th Century, no meaningful increase in frequency and intensity of hurricanes has been observed.โ€

She also went on to claim that โ€œAlthough some say that increased CO2 levels are detrimental to human health and welfare, deaths are more likely to result from medical events triggered by the cold than by the heat.โ€

She concluded, โ€œBidenโ€™s repetition that climate change is an existential threat gives him an excuse to impose more regulations and sign into law subsidies for favored donors.โ€

March 13, 2024

David R. Legates wrote a Heritage Foundation special report on sea level rise where he claimed, โ€œthe dynamics of sea level rise are considerably more complex than portrayed in the mainstream media, and thus, these concerns are vastly overstated.โ€

โ€œMeasurements indicate no significant recent acceleration that can be attributed to increases in carbon dioxide,โ€ Legates claimed.

Among those Legates cited or mentioned in the report were Nils-Axel MรถrnerRichard W. Rahn of the Cato InstitutePatrick J. Michaels of the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundationโ€™s Kevin D. Dayaratna and Nicolas D. Loris.

โ€œNils-Axel Mรถrner argues that the estimated rate for the 21st century is exaggerated, with a more appropriate value being about a third of that,โ€ Legates wrote in his conclusion.71David R. Legates. โ€œCoastal Inundation: Rising Sea Levels Explainedโ€ (PDF)The Heritage Foundation special report No. 278 (March 13, 2024). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

January 24, 2024

The Heritage Foundation published a backgrounder (No. 3809) by Roy W. Spencer titled โ€œGlobal Warming: Observations vs. Climate Models.โ€72Roy W. Spencer. โ€œGlobal Warming: Observations vs. Climate Modelsโ€ (PDF)The Heritage Foundation backgrounder No. 3809 (January 24, 2024. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œWhile the climate system has warmed somewhat over the past five decades, the popular perception of a ‘climate crisis’ and resulting calls for economically significant regulation of CO2  emissions is not supported by science,โ€ Spencer claimed in the backgrounder.

Spencer concluded, โ€œClimate models produce too much warming when compared to observations over the past fifty years or so, which is the period of most rapid warming and increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. […] This discrepancy is never mentioned when those same models are used as the basis for policy decisions.โ€

โ€œAlso not mentioned when discussing climate models is their reliance on the assumption that there are no natural sources of long-term climate change,โ€ he added.

November 2023

Axios reported that the Heritage Foundation was responsible for orchestrating a “government-in-waiting” via its Project 2025,73Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen. “Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab,” Axios, November 13, 2023. Archived November 23, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/tp8c8 which describes the goal of its 2025 Presidential Transition Project as to “collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook.74About Project 2025,” Project 2025. Archived November 23, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/erV6J

“Think of it as a transition team set in motion years in advance,” Axios reported. “Former President Trump’s allies are pre-screening the ideologies of thousands of potential foot soldiers, as part of an unprecedented operation to centralize and expand his power at every level of the U.S. government if he wins in 2024, officials involved in the effort tell Axios.”75Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen. “Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab,” Axios, November 13, 2023. Archived November 23, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/tp8c8

October 5, 2023

Roy Spencer and Kevin Dayaratna wrote Heritage Foundation commentary that first appeared in Newsweek titled โ€œSummer Weather Data Donโ€™t Amount to Climate Catastrophe.โ€76Roy Spencer and Kevin Dayaratna. โ€œSummer Weather Data Donโ€™t Amount to Climate Catastrophe,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, October 5, 2023. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/AO8yj

Spencer and Dayaratna wrote, โ€œSome argue that even if there is a remote chance that doom-and-gloom climate projections are true, we should move toward complete decarbonization to save the planet. But these policies will have significant economic consequences and negligible environmental effects.โ€

They claimed, โ€œEven taking alarmist assumptions about the planet’s sensitivity to CO2 emissions at face value, if the United States were to eliminate fossil fuel consumption immediately, the policies would result in less than 0.2 degrees Celsius of temperature mitigation by 2100. This is because other countries, including China, will continue to pump out CO2 into the atmosphere, as they have been doing for years.โ€

July 26, 2023

The Heritage Foundationโ€™s Diana Furchtgott-Roth wrote an article titled โ€œHot Weather Does Not Mean Climate Change,โ€ which first appeared in The Daily Signal.77Diana Furchtgott-Roth. โ€œHot Weather Does Not Mean Climate Change,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, July 26, 2023. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/IBMBO

In the article, Furchtgott-Roth promoted a book by Steven Koonin as evidence that โ€œthe science is not as settled as many politicians would have us believe.โ€

โ€œ[W]hat if we were not in a climate crisis after all, and trillions of dollars in planned tax credits and green energy expenditures are a misuse of taxpayer resources?โ€ She posited.

โ€œKoonin finds that daily record high temperatures have not increased over the past 100 years and daily record lows have become less common. This is directly at variance with media headlines,โ€ she wrote.

โ€œโ€™Consensusโ€™ on the โ€˜climate crisisโ€™ as presented by news outlets is not a scientific consensus at all. We need to follow scientific knowledge as it develops and carefully consider the costs and benefits of different alternatives.โ€

June 12, 2023

The Heritage Foundation hosted an event titled โ€œThe Big Government Car Theft,โ€ featuring Steven G. Bradbury, Donna Jackson, director of membership development for the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, and Michael McKenna of the vice presidentโ€™s office.78โ€œThe Big Government Car Theft,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, June 12, 2023. Archived May 16, 2025. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

The event description reads as follows:

โ€œAre you ready for the government to take away your car? New proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency would require new car sales to be 60% electric by 2030, compared to fewer than 6% in 2022, so you might not be able to buy your preferred car. These regulations would make cars more expensive, reduce safety, and cause America to give up energy independence to China. Experts join us to explain how you can fight back.โ€

During the event, host Diana Furchtgott-Roth listed several supposed reasons to oppose new EPA rules requiring a percentage of new vehicle sales to be electric. 

Diana Furchtgott-Roth: [00:03:28] โ€œOne is energy independence. Right now, China makes the batteries, and we don’t want to be dependent on China for a very important source of energy and for our economy. We saw that that didn’t work when Russia invaded Ukraine. It didn’t work in the 1970s with OPEC. We want to be energy independent, and we are energy independent right now with oil and natural gas. 

โ€œThe second reason that the United States as a whole might not want to go full-scale on these electric vehicles is the effects on the climate. So the rationale for this EPA rule is that it’s going to help the climate; it’s gonna lower global temperatures. But Kevin Dayaratna, the chief statistician of the Heritage Foundation, using models from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department, has shown that it would only make a difference of two-tenths of one degree Celsius if all the fossil fuel emissions in the United States were erased. So it’s not going to make any difference on the climate. 

โ€œAnd the final reason that people might not want to go full-scale on electric vehicles is the human rights aspect. There are children who are mining these minerals that are required for the electric batteries.โ€  [00:04:48]

Donna Jackson claimed it would take away private ownership of vehicles from Americans:

Donna Jackson: [00:09:19] โ€œYou know, this is the way that the government wants to take away private ownership from most Americans. However bad you think this is going to be on most Americans, it’s going to exponentially worse on African-Americans.โ€ [00:09:36]

She further described it as a โ€œwar on the poor.โ€ [00:13:44]

Mike McKenna cited survey numbers from the American Energy Alliance and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity:

Michael McKenna: [00:14:03]  โ€œI want to focus on two sets of numbers, since politics is about numbers. One is a soft set of numbers; one is a hard set of numbers. The first one is the soft set. The American Energy Alliance and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity conducted a survey recently about this and other things, and it showed that the idea of a federal electric vehicle mandate was widely unpopular; it was about 55 points underwater with the voters. That’s no shocker. We’ve done polls for years. That’s about the same number we’ve had for years; it seems to be a steady distaste of the federal government telling folks what to do.

โ€œWe’ve also asked another question year in and year out, and that is who should make decisions, the decisions about what cars you’re going to buy and what fuels you’re going to use, right? That too, about 80 percent of the people, and I know it’s going to shock everybody, 80 percent had this quaint, old-fashioned idea that they should make decisions about the cars they buy. And that’s the problem, right? If you’re the EPA, the EPA wants to very carefully and extensively limit your ability to make that choice.โ€  [00:15:16]

Michael McKenna: [00:17:08]  โ€œI can go on and on with the numbers, right, but what I’m telling you is the American people don’t want this, and what also I’m telling you is, it’s not workable. It’s not going to happen that way.โ€ [00:17:19]

Donna Jackson claimed the primary goal of the EPA standards was to โ€œlower your standard of living.โ€

Donna Jackson: [00:22:45] โ€œI think one of the things that Americans need to realize is the whole goal is to lower your standard of living. That’s the primary goal. They’re not concerned about if the vehicle is going to work, if it fits your lifestyle, if itโ€™s going to serve the community that you’re living in; it’s to lower your standard of living.โ€ [00:23:05]

Donna Jackson: [00:23:59] โ€œThey want people who are permanently dependent on the government. They need to make sure that you don’t have access to income, so you cannot own in this country. 

โ€œ30 by 30, 55-50, and taking away your transportation are all interrelated. If you don’t own any property, then you have to do what the government says to do. They want control.โ€ [00:24:26]

March 28, 2023

The Heritage Foundation released a special report (No. 270) titled โ€œWinning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering China,โ€ where they argued that the US should roll back ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) policies to increase security.79James J. Carafano, Michael Pillsbury, Jeff M. Smith, and Andrew J. Harding (editors). โ€œWinning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering Chinaโ€ (PDF), Heritage Foundation, Special Report No. 270 | March 28, 2023. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

Within a section titled โ€œReject Damaging Environmental, Social, and Governance Policies,โ€ the report suggested,โ€œProactive measures can be undertaken through educational briefings and partnerships with state Attorneys General, Treasurers, Governors, and state and federal legislators to inform them of the ways in which China manipulates ESG to its advantage.โ€

In another section, they suggest, โ€œAmerica is well endowed with natural resources and should reject plans to transition to โ€˜green energyโ€™ technologies dominated by China.โ€

The report suggested several stops corporate boards should take, including โ€œrejecting ESG and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) compliance measures that undermine U.S. competitiveness and advantage Chinese competitors.โ€

The report also claimed, โ€œ[T]here is growing evidence that Beijing is co-opting divisive environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to undermine U.S. competitiveness.โ€

Discussing renewable energy, the report added, โ€œThe United States is also an energy superpower with abundant natural resources, yet current climate policies prioritize a transition to electric vehicles, and electricity generated by wind and solar power, which is more costly and less efficient. These technologies also make the United States progressively more dependent on Chinese supply chains, with the PRC increasingly dominating โ€˜green energyโ€™ technologies, manufacturing, and exports. This is an imprudent approach.โ€

The report also details a list of recommended actions, for example, to address โ€œEnergy and Climate Challenges:

โ€œThe U.S. government must discount the climate agenda as the organizing principle governing foreign and domestic energy policy. America must reorient its energy policy away from pursuing a โ€˜net-zeroโ€™ economy and toward ensuring reliable, affordable, and abundant energy (ideally with ample domestic supplies) for the American people. Critical actions include eliminating arbitrary, self-imposed restrictions that impose competitive disadvantages for no environmental benefit; reducing domestic dependencies on China for energy and transportation technologies; eliminating the more than $250 billion of newly enacted green energyโ€“related tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA); enacting tax reform that would lift burdens from investments that would strengthen the ability of American companies to meet global energy needs; and increasing global energy supplies to mitigate adversarial countriesโ€™ leveraging of energy markets for political ends.โ€

December 5, 2022

โ€œThey [Republicans] should make sure that voters are aware that many who impose ESG considerations on investments are themselves in bed with genocidal, slaving, communist China,โ€ Heritage Foundationโ€™s executive vice president, Derrick Morgan, wrote in The Daily Caller. The Heritage Foundation republished the commentary on its website.80Derrick Morgan. โ€œClimate Money Is Pouring Into Washingtonโ€”Watch Out for the RINOs,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, December 5, 2022. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/JBnRr

November 29, 2022

โ€œRather than trying to persuade developing countries to abstain from conventional fuels, the West should be encouraging all countries to plan for avoiding weather damage and use the most efficient form of fuel available for energy production, including natural gas, coal, and nuclear. This will raise standards of living and disproportionately help the poor,โ€ Diana Furchtgott-Roth wrote in a commentary piece that originally appeared in Forbes titled โ€œDeveloping Countries Need Modern Energy, Not Climate Reparations.โ€81Diana Furchtgott-Roth. โ€œDeveloping Countries Need Modern Energy, Not Climate Reparations,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, November 29, 2022. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/hZ1dF

August 8, 2022

Derrick Morgan, executive vice president of The Heritage Foundationwrote a commentary piece that originally appeared in The Daily Caller titled โ€œBidenโ€™s Civil War on Energy Is Leaving Endless Collateral Damage in Its Wake.โ€82Derrick Morgan. โ€œBidenโ€™s Civil War on Energy Is Leaving Endless Collateral Damage in Its Wake,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, August 8, 2022. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/8zHr4

โ€œUnlike threats such as drugs or poverty, there is no widespread consensus on the โ€˜evilโ€™ of so-called fossil fuels,โ€ Morgan claimed in the piece. He added, โ€œBidenโ€™s espoused targets might be coal and oil corporations, but the collateral damage is you and me.โ€

Morgan went on to link to an article by Bjorn Lomborg:

โ€œBiden is fighting this civil war in the name of โ€œtrusting the scienceโ€โ€”which, after the last two years, should give everyone pause. But even if you do โ€œtrust the scienceโ€ of climate change, all this pain would be for very little, if any, gain. One expert [Bjorn Lomborg] looked at what would happen under temperature models if the United States followed through on its Paris commitments.

โ€œHe ran two scenarios and found a temperate reduction of between 0.008 and 0.03 degrees centigrade by 2100.โ€

June 16, 2022

โ€œThe Paris Agreement is an ill-suited mechanism to curb warming, even when accepting the dubious premise of catastrophic warming. With no enforcement mechanisms and no repercussions for failing to meet emissions reduction targets, countries can continue to emit GHGs well into the future,โ€ Kevin Dayaratna, Katie Tubb, and David Kreutzer wrote in a Heritage Foundation backgrounder titled โ€œThe Unsustainable Costs of President Bidenโ€™s Climate Agenda.โ€83Kevin Dayaratna, Katie Tubb, and David Kreutzer. โ€œThe Unsustainable Costs of President Bidenโ€™s Climate Agenda,โ€ The Heritage Foundation backgrounder No. 3713 (June 16, 2022). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

“As shown, U.S. adherence to the targets of the Paris Agreement provides no more than trivial benefits, if any, and does so at an extraordinarily high cost to average Americans. It is neither reasonable nor laudable to push policies that have real costs to American families and businesses and further erode the American system of limited, representative government for no environmental benefit,โ€ they claimed.

April 7, 2022

Drew Bond and James Jay Carafano wrote a commentary piece titled โ€œAn Action Plan for Americaโ€™s Energy Securityโ€ that originally appeared in The Washington Times.84Drew Bond and James Jay Carafano. โ€œAn Action Plan for Americaโ€™s Energy Security,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, April 7, 2022. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/CSLge 

โ€œThough Western European leaders knew that their โ€˜greening’ of domestic energy production had left them undesirably dependent on Russian oil and gas, President Vladimir Putinโ€™s invasion of Ukraine jolted them into realizing just how vulnerable they had become,โ€ Bond and Carafano wrote.

According to the authors, โ€œThe biggest problems right now are government regulations that impede domestic mining for rare earth minerals and the further development of every form of energy, from conventional fuels to nuclear power to renewables.โ€

They concluded, โ€œIf public policy leaders will once and for all come together around this issue and slash red tape, they will deliver a better present and a more prosperousโ€”and secureโ€”future for the American people.โ€

March 15, 2022

James Carafano, vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy and E. W. Richardson Fellow, was quoted as an “expert” by Fox News in an article claiming “Russia duped Europe into energy dependence by funding ‘rabid environmental groups’.85Emma Colton. “Russia duped Europe into energy dependence by funding ‘rabid environmental groups’: experts,” Fox News, March 15, 2022. Archived March 21, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/fIA6h

“The Russians actually fund some of the most rabid environmental groups in Europe because they sic them on the energy projects that arenโ€™t Russian,” Carafano told Fox News in a phone interview.

Fox News also quoted Michael Shellenberger from an earlier interview, where he had suggested “You’re not really an independent nation if you depend on foreign countries so heavily for your energy supplies.”

February 11, 2022

Heritage president Kevin Roberts wrote an op ed in the Sacramento Bee describing โ€œbig techโ€ companies as an โ€œenemy of the American peopleโ€ because of their alleged โ€œwoke ideologyโ€ and โ€œdiscrimination against conservative books and media.โ€ Robert alleged that this includes the โ€œroutine, partisan deplatforming of โ€œdisinformationโ€ that often boils down to differences of opinion.โ€86Kevin Roberts. “Itโ€™s Time To Win the War Against Big Tech,” The Heritage Foundation, February 11, 2022. Archived April 6, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/4CGAY

The op ed cited a Heritage Foundation report that criticized platforms like YouTube for censoring โ€œcontent that contradicts left-wing orthodoxy.โ€87Kara Frederick. “Combating Big Techโ€™s Totalitarianism: A Road Map” (PDF), The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3678 (February 8, 2022). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

December 21, 2021

โ€œRather than thinking about environmental issues as a global crusade or an existential crisis that trumps every concern and national interest, climate and related challenges can be dealt with most effectively by treating it like the foreign policy problem it is,โ€ James Jay Carafano and Jack Spencer wrote in a Heritage Foundation commentary piece that originally appeared in the National Interest.88James Jay Carafano and Jack Spencer. โ€œGreat Power Competition Is Putting Planet Earth at Risk,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, December 21, 2021. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: http://archive.today/14rmi

โ€œClimate change is happening. Human activity may well play a role. There are other arguably more pressing environmental issues as well,โ€ they argued without citation.

They claimed, โ€œWe are stuck in neutral because there is an undeniable effort to use climate change to drive a far broader agenda for radical political change,โ€ adding that โ€œLikewise, deliberately inflammatory rhetoric only adds to concerns of fear mongering [sic] and manipulation by climate activists.โ€

December 9, 2021

The Heritage Foundation hosted an event with Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), chairman and member, respectively, of the Congressional Western Caucus, to discuss โ€œMajor Legislation to Improve Implementation of the Endangered Species Act.โ€89โ€œMajor Legislation to Improve Implementation of the Endangered Species Act,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, December 9, 2021. Archived February 26, 2025. Archived .pdf and .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

Rep. Dan Newhouse said during the meeting, [02:50] โ€The ESA [Endangered Species Act] is a failure, and onerous regulations have hindered species recovery efforts. Not to mention, and I can speak of this firsthand, not to mention the economies and the livelihoods of so many people in rural america.โ€ [03:07]

According to Rep. Ken Buck, [06:11] โ€œThe problem is, that rather than using the Endangered Species Act as a shield, the woke left uses the Endangered Species Act as a sword. It attacks private property rights wherever it can. [06:23]

[…]

[06:36] And by using this statue as a sword, it has done great harm, not just to our economy, but as my friend Dan Newhouse said, to individual livelihoods, to the folks who are working the hardest on the land,โ€ [06:53] Buck added.

He gave the example of protections for the Lesser Prairie Chicken under the ESA as something that โ€œreally highlighted the problems that we have with the Endangered Species Act.โ€

โ€œThe idea that the Act can be used to shut down energy production because the left doesn’t like fossil fuels and uses any vehicle they can to harm folks,โ€ Buck went on.

โ€œIf you look at it, thousands of critters have been put on the endangered species list. Only a handful have ever been taken off, and some of that handful have taken off because they were already extinct. It’s really a mismanaged program. It deserves congressional scrutiny, and I hope we get there,โ€ he added.

November 3, 2021

โ€œThe administration seems bent on โ€˜transformingโ€™โ€”i.e., ruiningโ€”the energy sector and the national economy with it in service to a radical climate agenda,โ€ Jack Spencer and James Jay Carafano wrote in Heritage Foundation commentary originally published at The National Interest titled โ€œBidenโ€™s Climate Policy Is a Titanic Disaster in Waiting.โ€90Jack Spencer and James Jay Carafano. โ€œBidenโ€™s Climate Policy Is a Titanic Disaster in Waiting,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, November 3, 2021. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YfNFF 

โ€œDecades of data from The Index of Economic Freedom clearly show that economic freedom goes hand in hand with economic growth, which is essential to environmental stewardship. In fact, climate-related deaths have fallen 96 percent over the last century, thanks to rapid economic growth and increased access to affordable, reliable energy,โ€ Spencer and Carafano claimed.

โ€œRather than urging our friends and allies to pursue policies that make their energy sectors more brittle and costly, the United States should be championing freer trade to get them the energy they need,โ€ they added.

August 28, 2021

Katie Tubb wrote an article titled โ€œClimate Change Report Isnโ€™t a Blank Check for Green Policiesโ€ that originally appeared in the Detroit News and was republished by The Heritage Foundation.91Katie Tubb. โ€œClimate Change Report Isnโ€™t a Blank Check for Green Policies,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, August 28, 2021. Archived May 21, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YnS7M

According to Tubb, the IPCCโ€™s Sixth Assessment Report is โ€œnot the last word in climate science.โ€

She wrote: 

โ€œClimate is a wickedly complex system. It involves long-term patterns, the dynamic interactions between clouds and oceans, influences from human activity and natural forces like volcanoes and solar activity, and physics, to name just a few major factors.

โ€œNo one person has a mastery of all that knowledge, which makes the IPCC report a useful tool in understanding the issue. But our knowledge is always growing.โ€

Tubb added, โ€œMore studies continue to highlight persistent problems with climate models exaggerating warming.โ€œ

She concluded, โ€œTherefore, itโ€™s incumbent on citizens to ask good questions of their elected representatives when they advocate for policies like the Green New Deal, subsidies for electric vehicles or regulations on electricity generation. And politicians should not be given a free pass by claiming to act on a supposed mandate of โ€˜the science, as presented in reports like the IPCCโ€™s.โ€

She quoted Judith Curry in her conclusion:

โ€œAs aptly stated by one climate scientist: โ€˜We need to remind ourselves that addressing climate change isnโ€™t an end in itself, and that climate change is not the only problem that the world is facing. The objective should be to improve human well-being in the 21st century, while protecting the environment as much as we can.โ€™โ€ 

May 13, 2021

Mother Jones obtained a leaked video provided by watchdog group Documented, revealing Heritage Foundationโ€™s potential role in voter suppression laws in Georgia.92Ari Berman and Nick Surgey. “Leaked Video: Dark Money Group Brags About Writing GOP Voter Suppression Bills Across the Country,” Mother Jones, May 13, 2021. Archived May 25, 2021. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/M4lgZ

Source: Mother Jones YouTube account

Jessica Anderson, executive director at Heritage Action for America, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, stated in a private meeting that โ€œeight key provisions that Heritage recommendedโ€ had made their way into the final Georgia law, which was passed on March 25, 2020.93Ari Berman and Nick Surgey. “Leaked Video: Dark Money Group Brags About Writing GOP Voter Suppression Bills Across the Country,” Mother Jones, May 13, 2021. Archived May 25, 2021. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/M4lgZ

The law included limitations on mail ballot drop boxes, additional voter requirements for mail-in ballots, and prohibitions on counties accepting donations from non-profit organizations looking to expand Georgiaโ€™s voting base. The initiative formed part of a wider campaign, which involved spending $24 million over two years in eight battleground states, to restrict voting rights.94Ari Berman and Nick Surgey. “Leaked Video: Dark Money Group Brags About Writing GOP Voter Suppression Bills Across the Country,” Mother Jones, May 13, 2021. Archived May 25, 2021. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/M4lgZ

Mother Jones noted all of those recommendations were part of the Heritage Foundationโ€™s February 2021 report. 95โ€œThe Facts About Election Integrity and the Need for States to Fix Their Election Systems (PDF), The Heritage Foundation factsheet No. 196 (February 1, 2021). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

During the private meeting with political donors in Tucson, Arizona during April 2021, Anderson reportedly stated she had told the Governor of Georgia: โ€œDo not wait to sign that bill. If you wait even an hour, you will look weak. This bill needs to be signed immediately.โ€96โ€œThe Facts About Election Integrity and the Need for States to Fix Their Election Systems (PDF), The Heritage Foundation factsheet No. 196 (February 1, 2021). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

The Heritage Foundation also drafted three provisions in legislation which Iowa Republicans had adopted prior to Georgiaโ€™s law. Anderson stated: โ€œWe worked quietly with the Iowa state legislature. We got the best practices to them. We helped draft the bills. We made sure activists were calling the state legislators, getting support, showing up at their public hearings, giving testimony.โ€97โ€œThe Facts About Election Integrity and the Need for States to Fix Their Election Systems (PDF), The Heritage Foundation factsheet No. 196 (February 1, 2021). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

Mike Marshall, Executive Director of the Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board, opened an investigation into the claims made by Anderson regarding the Heritage Foundationโ€™s role in pushing the aforementioned legislation. An article in EIN Presswire written by Iowaโ€™s State Democrats stated: โ€œThe claims made recently by Heritage Action about their role in secretly pushing voter suppression legislation in Iowa and other states are disturbing.โ€98Iowa Executive Branch launches investigation into Heritage Foundation allegations,” EINPresswire (news provided by Iowa Senate Democrats), May 18, 2021. Archived May 25, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/TE9wb

March 9, 2021

The Heritage Foundation held a virtual event titled โ€œA First Look at Bidenโ€™s Energy and Climate Policiesโ€ featuring Travis Fisher of the Electricity Consumers Resource Council, Todd Johnston of ConservAmerica, and Shawn Regan of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC).99โ€œVIRTUAL EVENT: A First Look at Bidenโ€™s Energy and Climate Policies,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, March 9, 2021. Archived May 15, 2025. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/mRlRd

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

Todd Johnson commented on Electric vehicles in his presentation: 

Todd Johnston: [00:09:50] โ€œOur top-line assessment is that electric vehicles will play an increasing role in the decarbonization of the transportation sector. There’s no question about that. But there are some very serious questions relative to cost, performance, supporting infrastructure in their environmental footprint that remain to be to be worked out. 

โ€œAt the same time, other vehicle technologies are making great strides in reducing emissions. And I think that’s that’s one of the things that we unfortunately don’t hear a lot about. There’s a lot of good progress that’s been made in other more traditional types of technologies. And so, from a ConservAmerica standpoint, we believe that this is something that should be worked out in the marketplace, not through government interventions, through subsidies and mandates and the like.โ€ [00:10:35]

Shawn Regan claimed there would be no environmental benefit to an oil and gas leasing moratorium:

Shawn Regan: [00:13:22] โ€œI think in terms of the oil and gas leasing moratorium, you know, it really won’t have much in terms of environmental benefits simply because supply restrictions like this do little or nothing to reduce demand for fossil fuels, which is ultimately what will have to happen to make a meaningful impact at reducing pollution in greenhouse gasses.โ€ [00:13:44]

January 28, 2021

Nicolas Loris wrote an article originally published in USA Today, republished at The Heritage Foundation, titled โ€œOn Climate Change, Government-Centric Approach Will Hurt U.S.A. With Unintended Consequences.โ€100Nicolas Loris. โ€œOn Climate Change, Government-Centric Approach Will Hurt U.S.A. With Unintended Consequences,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, January 28, 2021. Archived May 21, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/zx1AX

โ€œReforms should focus on breaking down barriers to innovation, providing timelier permitting for new, cleaner energy projects and reducing trade barriers that stunt the adoption of more efficient technologies. We need economic freedom, not more restrictions,โ€ Loris concluded.

Loris wrote, โ€œClimate change is real, and man-made emissions are indeed having an impact. However, many of the subsidies and regulations being proposed are costly and ineffective, benefiting the well-connected rather than the planet.โ€

According to Loris, โ€œ[P]olicies that restrict or prohibit natural resource extraction in the United States will not stop or substantially change the global consumption of these resources.โ€

He added:

โ€œIn fact, even if the United States were to achieve a net-zero emissions target at the sacrifice of higher energy bills and a weaker economy, the climate benefit would be minimal, as America constitutes a relatively small percentage of global emissions.

The Paris Agreement does little to change this, as major emitting developing countries have free reign to emit well into the future without meaningfully changing their behavior.โ€

January 13, 2021

Darken Bakst wrote a commentary, originally published at The Daily Signal and republished at the Heritage Foundation, titled โ€œEnvironmental Extremism Is Creeping Into Every Domain of Public Policy.โ€101Darken Bakst. โ€œEnvironmental Extremism Is Creeping Into Every Domain of Public Policy,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, January 13, 2021. Archived May 21, 2025. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. 

Bakst claimed the following:

โ€œMany on the left continue to place their ideology of environmental extremism above all other considerations, including economic growth, individual freedom, and the welfare of low-income Americans.

This worldview ignores critical tradeoffs and places environmental interests above even basic principles that have long served as a foundation of this nation. Further, this extreme environmental movement has crept into almost every issue area imaginable.โ€

According to Bakst, โ€œTo environmental extremists, itโ€™s more important for the government to force radical changes to how we generate electricity and fuel our vehicles than it is to have reliable and affordable energy or to remove barriers to innovation.โ€

October 22, 2020

Discussing then-Democratic nominee Joe Bidenโ€™s policy vision on energy and environment, Nicolas D. Loris wrote in a Heritage Foundation backgrounder where he claimed, โ€œCombined, these policies would harm consumers multiple times over through higher energy pricesโ€”and lead to more cronyism and corporate welfare in energy markets.โ€102Nicolas D. Loris. โ€œAssessing Themes in the Biden Energy and Environment Platformโ€ (PDF)The Heritage Foundation backgrounder No. 3541 (October 22, 2020). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œGreen New Dealโ€“like policies would give the government far more control over the energy economyโ€”and strip away choices that should be left to consumers. These policies would be harmful for taxpayers, ratepayers, families, and businesses across the country,โ€ Loris claimed.

He added, โ€œIn terms of climate effects, any unilateral reduction in emissions would barely affect global surface temperatures or sea levels.โ€

Loris discussed โ€œenvironmental considerationsโ€ related to renewable energy:

โ€œIn addition to the lack of climate benefits, it is important to remember that alternative energy sources require mining and manufacturing, and can produce their own waste streams. There are environmental considerations to take into account when disposing of lithium-ion batteries and solar panels, or even wind turbine blades that are difficult and expensive to transport and crush at landfills.โ€

According to Loris, โ€œPolicies that prohibit conventional energy development in the U.S. could very well make the planet worse off. Limits on coal, oil, and natural gas production in the United States will not stop the global consumption of these natural resources.โ€

September 14, 2020

โ€œThe integrated assessment models are unreliable, and policymakers would be wise to prohibit their use,โ€ Nicolas Loris wrote in Heritage Foundation commentary excerpted from the Heritage Foundationโ€™s โ€œ2020 Mandate for Leadership.โ€103Nicolas Loris. โ€œCountering the Leftโ€™s Climate Power Grab With Facts,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, September 14, 2020. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/bYTJO

Withdrawing from the Paris [C]limate [A]ccord was a bold step toward climate leadership because international climate efforts have been wasteful and unproductive. Recognizing this, the administration should withdraw from the entire United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.โ€

July 29, 2020

The Heritage Foundation held a virtual event with EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler โ€œon Recent Successes.โ€104โ€œVIRTUAL EVENT: A Discussion with EPA Administrator Wheeler on Recent Successes,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, July 29, 2020. Archived February 25, 2025. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

Some notable quotes are below.

Andrew Wheeler: [00:05:59] โ€œWe are listening more, and people can see that this administration has a view on policy that is based on sound and transparent science and not based on virtue signaling for climate changes and foreign capitals.โ€[00:06:17]

Andrew Wheeler: [00:32:39] โ€œWe’re much better off leaving the Paris Agreement. Since 2005, our CO2 emissions have dropped 15 percent in this country, while at the same time, most other industrial nations’ CO2 emissions have increased. Almost all of Europe has increased their CO2 emissions. 

โ€œThe Paris Climate Accord was great for Paris, bad for Pittsburgh. We would have had to make additional reductions here, while our trading partners, such as China, were able to increase their emissions without checks until at least 2030before they would even have to start making any reductions. 

โ€œThe Paris Climate Accord was a horrible deal to the American consumer, American businesses, American families. We have proven that you can reduce CO2 emissions without being part of the international agreement on the Paris Climate Accord. We did, we are reducing pollutants. As I said earlier, we have taken three regulatory actions to reduce CO2 emissions in this country.โ€ [00:33:40]

May 1, 2020

Nicolas Loris wrote an article that originally appeared in the Arizona Daily Star, which the Heritage Foundation republished, titled โ€œCalls to Ban Natural Gas Appliances Are Misguided.โ€105Nicolas Loris. โ€œCalls to Ban Natural Gas Appliances Are Misguided,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, May 15, 2020. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/67Yka

Discussing proposals to restrict the use of natural gas in commercial and residential buildings, Loris claimed, โ€œin many instances, gas appliances are actually the greener option.โ€

โ€œ[N]ow fossil fuel opponents are going beyond climate to sell their pitch. More effort has gone into the effects of gas-fired stoves on indoor air quality,โ€ Loris wrote, noting recent studies suggesting fewer deaths as a result of indoor air pollution.

However, โ€œcooking on electric stovetops and natural gas ranges both produce fine particulates that affect indoor air quality,โ€ Loris countered, adding, โ€œthere are more practical alternatives than requiring homes to replace a perfectly functioning gas range.โ€

He concluded, โ€œLike many misguided environmental policies, banning natural gas appliances is less about achieving a healthier, cleaner environment and more an unfounded attack on a particular fuel source.โ€

April 13, 2020

Nicolas Loris wrote Heritage Foundation commentary first published in The Detroit News titled โ€œThe Best Fuel Economy Standard Is Zero.โ€106Nicolas Loris. โ€œThe Best Fuel Economy Standard Is Zero,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, April 13, 2020. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/I0bm8 

 โ€œPolicymakers will get it โ€˜just rightโ€™ when they scrap CAFE [corporate average fuel economy standards] entirely,โ€ Loris argued.

โ€œCAFE standards arenโ€™t an effective climate strategy either. The global temperature impact would be practically immeasurable,โ€œ he wrote.

February 21, 2020

Nicolas Loris wrote a Heritage Foundation commentary piece that originally appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star titled โ€œA Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing? No Fracking Way.โ€107Nicolas Loris. โ€œA Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing? No Fracking Way,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, February 21, 2020. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/BjAYg

โ€œ[F]racking poses no threat to groundwater supplies,โ€ Loris claimed in the piece.

โ€œA fracking ban would also have adverse effects on the environment,โ€ he added.

โ€œPolicies that needlessly restrict energy supplies in the U.S. won’t stop consumers from using oil or natural gas, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere. Instead, production will merely shift to places where the environmental standards aren’t as rigorous. Any decision to significantly curtail America’s energy output will be a gift to Russia, Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC.โ€

Loris concluded, โ€œcalls for a fracking ban instead hostilely target one industry and set regulations that are devoid of any meaningful environmental benefit, mischaracterize risk and misinform the public.โ€

November 26, 2019

Nicolas Loris and Douglas Blair wrote an article that originally appeared in The Daily Signal titled โ€œFrench Protesters Didnโ€™t Want Macronโ€™s Gas Tax. They Should Reject His Climate Agenda.โ€108Nicolas Loris and Douglas Blair. โ€œFrench Protesters Didnโ€™t Want Macronโ€™s Gas Tax. They Should Reject His Climate Agenda,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, November 26, 2019. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/fx5DS

โ€œThe Paris [C]limate [A]ccord is a failure on multiple levels. It fails to please anybody and does far more harm than good,โ€ Lois and Blair wrote. They added, โ€œThe agreement is toothless, with nonexistent enforcement mechanisms and weak incentives for any country to actually try to follow the deal.โ€

According to Loris and Blair: 

โ€œThe yellow vest movement had lofty ambitions. The protesters saw an unfair tax being levied against them in the name of climate alarmism and rightly said โ€˜enough.โ€™ They then faltered because they failed to see the true problem. 

“The Paris [C]limate [A]ccord will force these higher taxes and more, and for negligible effect on global temperatures. Much like the French governmentโ€™s fuel tax, the Paris [C]limate [A]ccord is a costly non-solution that will leave people worse off and with fewer resources to address environmental challenges.โ€

March 25, 2019

The Heritage Foundation co-hosted an event with the Pacific Legal Foundation titled โ€œHorror Stories of EPA and Corps Overreach under the Clean Water Act.โ€109โ€œHorror Stories of EPA and Corps Overreach under the Clean Water Act,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, March 25, 2019. Archived February 25, 2025. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

February 13, 2019

Heritage Foundation senior visiting fellow in economics Stephen Moore wrote a Heritage Foundation commentary piece that first appeared in The Washington Times titled โ€œGreen Is the New Red.โ€110Stephen Moore. โ€œGreen Is the New Red,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, February 13, 2019. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/Dr0ux

Moore concluded in the piece, โ€œConservatives have tended to laugh and sneer at the GND [Green New Deal] (me included), but these frontal assaults on free market capitalism are quickly becoming Democratic orthodoxy. Green is the new red, as the saying goes, and unless conservatives defeat and discredit these dingbat ideas, Donald Trump will be proven wrong. America will be on its way to becoming a socialist nation.โ€

November 27, 2018

Nicolas Loris wrote an article that was originally published in The Daily Signal, republished by the Heritage Foundation, titled โ€œ4 Problems With the New Climate Change Report.โ€111Nicolas Loris. โ€œ4 Problems With the New Climate Change Report,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, November 27, 2018. Archived May 21, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/wslc2

In the article, Loris cited Judith Curry as evidence that the National Climate Assessmentโ€™s projections are based on what โ€œis not a likely scenario.โ€

โ€œWhen taking a more realistic view of the future of conventional fuel use and increased greenhouse gas emissions, the doomsday scenarios vanish. Climatologist Judith Curry recently wrote, โ€˜Many โ€˜catastrophicโ€™ impacts of climate change donโ€™t really kick at the lower CO2 concentrations, and [Representative Concentration Pathway] then becomes useful as a โ€˜scareโ€™ tactic,โ€™โ€ Loris wrote.

He added, quoting Tweets by Roger Pielke Jr. as evidence, โ€œthere were no increases in drought, no increases in frequency or magnitude of floods, no trends in frequency or intensity of hurricanes, and โ€˜low confidence for a detectable human climate change contribution in the Western United States based on existing studies.โ€™โ€

Loris concluded, โ€œThe reality, however, is that policies endorsed to combat climate change would carry significant costs and would do nothing to mitigate warming, even if there were a looming catastrophe like the National Climate Association says.โ€

October 19, 2018

Nicolas Loris wrote an article at The Chicago Tribune, republished at The Heritage Foundation, titled โ€œCan We Blame Hurricanes on Climate Change? Not So Fast.โ€112Nicolas Loris. โ€œCan We Blame Hurricanes on Climate Change? Not So Fast,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, October 19, 2018. Archived May 21, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/N4kTe

In the article, Loris quoted Judith Curry:

โ€œClimatologist Judith Curry, meanwhile, parsed through just about every climate expert’s assessment, both pre- and post-Florence, and concluded that โ€˜convincingly attributing any of this to human[-]caused global warming is very challenging,โ€™โ€ Loris wrote.

He also quoted Roger Pielke Jr.: โ€œThe University of Colorado’s Roger Pielke Jr., who specializes in analyzing extreme weather trends, emphasizes that โ€˜the IPCC once again reports that there is little basis for claiming that drought, floods, hurricanes (and) tornadoes have increased, much less increased due to (greenhouse gases).โ€™”

He cited Ryan Maue, suggesting โ€œhe suggests, โ€˜more detailed climate analysis is needed to better understand what has happened over the past 12 years across the Gulf of Mexico.โ€™โ€

Loris concluded, โ€œBefore we run around screaming that the climate is crumbling, let’s step back and get a full picture of the climate science. And let’s not offer unserious and counterproductive policies that would treat the global energy economy the way a hurricane handles a beachfront hotel.โ€

September 25, 2018

Heritage Foundation Senior Statistician Kevin Dayaratna testified before the Oregon Joint Interim Committee on Carbon Reduction on the economic and climate impacts of proposed carbon regulations being considered by the Oregon State Legislature.113Aubrey Wieber. โ€œStatistician tells lawmakers extreme weather rise is myth,โ€ Portland Tribune, October 1, 2018. Archived October 24, 2018. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/e6w6c

Video of the meeting is available at the Oregon State Legislatureโ€™s website.

Dayaratna asserted a proposed cap and trade policy would result in the elimination of thousands of jobs and have little to no effect on the climate.

He responded to questioning about the apparent links between climate change and extreme weather events as โ€œmyths propagated by the mainstream media.โ€114Aubrey Wieber. โ€œStatistician tells lawmakers extreme weather rise is myth,โ€ Portland Tribune, October 1, 2018. Archived October 24, 2018. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/e6w6c

September 19, 2018

UK Treasury minister Liz Truss met with representatives from the Heritage Foundation during a visit to Washington, DC, Greenpeace’s investigative unit, Unearthed, found. The taxpayer-funded trip also included meetings with the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, and the American Legislative Exchange Council.115Lawrence Carter. โ€œLiz Truss met with โ€˜dark moneyโ€™ think tanks during taxpayer funded trip to Washington DC,โ€ Unearthed, December 19, 2018. Archived December 22, 2018. Archive.fo URL: http://archive.fo/onRDJ

April 25, 2018

The Heritage Foundation hosted an event titled โ€œSaving โ€˜Endangeredโ€™ Species or Regulating with Bad Data,โ€ featuring Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Jonathan Wood and wildlife biologist Roy Ramey, as well as Heritage Foundation visiting senior fellow Robert Gordon.116โ€œSaving โ€˜Endangeredโ€™ Species or Regulating with Bad Data,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, April 25, 2018. Archived October 19, 2018. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/TyvaV

According to the event description, โ€œThe Endangered Species Act (ESA) will reach the half[-]century milestone in several years and yet, many of the relatively few species that have supposedly โ€˜recoveredโ€™ because of the law were, in reality, never endangered.โ€

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

Jonathan Wood had this to say about the Endangered Species ACT (ESA):

Jonathan Wood: [00:48:39] โ€œWhat really drives the Endangered Species Act is people like me. It’s all litigation[-]driven. These are not policy decisions made by people who, you know, bureaucrats who have the public interest in mind and they’re trying to do the best thing they can, based on the science. It’s special interest groups filing lawsuits. 

โ€œIf a species gets on the list, it’s because someone wanted to accomplish a goal, realized that if I file a petition and then sue and then sue and then sue, eventually I’ll get what I want. And the reality is that the listing process is fundamentally broken. It is completely litigation[-]driven.โ€  [00:49:14]

Jonathan Wood: [00:50:02]  โ€œThat there’s no real democratic accountability when all it takes is anyone who is willing to pay the cost of a filing fee to generate a lawsuit gets to dictate national policy. Now the reason why that happens is relatively clear. As soon as a species is listed, that automatically triggers really significant and burdensome regulatory restrictions. 

โ€œThat creates a very strong incentive to push for species to be listed for reasons other than protecting species from extinction. If you don’t like timber harvesting, you have a very strongly incentive to find something in that forest, knowing that if you can make a plausible case that it’s threatened, you’re going to get to shut down the thing you don’t like. And there’s pretty powerful evidence that that’s happened repeatedly. 

โ€œOn the other side of the coin, there’s a similar incentive for industry to do the opposite and try to twist the science or push the science in a way that suggests that species aren’t at risk.โ€  [00:51:02]

Jonathan Wood: [00:54:19] โ€œThe Endangered Species Act is, in many ways, like Hotel California. You can check-in, but you can never leave, and it should disturb all of us, regardless of our views on how high a priority protecting species should be, that so few of them seem to recover, that we’re falling.โ€ [00:54:40]

January 23, 2018

The Heritage Foundation claimed that the Trump Administration had implemented nearly two-thirds of a list of 334 policy recommendations titled the โ€œMandate for Leadershipโ€ series. View the full list here.117โ€œTrump Administration Embraces Heritage Foundation Policy Recommendations,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, January 23, 2018. Archived February 5, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/B92aO 118โ€œMandate for Leadership Policy Recommendations,โ€ ScribD document uploaded by user โ€œThe Heritage Foundation.โ€ Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œOver the past several months, Heritageโ€™s executive branch relations staff reviewed the 334 policy recommendations and met with senior administration officials in the several agencies. Heritage analysts briefed administration officials on the recommendations, provided additional insight and information, and advocated for reform,โ€ the Foundation notes.119โ€œTrump Administration Embraces Heritage Foundation Policy Recommendations,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, January 23, 2018. Archived February 5, 2018. Archive URL: https://archive.is/B92aO

โ€œExamples of some of the most notable policy recommendations and their adoption or implementation by the Trump administration include:

Leaving the Paris Climate Accord: In August 2017, Trump announced the U.S. was ending its funding and membership in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Repealing Net Neutrality: In December 2017, Trumpโ€™s Federal Communications Commission chairman proposed ending the 2015 network neutrality rules.

Reshaping National Monuments: Heritageโ€™s recommendation to prohibit Land Acquisition (Cap and Reduce the Size of the Federal Estate) was adopted by Trump when he issued two executive orders effectively shrinking the size of national monuments in Utah.

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy: This executive order prevents taxpayer money from funding international groups involved in abortion and ending funding to the United Nations Population fund. On Jan. 23, 2017, in his first pro-life action, Trump signed an executive order today reinstating the Mexico City Policy.

Increasing Military Spending: Trumpโ€™s budget calls for a $54 billion increase in military spending to improve capacity, capability, and readiness of Americaโ€™s armed forces.

Reforming Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF): The Trump administration adopted and is in favor of strengthening existing work requirements in order to receive benefits.

Allowing Development of Natural Resources: The Trump administration opened off-shore drilling and on federal lands. Executive Order 13783 directed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to commence federal land coal leasing activities.

Reforming Government Agencies: Trump tasked each of his Cabinet secretaries to prepare detailed plans on how they propose to reduce the scope and size of their respective departments while streamlining services and ensuring each department runs more efficiently and handles tax dollars appropriately.

Withdrawing from UNESCO: In October 2017, Trump announced he was putting an end to U.S. membership in the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).โ€120โ€œTrump Administration Embraces Heritage Foundation Policy Recommendations,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, January 23, 2018. Archived February 5, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/B92aO

November 28, 2017

The Heritage Foundation hosted an event with Rupert Darwall titled โ€œGreen Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex.โ€121โ€œGreen Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, November 27, 2017. Archived February 11, 2018. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

Rupert Darwall: [00:06:21] โ€œWithdrawal [from the Paris Agreement] frees America to be the world’s hydrocarbon superpower. It enables EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to roll back the Clean Power Plan. All this is happening because of what happened on November the 8th, 2016. 

โ€œAnd it wouldn’t have happened but for the tremendous work undertaken by conservative and libertarian think tanks in this city and across the country, notably in Chicago and in Austin, Texas. 

โ€œThey took on the climate industrial complex. They prepared the intellectual ground and showed why it needed to be done and what needed to be done. America owes a huge debt of gratitude to the scholars and thinkers at Heritage who’ve been at the forefront of this great effort, as do I. [00:07:06]

Rupert Darwall: [00:25:17] โ€œThe science is settled, we’re told. The government must act. But global warming demands more. It demands that citizens agree and requires of those who don’t to hold their tongue and that dissent be silenced.

โ€œThus, global warming harbors a strong impulse toward the governing modes of the absolutist and the political culture of the totalitarian. At stake, then, is what makes America unique. Ultimately, global warming is a battle for America’s soul. And that’s why we’re here today, to fight it.โ€ [00:25:50]

October 17, 2017

In a Heritage Foundation commentary that originally appeared in The Inquirer titled โ€œU.S. Is Better Off Without the Clean Power Plan,โ€ Nicolas Loris quoted Paul Knappenberger to claim that the Clean Power Plan would be โ€œpointlessโ€:122Nicolas Loris. โ€œU.S. Is Better Off Without the Clean Power Plan,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, October 17, 2017. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/yADDA

โ€œEnvironmentally, the climate impact of the plan would have been pointless. According to climatologist Paul Knappenberger: โ€˜Even if we implement the Clean Power Plan to perfection, the amount of climate change averted over the course of this century amounts to about 0.02 centigrade. This is so small as to be scientifically undetectable and environmentally insignificant,โ€™โ€ Loris wrote.

October 10, 2017

The Heritage Foundation co-hosted an event with the Pacific Legal Foundation titled โ€œThe WOTUS Debate Continues: From a New Rule to Amending the Clean Water Act.โ€123โ€œThe WOTUS Debate Continues: From a New Rule to Amending the Clean Water Act,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, October 10, 2017. Archived May 15, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/Goa9X

Panelists included Darken Bakst of the Heritage Foundation, Reed Hopper of the Pacific Legal Foundation, and Amanda Aspatore, Vice President for Water Law and Policy at the National Mining Association (NMA).

Amanda Aspatore was not listed on the event description on the Heritage Foundation website. According to an archive of the NMA website, the NMAโ€˜s objective is to โ€œengage in and influence the public process on the most significant and timely issues that impact miningโ€™s ability to safely and sustainably locate, permit, mine, transport and utilize the nationโ€™s vast resources.โ€124โ€œMission & Objectives,โ€ National Mining Association. Archived September 25, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/rUlu3

In his introduction, Todd Gaziano, event moderator and the Pacific Legal Foundationโ€™s executive director for their DC Center, commented on the Heritage Foundationโ€™s role in the Clean Water Act:

Todd Gaziano: [00:01:14] โ€œHeritage has been at the forefront of the debate over the proper scope and role of the federal government enforcing the Clean Water Act prohibitions. 

โ€œAnd it also supports groups like us at the Pacific Legal Foundation who litigate to prevent the worst abuses under that act and others.โ€ [00:01:37]125โ€œThe WOTUS Debate Continues: From a New Rule to Amending the Clean Water Act,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, October 10, 2017. Archived May 15, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/Goa9X

Gaziano introduced Amanda Aspatore, commenting that โ€œShe represents the mining industry on environmental, administrative, legal, regulatory, and policy issues with the focus of those arising under the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.โ€

search of lobbying disclosures shows Aspatore was registered as a lobbyist for the National Mining Association in 2014 and 2015 on a number of issues, including several bills related to water resources development, such as H.R. 1948, Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2013, and S. 861, โ€œA bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to provide guidance and clarification regarding issuing new and renewal permits, and Waters of the United States.โ€126A search of LD-1 and LD-2 Reports for Registrations & Quarterly Activity for lobbyist name โ€œAmanda Aspatore,โ€ United States Senate Lobbying Disclosure. Search performed May 15, 2025. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

During her presentation, Aspatore criticized existing Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rules:

Amanda Aspatore: [00:15:53] โ€œAnother one is a lack of clarity over a statute that imposes strict liability on people that violate it, and with that liability comes significant civil sanctions as well as potential criminal sanctions. They can throw you in jail. 

โ€œThat’s a huge, huge problem for businesses, for landowners everywhere. First of all, it causes a lot of delays because you can hold up a project, and the jobs that that project would create.โ€ [00:16:25]127โ€œThe WOTUS Debate Continues: From a New Rule to Amending the Clean Water Act,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, October 10, 2017. Archived May 15, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/Goa9X

She also argued that having federal jurisdiction over WOTUS rules could โ€œactually harm the environment.โ€

Amanda Aspatore: [00:17:36] โ€œAnd then the one other thing I would note is having that kind of view of federal jurisdiction can actually harm the environment. And I say that because mining companies do a ton of reclamation work as part of modern mining. And sometimes, they will go to older mines that existed prior to environmental regulation.โ€ [00:17:56]

Reed Hopper described WOTUS rules as the largest expansion of federal authority in history:

Reed Hopper: [00:20:10] โ€œI don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the WOTUS rule issued in 2015 is arguably an expansion of federal authority of the largest nature in the history of the nation.โ€ [00:20:28]

In his presentation, Daren Bakst commended the Trump administrationโ€™s actions on WOTUS:

Daren Bakst: [00:42:02] โ€œThe Trump administration should be commended for their actions to get rid of the WOTUS rule. But even if the Trump administration comes up with the best rule in the history of rules, a future administration that’s set on expanding federal power can always get rid of that perfect new rule. Therefore, we need Congress, ultimately, to define what navigable waters actually means.โ€ [00:42:34]

June 25, 2017

Katie Tubb and Nicolas Loris wrote a piece that originally appeared in The Daily Signal, republished at The Heritage Foundation, titled โ€œClimate Budget Cuts Are Smart Management, Not an Attack on Science,โ€ where they argued President Donald Trumpโ€™s budget proposalโ€™s cuts to climate programs have โ€œlegitimate justifications for doing so.โ€128Katie Tubb and Nicolas Loris. โ€œClimate Budget Cuts Are Smart Management, Not an Attack on Science,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, June 25, 2017. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/BMA3a

โ€œEven if the federal budget wonโ€™t be balanced on the back of eliminated climate programs, there are a number of basic problems with government climate spending,โ€ Tubb and Loris argued. 

May 17, 2017

The Heritage Foundation co-hosted an event with the Cornwall Alliance to discuss the Cornwall Allianceโ€™s new documentary, โ€œConvicted: How Climate Alarmism Harms the Worldโ€™s Poorโ€ (working title). It was co-hosted by E. Calvin Beisner and Becky Norton Dunlop.129โ€œConvicted: How Climate Alarmism Harms the Worldโ€™s Poor,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, May 17, 2017. Archived May 13, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/Fr8lN 130โ€œConvicted Trailer,โ€ Vimeo video uploaded by user โ€œCDR Communications,โ€ May 5, 2017. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

According to the event description, โ€œAs the sequel to Where the Grass is Greener: Biblical Stewardship vs. Climate AlarmismConvicted delves into the deadly impacts of climate alarmism on people in developing countries, and what Biblical Stewardship requires of us: โ€˜To seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.โ€™โ€

The film featured Tom HarrisTim BallS. Fred SingerH. Leighton StewardPatrick J. Michaels, and David Legates, among others. The trailer is available on Vimeo from CDR Communications.

May 8, 2017

Heritage Action for America and The Heritage Foundation, represented Michael Needham and Michael Costigan respectively, were listed on an open letter to President Donald J. Trump urging him โ€œto withdraw fully from the Paris Climate Treaty and to stop all taxpayer funding of UN global warming programs.โ€131โ€œDear Mr. Presidentโ€ (PDF), retrieved from Competitive Enterprise Institute. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

DeSmog reported that the 40 groups represented in the letter, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), The Heartland Institute, and the Heritage Foundation, have received a combined total of millions of dollars from the Koch Brothers, ExxonMobil, and other industry groups.132Graham Readfearn. โ€œConservative Groups Pushing Trump To Exit Paris Climate Deal Have Taken Millions From Koch Brothers, Exxon,โ€ DeSmog, May 10, 2017.

Analysis also showed that the groups accepted about $80 million through Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust, two groups that have been confirmed is a key financial source for key U.S-based climate change denial groups.133Susanne Goldberg. โ€œConservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change,โ€ The Guardian, December 20, 2013. Archived May 12, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/TB2yy

Apri, 28, 2017

Several news sources reported that Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint was being forced out as leader of the group due to internal tensions inside the group. His ouster had been described by a โ€œcoupโ€ against him, The New York Times reported.134Jeremy W. Peters and Maggie Haberman. โ€œJim DeMint Is Said to Be Out at Heritage Foundation,โ€ The New York Times, April 28, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/vCkXU

Politico reported that the move was imminent and that additional changes would likely be coming soon, according to a GOP Operative that works with DeMint. There’s massive turmoil over there right now,โ€ the operative said. President Donald Trump had praised DeMint around the time the news broke, mentioning him by name, calling him โ€œamazingโ€ and โ€œa real friend.โ€135Nancy Cook, Eliana Johnson and Kenneth P. Vogel. โ€œDeMint to be ousted from Heritage Foundation,โ€ Politico, April 28, 2017. Archived May 2, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/c319y 136John Wagner. โ€œTrump praises Jim DeMint, who soon might be ousted from Heritage Foundation job,โ€ The Washington Post, April 28, 2017. Archived May 2, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/DETY6

April 19, 2017

The Heritage Foundation co-hosted an event with the Discovery Institute titled โ€œMarch for Science or March for Scientism? Understanding the Real Threats to Science in America.โ€137โ€œMarch for Science or March for Scientism? Understanding the Real Threats to Science in America,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, April 19, 2017. Archived May 15, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/UHq4Q

The event featured Stephen Meyer, Jay Wesley Richards, and Wesley J. Smith of the Discovery Institute and Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

The event description read as follows:

โ€œOn April 22, thousands of demonstrators are expected to converge on the National Mall for a โ€˜March for Science.โ€™ Although the March is officially being described as non-partisan and open to diverse views, many participants are using it as an opportunity to delegitimize scientific and policy disagreements over climate change, evolution, fossil fuels, and other issues.  At this event, a panel of experts will explore the real threats to good science in America, including the suppression of dissenting views, and the growing misuse of science as a club in the culture wars.โ€

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

Marlo Lewis: [00:09:49] โ€Many have a naive belief that activism and science can easily coexist not only in the same organization or institution, but in the same psyche. They have no sense of the temptations that politics presents to anyone who engages in it that can corrupt the judgment, including scientific judgment. And so, all too often, they have no clue that when they behave like partisan hacks, in the name of science, they politicize science and undermine public trust in science. And I think that explains to a great extent what we’re seeing today in the whole climate science debate and why these people are now complaining that the public doesn’t trust them.โ€ [00:10:38]

Lewis commented on John Christyโ€™s testimony at a House Science Committee, also describing Christy as โ€œone of my favorite climate scientists.โ€

Marlo Lewis: [00:11:51] โ€œChristy presented evidence that, number one, the climate models that form the basis of the alleged consensus, climate science consensus, are tuned too hot. That is to say, they are overly sensitive. They overestimate the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on global temperatures.โ€ [00:12:12]

Marlo Lewis: [00:12:51] โ€œWhat you see is an increasing divergence, whereas the models are projecting more and more warming, and the observations are showing much less, and the divergence expands over time. Now, you’d think that that might give some people pause, the scientists, and that it would also, in a sense, be a scientific method test of the validity of the models. But it’s only skeptics like Christy who point this out.โ€ [00:13:20]

Marlo Lewis: [00:14:27] โ€œThe IPCC consensus, basically the sort of citadel, the fortress of it that everybody invokes and claims 97 percent of all climate science agree on, is the proposition that more than half of the warming of the globe since 1950 is anthropogenic, comes from human activity, greenhouse gasses, all right. And I actually don’t think that’s really that important an issue. 

โ€œA lot of people try to, if you, a lot of people pretend that if you accept that, then you accept the whole agenda of the clean power plan and, you know, the Paris Agreement and all these other policies, which are all cost for no benefit and potentially a humanitarian disaster because we really don’t know how to run the global economy yet without fossil fuels. 

โ€œBut they pretend that the whole issue is wrapped up in this consensus statement on what they call attribution. Okay, there’s a certain amount of warming; how much of it is attributable to human causes versus natural variability.โ€ [00:15:37]

Marlo Lewis: [00:16:54] โ€œAnd the whole claim that the IPCC now has made for almost 20 years is that they know that more than half the warming is due to human activity because the models and the observations only agree when the models are run with both no natural variability and extra greenhouse gas emissions. 

โ€œChristy shows, based on their own data, that it’s precisely the reverse. Now, does that mean that he has disproven their claim that more than half the warming is anthropogenic? No, but it means that they can’t claim to know it.โ€ [00:17:34]

Marlo Lewis: [00:20:28] โ€œI think you have to check your sense of self-awareness and sense of irony at the door in order to enter the temple of consensus climatology.โ€ [00:20:40]

Stephen Meyer criticized aspects of Darwinian evolution theory in his presentation:

Stephen Meyer: [00:41:41] โ€œThe public defenders are people like Bill Nye, the science guy, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, formerly Eugenie Scott, who was the head of the National Center for Science Education. 

โ€œAnd these folks are promoting Darwinian evolution, not only as settled science, but in the case of Dawkins and Krauss especially, as the basis for a fully materialistic ideology, which they, in fact, call the new atheism. They argue that science, properly understood, supports an atheistic worldview. And the science they have in mind is the theory of Darwinian evolution.โ€ [00:42:21]

Stephen Meyer: [00:44:42] โ€œYou see this huge rhetorical excess in support of an alleged consensus in support further of neo-Darwinian theory. And yet, when you get into the technical literature in biology, you find that leading biologists, including leading evolutionary biologists, now openly doubt the creative power of the central mechanism of neo-Darwinian theory, which is the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations.โ€ [00:45:08]

Stephen Meyer: [00:45:11] โ€œI was testifying before the Texas State Board of Education. They had an innocuous policy proposal that they were putting forward in which they were suggesting that teachers be allowed to inform students about the strengths and weaknesses of competing scientific hypotheses. 

โ€œThe Darwin-only science education lobby turned out in force to say the Texas state board could not apply that to their theory, to the theory of neo-Darwinian evolution, because in the words of Eugenie Scott, evolution, quote, has no weaknesses. Now I was there to testify, and part of my testimony put into evidence 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers that were raising questions about the central mechanism of neo-Darwinism, again, natural selection, acting on random mutations.โ€ [00:45:59]

Wesley J. Smith responded to an audience memberโ€™s question to discuss โ€œthe increasing egalitarianism between man and animal, man and plantโ€:

Audience Member: [01:06:32] โ€œMy question is, it’s very clear, and in fact, many of these activists who will be here in Washington this weekend are increasingly unashamed about admitting that it is a political movement, it is a political ideology, this is what we believe, we believe capitalism needs to be destroyed, and so on and so forth. 

โ€œHow many of those ideas are, have been alluded to today? You’ve mentioned how the increasing egalitarianism between man and animal, man and plant, in a almost resurgence of pagan, the pagan notion of man’s relationship to the Earth and so forth; how can we fight that and oppose that? 

โ€œHow can scientists and non-scientists alike identify and resist that and oppose that to prevent the very awful consequences that are coming in the pipeline in policy and other areas?โ€ [01:07:21]

Wesley J. Smith: [01:07:22] โ€œThe problem with exactly what you’ve described is that it is anti-human. And I think we need to begin pointing out that a lot of this advocacy is precisely misanthropic and anti-human, and I’ve got a couple of examples. David Suzuki, who is a very famous Canadian biologistโ€”been around for yearsโ€”he’s a rock star of science. He’s done a lot of television. Back in the 70s, he said that human beings are โ€˜maggots crawling around the Earth, defecating on the planet.โ€™ […]  

โ€œDavid Attenborough, the very famous, very capable naturalist who has done so many wonderful natural wildlife documentaries, has called human beings the quote, โ€˜scourge on the planet,โ€™ and he has supported groups that are for radical human depopulation. Now, the most radical population control regimen in the world is China. […] China has not managed to reduce the level of population in the country, merely slow its growth. So, if you’re going to have actual radical human depopulation, it’s going to take incredible tyranny.โ€ [01:09:11]

Wesley J. Smith: [01:09:11] โ€œNow, Attenborough and others like him won’t go there. They’ll say, well, birth control will solve it. No, it won’t. And then the question becomes, do we really have that kind of a problem? But the way it’s presented is specifically anti-human. I would even say that Jane Goodallโ€”now this is almost heresyโ€”has harmed science. Now, certainly, her observations of the chimpanzees was magnificent, but what did she do? Did she just report on what she observed? No. She anthropomorphized the chimps. And that changed the entire way science actually approaches these issues.โ€ [01:09:49]

Stephen Meyer: [01:11:42] โ€œYeah, the anti-humanism is important, and I think this is ultimately a battle of ideas. And part of the way to reverse this is to unmask the source of these ideas because once the unmasking occurs, it becomes more and more apparent to more and more people that they’re really not subject to the arguments that are being promulgated as the consensus. 

โ€œFor example, the radical animal rights movement, the denial of human exceptionalism, is a logical consequence of a deeper view that there is no qualitative difference between humans and animals because both were produced by the same process of undirected, unguided materialistic evolution.

โ€œAnd we think that the materialistic theories of evolution, neo-Darwinism, and some of the newer ones that are coming along are empirically false. 

โ€œAnd so to base an ethical theory on an empirically false foundation like that is fallacious and no way to run the country in terms of ethical judgments and policy statements.โ€ [01:12:57]

Stephen Meyer later commented on โ€œthe climate change debate,โ€ suggesting that prominent climate change deniers had been โ€œmuffledโ€:

Stephen Meyer: [01:26:18] โ€œJust in the climate change debate, there are a huge number of very prominent skeptics of anthropogenic global warming. Their voices have been muffled, but when you have people like Richard Lindzen at MIT, or Will Happer at Princeton, or Freeman Dyson at Princeton, or John Christy, who was mentioned before; these are high-powered scientists. They’re making very compelling arguments, and their voices need to be heard, and the political people need to hear the arguments on both sides before they render judgment.โ€  [01:26:48] (Links added by DeSmog).

Marlo Lewis concluded with comments on climate science:

Marlo Lewis: [01:31:58] โ€œMy point here is, that government basically corrupts everything that it embraces, which is why we have separated religion from government. And to the extent that it’s possible, scientific research should similarly be separated from government; then you would not find climate science, in particular, being a faction-ridden, orthodoxy-enforcing political movement, but rather the quest for knowledge.โ€  [01:32:29]

Marlo Lewis: [01:33:02] โ€œClimate science virtually, with very little exception, is all about impacts, and it’s, I mean, so much of it is not really useful except for political purposes.โ€ [01:33:13]

April 9, 2017

The Heritage Foundation republished commentary originally published at The American Conservative titled โ€œCrosstalk on Climate Change,โ€ where Katie Tubb claimed, according to listed โ€˜key takeawaysโ€™ that โ€œThe very nature of global warming is still contested among accomplished scientists.โ€138Katie Tubb. โ€œCrosstalk on Climate Change,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, April 9, 2017. Archived September 20, 2017. Archived .pdf available at DeSmog. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/frqo8

โ€œThe same climate-sensitivity modeling used by the EPA shows that, if the entire industrialized world totally eliminated all CO2 emissions, only 0.278 degrees Celsius of warming would be averted by the end of the century. Thatโ€™s not just some fringe skepticโ€™s claim,โ€œ Tubb wrote.

Referencing a hearing that included testimony from Judith Curry and Roger Pielke, Jr., Tubb added, โ€œAs a hearing in the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee last week again demonstrated, the very nature of global warming is still contested among accomplished scientists.โ€

March 29, 2017

In a piece that originally appeared at The Hill, republished by the Heritage Foundation, Nicolas Loris argued, โ€œTrump was Right to Repeal Obama’s Failing Climate Control Scheme.โ€139Nicolas Loris. โ€œTrump was Right to Repeal Obama’s Failing Climate Control Scheme,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, May 29, 2017. Archived May 21, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/BTeQd

Loris argued against the Clean Power Plan, writing, โ€œwe project the Obamaโ€™s climate agenda will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and result in a $2.5 trillion cumulative hit to gross domestic product by 2030.โ€

He added, โ€œEven if every state met its carbon targets under the Clean Power Plan, the averted warming would be two[-]hundredths of a degree Celsius by the turn of the century. Thereโ€™s your feather.โ€

โ€œNo matter what your position on the climate science is, individual and collective mitigation strategies are all economic pain and no meaningful climate gain,โ€ Loris wrote.

March 17, 2017

The Heritage Foundation republished commentary that originally appeared at FoxNews.com titled โ€œIgnore the Critics: If Trump Withdraws from Paris Climate Agreement, He Will Demonstrate U.S. Leadership.โ€140Brett D. Schaefer. โ€œIgnore the Critics: If Trump Withdraws from Paris Climate Agreement, He Will Demonstrate U.S. Leadership,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, March 17, 2017. Archived May 21, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/duAbn

In the article, Brett D. Schaefer argued that โ€œRepudiating the Paris Agreement would be akin to ripping off a Band-Aid โ€“ a small pain in the form of anger from the U.N. and other governments committed to the agreement, but after that, nothing.โ€

โ€œConservatives should insist that the President repudiate the Paris Agreement to correct that action alone,โ€ he added.

February 28, 2017

Kevin D. Dayaratna, listed as โ€œSenior Statistician and Research Programmerโ€ at The Heritage Foundation, testified before the Congressional Subcommittee on Environment and Oversight Committee on Science and Technology about the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC).141โ€œSubcommittee on Environment and Subcommittee on Oversight Hearing – At What Cost? Examining the Social Cost of Carbon,โ€ Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, February 28, 2017. Archived .pdf of testimony and .mp4 of hearing on file at DeSmog.

โ€œ[U]nder a very reasonable set of assumptions, the SCC is overwhelmingly likely to be negative, which would suggest the government should, in fact, subsidize (not limit) CO2 emissions, Dayaratna said in his written testimony.

He clarified, โ€œOf course, I by no means use these results to suggest that the government should actually subsidize CO2  emissions, but rather to illustrate the extreme sensitivity of these models to reasonable changes to assumptions and can thus be quite easily fixed by policymakers.โ€

Source: House Science, Space, and Technology Committee

February 22 – 25, 2017

The Heritage Foundation was a Presenting Sponsor of the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), among a range of other conservative and pro-industry groups.142โ€œCPAC 2017 Sponsors,โ€ cpac.conservative.org. Archived March 6, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/SKFRU

Heritage reported that they had nine speakers who addressed CPAC over three days including Rob Bluey, Lindsey Burke, Mike Gonzalez, Bruce Klingner, Ana Quintana, Bryan Riley, Grant Strobl, and Bridget Wagner. Jim DeMint, president of Heritage, also spoke at the event.143โ€œHeritage Has Strong Presence at CPAC 2017,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, February 22, 2017. Archived March 9, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/krXa4

February 16, 2017

The Heritage Foundation hosted an event titled โ€œThe Smoke and Mirrors Behind Climate Modeling: Advice to Policymakersโ€ featuring Kevin Dayaratna of the Heritage Foundation, Ross McKitrick of the Fraser Institute, and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger of the Cato InstituteNicolas Loris hosted the panel.144โ€œThe Smoke and Mirrors Behind Climate Modeling: Advice to Policymakers,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, February 16, 2017. Archived February 25, 2025. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

Source: Heritage Foundation YouTube account

Some notable excerpts of the event are below:

Nicolas Loris: [00:12:42] โ€œThey [the Obama administration] use the CO2 valuation to justify regulations on new and existing power plants, for vehicles, for other appliances, efficiency standards, and much more. To calculate this estimate, the working group relied on three statistical models known as integrated assessment models, or IAMs. But many respects, they should probably be called GIGOs, garbage in, garbage out, because they provide no meaningful guide for public policy analysis whatsoever.โ€ [00:13:10]

In his presentation, Chip Knappenberger claimed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was โ€œbeing overly conservativeโ€ in their 2013 report on potential climate change as โ€œone and a half degrees C to four and a half degrees.โ€

Chip Knappenberger: [00:23:46] โ€œThe IPCC, in my opinion, is being overly conservative in that assessment because there’s a lot of science that says that high-end is not very likely to happen.โ€  [00:23:58]

Knappenberger went on to claim the risks for the higher end of climate change are โ€œactually non-existent or very lowโ€:

Chip Knappenberger: [00:26:17] โ€œSo, the new literature is suggesting that that high end, that fat right hand’s tail, where there’s a lot of risk for a high climate change is actually non-existent or very low, the chance of that happening. So if you were to rerun those climate models that are in the integrated assessments with these lower, a tighter distribution of equilibrium climate sensitivity, you produce a whole heck of a lot less warming in the future.โ€ [00:26:49]

Referencing a chart off-screen, he added:

Chip Knappenberger: [00:27:47] โ€œ[F]or different time periods, you see that the observed trends are coming in below, consistently below, what the models are expecting them to be, indication that the real world is warming, is less sensitive to carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gasses than the model world.โ€ [00:28:07]

Knappenberger concluded:

Chip Knappenberger: [00:29:54] โ€œSo my recommendation here is that the social costs of carbon should not be used in federal rulemaking until, or unless it reflects the latest climate science, and I think you hear from these other guys following me that the problems with the climate module of these integrated assessment models is just one of the many problems that are in these models. So, I don’t like the social cost of carbon, and I don’t think they should be using it.โ€   [00:30:22]

Kevin Dayaratna, in his presentation, promised to โ€œtalk about the smoke in mirrors behind integrated assessment modeling.โ€

Kevin Dayaratna: [00:34:56] โ€œNow, global warming alarmists will always tell you, ooh, the science is settled on global warming. But when you really take that phrase at face value, settled science, it’s essentially an oxymoron. 

โ€œNew studies consistently come to light and get published, replacing and improving upon prior research in what we call journals., And the concepts of these ECS, equilibrium climate sensitivity distributions, are no different.โ€ [00:35:21]

Kevin Dayaratna: [00:53:11] โ€œAt Heritage, we have the Heritage Energy Model, which is a derivative of the EIA’s National Energy Modeling System, and we plugged in a carbon tax in conjunction with the social cost of carbon, and we noticed by 2035, an average employment shortfall of almost 400,000 lost jobs, a total loss of income of more than $20,000 for a family of four, a 13 percent to 20 percent increase in electricity prices, and an aggregate $2.5 trillion GDP loss. 

โ€œSo the reason for this is very simple. Energy is a fundamental building block of civilization, from lighting up our homes, to turning on our cars, to powering our laptops. The thing is, people take these things for granted, and when we move such a fundamentally important building block toward less efficient and more expensive forms of energy, or just raising the cost of even the least expensive and most efficient forms of energy, we will notice these consequences. So what does this tell us? 

โ€œThese integrated assessment models are extremely sensitive to very, very reasonable tweaks to assumptions. Now, at their core, and I didn’t really get into this, the damage functions that are behind estimating the SEC are arbitrary, and they don’t really have very much legitimacy in the first place.

โ€œSo, as Nick was alluding to earlier, these models, instead of IAMs, maybe we want to refer to them as GIGOsโ€”garbage in, garbage out models. And they can even be negative at times; so, you can have positivity, negativity.

โ€œThe sheer fact that these are so sensitive to very, very reasonable changes to assumptions, this is the most alarming aspect of them. They can be easily manipulated by policymakers using any assumptions that they would like.

โ€œAnd taking them seriously, according to the assumptions that the IWG wanted to make, would literally result in an economic disaster with no environmental benefits. 

โ€œSo, as a result, we would urge policymakers, at least for now, until these models can be revised and be made more legitimate, to not use these models for regulatory policy.โ€ [00:55:18]

In his presentation, Ross McKitrick claimed there is โ€œno basis for aggressive regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.โ€

Ross McKitrick: [01:05:06] โ€œMainstream science and economic tells you you have no basis for aggressive regulation of greenhouse gas emission. It’s all politics that’s been driving that whole program up to this point. So, use and abuse of social cost of carbon numbers.

โ€œFirst of all, as you’ve seen, the numbers that are out there have ignored a very large literature on low climate sensitivity.โ€[01:05:30]

Ross McKitrick: [01:05:49] โ€œIn the real world, the damage threshold is likely higher than what we know about the social cost of carbon, so neither regulations nor taxes would pass the cost-benefit test.โ€ [01:05:59]

Ross McKitrick: [01:05:59] โ€œNow, as a way of finishing up here, just indulge me for a moment; what would I do as an ideal alternative if it were put to me? So, first of all, I would argue for removing all the current carbon regulations for obvious reasons. 

โ€œThen, if you absolutely felt you had to put a tax in place, start it at a very low number, like the social cost of carbon numbers you’ve seen, deflated by marginal cost of public funds, but make it a function of a reliable satellite-derived atmospheric temperature measure. 

โ€œSo think about what that means. If warming’s gonna happen, okay, the tax rate’s gonna go up over time. But if there isn’t a warming problem, the tax isn’t gonna go, and you’re not gonna impose unnecessary costs on the system.โ€ [01:06:41]

Responding to questions, Knappenberger commented:

Chip Knappenberger: [01:20:29] โ€œI call the term lukewarming. I mean, the fact that I think that climate change is happening, but just not at the rate that even the IPCC says it is, and so a lot of those upper-end impacts that come from that also should be sort of thrown out as well.โ€ [01:20:45]

January 19, 2017

Kevin Dayaratna and Nicolas Loris wrote a Heritage Foundation backgrounder titled โ€œRolling the DICE on Environmental Regulations: A Close Look at the Social Cost of Methane andโ€ Nitrous Oxide,โ€ where they criticized models used by the EPA to examine the social cost of methane (SCM) and the social cost of nitrous oxide (SCNโ‚‚O).145Kevin D. Dayaratna, PhD, and Nicolas D. Loris. โ€œRolling the DICE on Environmental Regulations: A Close Look at the Social Cost of Methane and Nitrous Oxideโ€ (PDF)The Heritage Foundation backgrounder No. 3184 (January 19, 2017). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œ[T]he EPAโ€™s estimates of these statistics are just as unreliable as its SCC estimates,โ€ they claimed.

Under โ€œKey Points,โ€ the authors also claimed that โ€œCurrent assumptions about the Earthโ€™s sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions used by the EPA to estimate the SCM and SCN2O are based on outdated research. More recent studies regarding equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) distributions (CO2โ€™s temperature impact) estimate significantly lower probabilities of extreme global warming.โ€

Discussing climate sensitivity, they claimed, โ€œGlobal warming activists, including members of the Obama Administration, consistently argue that global warming is indisputably occurring and that the Earth is warming at catastrophic rates.16 Although a variety of studies in the peer-reviewed literature suggest that global warming is occurring, there is considerable uncertainty regarding the critical question: the magnitude of the warming, especially projected for three centuries.โ€

They cited a Heritage Foundation backgrounder by David W. Kreutzer, Nicolas D. Loris, Katie Tubb, and Kevin D. Dayaratna as evidence for this statement.

Together, they concluded that โ€œThe integrated assessment models that the EPA uses to calculate the social costs of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are not legitimate for regulatory analysis. They are unsubstantiated tools that regulators can use to justify costly regulations or thwart new investments.โ€

January 12, 2017

Michael Needham of Heritage Action for America, an affiliate of the Heritage Foundation, was a signatory to a January 12, 2017 official letter of support (PDF) for Scott Pruitt, in which numerous groups, including The Heartland InstituteAmerican Energy Alliance (AEA), and others, declared that the Senate should โ€œswiftly approve his nominationโ€ for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Other signatories of the letter included:146โ€œDear Senators,โ€ (PDF)Competitive Enterprise Institute, January 12, 2017. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

December 9, 2016

In an article that originally appeared in The Daily Signal, Katie Tubb quoted Sen. James Lankford, who described the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) as a โ€œdeeply flawed program.โ€147Katie Tubb. โ€œ5 Things Americans Should Know About the Renewable Fuel Standard,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, December 9, 2016. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/JUqJP

โ€œTo promote a healthy market that encourages risk-taking and innovation, Congress should repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard and let consumers make their own choices at the pump,โ€ Tubb concluded.

December 8, 2016

The Heritage Foundation is a co-sponsor of the Texas Public Policy Foundation‘s โ€œAt the Crossroads III: Energy and Climate Policy Summit.โ€ The event, describing itself as โ€œthe premier energy-and-climate policy event in America,โ€ has historically attracted a range of prominent climate change deniers. The event description invites attendees to โ€œJoin national policymakers, leading energy experts, and the fieldโ€™s most innovative minds to explore whatโ€™s next in energy policy, whatโ€™s coming in climate science, and how you may affect both.โ€ Note the full video is now listed as “private” on YouTube.148โ€œAt the Crossroads III: Energy and Climate Policy Summit,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived November 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/KTgct

The agenda listed the following speakers:

  • Brooke Rollins, President, Texas Public Policy Foundation
  • Becky Norton Dunlop, Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
  • The Honorable Mike Lee (R-UT), Member, Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Water & Power
  • The Honorable Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman, House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
  • The Honorable Pete Olson (R-TX), Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy & Power, House Committee on Energy & Commerce
  • The Honorable Gary Palmer (R-TX), Member, House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
  • Michael Needham, Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Action for America โ€“ Moderator
  • The Honorable James Inhofe (R-OK), Chairman, Senate Environment & Public Works Committee
  • The Honorable Kathleen Hartnett White, Director, Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment, TPPF
  • Stephen Moore, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
  • Bud Brigham, Chairman, Brigham Resources, and Founder, Anthem Ventures โ€“ Moderator
  • David W. Kreutzer, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Center for Data Analysis, The Heritage Foundation
  • Patrick J. Michaels, Director, Center for the Study of Science, Cato Institute
  • Mark P. Mills, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Power Group; Senior Fellow, The Manhattan Institute; and Faculty Fellow, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University
  • Horace Cooper, Adjunct Fellow, National Center for Public Policy Research โ€“ Moderator
  • Patrick Forkin, Vice President Strategy & Global Energy Analytics, Peabody Energy
  • Allen Gilmer, President, Texas Independent Petroleum Producers Association
  • Karen Harbert, President, Institute for 21st Century Energy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Invited)
  • Nick Loris, The Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow, The Heritage Foundation โ€“ Moderator
  • Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, MIT
  • Dr. Willie Soon, Astrophysicist and Independent Scientist
  • Andrew M. Grossman, Co-Founder, Free Speech in Science Project โ€“ Moderator
  • Dr. William Happer, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Princeton University
  • Dr. Craig Idso, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
  • Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Doug Domenech, director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s โ€œFueling Freedomโ€ project, wrote about the proceedings at The HillDomenech outlined the common climate change denial message shared among the speakers: โ€œ Is climate change real? Yes, it has happened in the past and will happen in the future.  Is man making an impact on the climate? Perhaps but in very small ways. But the overarching consensus remains the climate change we are experiencing is by no means catastrophic.โ€149Doug Domenech. โ€œClimate change: Speaking truth to power,โ€ The Hill, December 13, 2016. Archived December 21, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zAEH5

Many of the speakers at the event have close ties to Donald Trump and his transition team. Becky Norton Dunlop, Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, was deputy to the senior adviser on President-Elect Donald Trump’s transition team for policy and personnel.150Raoul Wootliff. โ€œBacking far-right Swede, Trump proxy shuns top Israeli official,โ€ The Times of Israel, December 21, 2016. Archived December 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/yfI8b

Brooke Rollins, President and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, is on Trump’s economic advisory council. Two other members of Trump’s โ€œeconomic advisory team,โ€ are Kathleen Hartnett-White and Stephen Moore. Hartnett-White was also in the running for a top EPA position.151Patrick Svitek. โ€œAs Trump Struggles, Texas Republicans Stand by Him,โ€ The Texas Tribune, August 19, 2016. Archived December 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Q24ZJ

Climate change denier James Inhofe was said to be joining Trump’s National Security Advisory Council. Other connections include David Kreutzer, who is on Trump’s โ€œlanding team,โ€ and Allen Gilmer, CEO at Drilling Info, Inc., who donated $2,700 to Donald John Trump, Sr. on September 28, 2016, according to disclosures.152(Press Release). โ€œTRUMP CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCES NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISORY COUNCIL,โ€ DonaldJTrump.com, October 7, 2016. Archived December 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/55x1q 153โ€œAllen Gilmer,โ€ Relationship Science. Archived December 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/2EPUZ

During his presentation, Richard Lindzen said โ€œthe only meaningful question would be whether we are seeing anything sufficiently unusual to warrant concern and the answer to this is unambiguously no.โ€154Doug Domenech. โ€œClimate change: Speaking truth to power,โ€ The Hill, December 13, 2016. Archived December 21, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zAEH5

Corbin Robertson of Quintana Resources said, โ€œI’m gonna start out with a confession, I’m guilty. I’m guilty of providing goods and services and clean affordable energy to the world’s growing population and now the environmentalists and the media want to convict me for my services to humanity.โ€155Doug Domenech. โ€œClimate change: Speaking truth to power,โ€ The Hill, December 13, 2016. Archived December 21, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zAEH5

November 23, 2016

โ€œThe Heritage Foundation is helping to lead the fight against the criminalization of scientific dissent on the unproven and questionable theory of man-induced, catastrophic climate change,โ€ Hans A. von Spakovsky and Alden Abbott wrote in Heritage Foundation commentary.156Hans A. von Spakovsky and Alden Abbott. โ€œHeritage Helps Lead Fight Against Criminalization of Scientific Dissent on Climate Change,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, November 23, 2015. Archived May 20, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/t0BXH

The authors noted that Heritage analysts โ€œhave also written numerous commentaries about this issue, and held public events, such as a June 10, 2016, presentation, โ€˜Climate Changeโ€”Criminalizing Scientific Dissent.โ€™โ€157โ€œClimate Change โ€“ Criminalizing Scientific Dissent,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived June 2, 2016. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/pvtnt

That event featured Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Andrew M. Grossman of Baker Hostetler, and Heritage Foundationโ€™s David Kreutzer.

July 12, 2016

The Heritage Foundation, represented by Bridgett Wagner, was among 22 groups represented in a โ€œCoalitionโ€ open letter pushing back against what the Heartland Institute describes as an โ€œaffront to free speech.โ€ The groups are responding to the recent Web of Denial Resolution brought up in the Senate, calling out fossil fuel industry-funded groups denying climate change.158Jim Lakely. โ€œ#WebOfDenial Push by Senate Dems Exposes Their Hatred of Free Speech,โ€ Somewhat Reasonable, July 12, 2016. Archived July 14, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/eFCkh

According to the Climate Investigations Center, all but one of the open letter’s signatory organizations have taken money (totalling at least $92 million since 1997) from the โ€œclimate denial webโ€ including Koch Brothers’ various foundations, ExxonMobil, and two โ€œDark Moneyโ€ organizations, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund.159Cindy Baxter. โ€œFront Groups Attacking #WebofDenial Senate Action Took Over $92M in Dark, Dirty Money,โ€ DeSmog, July 14, 2016. Originally posted at Climate Investigations Center.

Championed by Senators Whitehouse, Markey, Schatz, Boxer, Merkley, Warren, Sanders, and Franken, the resolution condemns what they are calling the #WebOfDenial โ€” โ€œinterconnected groups โ€“ funded by the Koch brothers, major fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal, identity-scrubbing groups like Donors Trust and Donors Capital, and their allies โ€“ developed and executed a massive campaign to deceive the public about climate change to halt climate action and protect their bottom lines.โ€160Brendan Demelle. โ€œSenators Launch Resolution, Speech Blitz Calling Out #WebOfDenial Blocking Climate Action,โ€ DeSmog, July 11, 2016.

The open letter addresses the senators, calling them โ€œtyrantsโ€:

โ€œWe hear you. Your threat is clear: There is a heavy and inconvenient cost to disagreeing with you. Calls for debate will be met with political retribution. Thatโ€™s called tyranny. And, we reject it.161โ€Coalition Letter to Senate Web of Denial Resolution (PDF). Retrieved from the Heartland Institute. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

The full list of signatories and their respective organizations is as follows:

June 24, 2016

Writing in the Heritage Foundation’s The Daily Signal, Heritage policy analyst Katie Tubb describes the striking down of Wyoming’s Bureau of Land Managementโ€™s hydraulic fracking rule as a โ€œwin for good environmental policy.โ€162Katie Tubb. โ€œCourt Says BLM Canโ€™t โ€˜Bootstrapโ€™ Itself to Regulating Fracking,โ€ The Daily Signal, June 24, 2016. Archived June 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/cUjTx

The regulatory rule would have set federal water, chemical disclosure, and construction requirements for fracking operations on federal and Indian lands.163Katie Tubb. โ€œCourt Says BLM Canโ€™t โ€˜Bootstrapโ€™ Itself to Regulating Fracking,โ€ The Daily Signal, June 24, 2016. Archived June 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/cUjTx

June 23, 2016

Ted Bromund, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, describes Britain’s exit from the european union (โ€œBrexitโ€) as โ€œa victory for all Britons who voted.โ€164Ted Bromund. โ€œFor Britain, June 23 Is Independence Day,โ€ The Daily Signal, June 24, 2016. Archived June 24, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/2aYIf

โ€œIt is a triumph for the simple idea that Britain should be governed by the British people. And it is a tremendous, crushing rebuke for the European Union, and its desire to override the sovereignty of the nations of Europe,โ€ Bromund writes in The Daily Signal.165Ted Bromund. โ€œFor Britain, June 23 Is Independence Day,โ€ The Daily Signal, June 24, 2016. Archived June 24, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/2aYIf

June 10, 2016

The Heritage Foundation hosted an event titled โ€œClimate Change โ€“ Criminalizing Scientific Dissentโ€ with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Andrew M. Grossman of Baker Hostetler and the Free Speech in Science Project, and Heritage Foundationโ€™s David Kreutzer.166โ€œClimate Change โ€“ Criminalizing Scientific Dissent,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived June 2, 2016. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/pvtnt

The Heritage Foundation offered the following event description on its website:

โ€œA group of state attorneys general are targeting companies and others whom they claim โ€˜mislead the public about the dangers of climate change.โ€™ With the help of some private plaintiffsโ€™ law firms, state AGs are opening up potential civil/criminal investigations. They are serving subpoenas on third parties such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute seeking all research and communications on climate change. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has also said she is reviewing the issue and academics at institutions from Columbia to the University of Washington have called for prosecutions of those entities that have โ€˜knowingly deceived the American people about the risk of climate change.โ€™ Other state AGs are objecting to these prosecutions as both ill-advised and violations of the First Amendment.

โ€œIs this a misuse of the law? Are First Amendment rights being violated? Is climate change a proven scientific theory? Should scientific dissent be criminalized? Is this a valid public policy debate or is the danger to the environment so dire and immediate that prosecutions are justified?

โ€œJoin us as the Attorney General of Texas, the lawyer representing the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Heritageโ€™s expert on climate change discuss these vital issues.โ€

June 5, 2016

The Heritage Foundation co-hosted an event with the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) titled โ€œFueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy.โ€167โ€œFueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived June 2, 2016. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/p3ozZ

The event featured Kathleen Hartnett White and Stephen Moore, the co-authors of the same-titled book. 

According to the event description: 

โ€œ[H]ighly politicized climate policies are pushing a grand-scale shift to unreliable, expensive renewable energy sources inherently incapable of replacing the vast energy services fossil fuels provide. Today, โ€˜fossil fuelโ€™ has become such a dirty word that even fossil fuel companies feel compelled to apologize for their products. In Fueling Freedom, Kathleen Hartnett White and Stephen Moore make an unapologetic case for fossil fuels, turning around progressives’ protestations to prove that if fossil fuel energy is supplanted by โ€˜greenโ€™ alternatives for political reasons, humanity will take a giant step backwards and the planet will be less safe, less clean, and less free.โ€

June 2016

The Heritage Foundation was listed among organizations named in a Massachusetts subpoena looking for communications between ExxonMobil and organizations denying climate change, reports The Washington Times.168Valerie Richardson. โ€œExxon fights Mass. AGโ€™s โ€˜politicalโ€™ probe into climate change dissent,โ€ The Washington Times, June 15, 2016. Archived June 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/FYZix

Epstein’s response, writes The Washington Times, was โ€œBuzz off, fascist. [โ€ฆ] Only he didnโ€™t say ‘buzz.’โ€ Organizations named in the Massachusetts subpoena included the following:169Valerie Richardson. โ€œExxon fights Mass. AGโ€™s โ€˜politicalโ€™ probe into climate change dissent,โ€ The Washington Times, June 15, 2016. Archived June 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/FYZix

This latest inquiry by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is part of a series of investigations into what ExxonMobil knew about climate change and when, initiated by a coalition of attorneys general in the US.170Ben Jervey. โ€œState Investigations Into What Exxon Knew Double, and Exxon Gets Defensive,โ€ Desmog, April 1, 2016.

April 26, 2016

David Kreutzer, Nicolas D. Loris, Katie Tubb, and Kevin Dayaratna wrote a Heritage Foundation backgrounder titled โ€œThe State of Climate Science: No Justification for Extreme Policies.โ€171David Kreutzer, Nicolas D. Loris, Katie Tubb, and Kevin Dayaratna. โ€œThe State of Climate Science: No Justification for Extreme Policies,โ€ The Heritage Foundation backgrounder No. 3119 (April 26, 2016). Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œImportantly, whether one thinks global warming poses little or no threat or that the planet is on a path toward catastrophe, the cumulative climate effect of these policies [by the Obama Administration], if implemented, would be a change in the earthโ€™s temperature almost too small to measure.โ€

They additionally claimed that the 97 percent consensus on climate change is a โ€œmythโ€:

โ€œThere are profound uncertainties in nascent climate science. Nevertheless, global warming hypotheses have been narrowed in the press and public debate to a โ€˜consensusโ€™ view of catastrophic global warming in a political world that prizes agreement and confidence over exploration, and a media that thrives on crisis. This advances neither science nor sound public policy,โ€ they claimed.

Among those cited as a refutation of the consensus included Richard Tol and a paper by David LegatesWillie SoonWilliam Briggs, and Christopher Monckton. 

โ€œThe 97 percent statistic is nothing more than a false talking point; no overwhelming consensus exists among climatologists on the magnitude of future warming or on the urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,โ€ they further claimed in the Heritage Foundation backgrounder.

They later cited testimony by William Happer and Judith Curry surrounding supposed biases in climate research. 

โ€œItโ€™s [the IPCCโ€™s] prematurely declared โ€˜consensusโ€™ that global warming is dangerous, accelerating, and instigated by carbon dioxide (CO2 ) has had a far-reaching influence, conflating scientific research with certain economic, energy, agricultural, and social policies. Many scientists and scientific institutions consequently have become quasi-political lobbies,โ€ they claimed, citing Happer.

Citing Curry, they claimed, โ€œAnd while there has been relatively little comprehensive study into the governmentโ€™s potential conflict of interest, there have been numerous personal reports of government bias in climate research.โ€

In a section titled โ€œA Brief History on Global Climate Change and Where We Are Today,โ€ the authors make a range of claims about climate change, including that โ€œDire predictions for both global cooling and global warming have been found to be grossly inaccurate. The science may be settled that man-made emissions have had some impact on the earthโ€™s temperature, but the consensus stops there.โ€

Those cited in this section included John ChristyPatrick MooreClaude AllรจgreJ. Scott ArmstrongWilliam HapperRichard LindzenMichael KellyWilliam KininmonthHarrison SchmittNir ShavivHenk Tennekes, and Antonino Zichichi, among others, ranging from testimony to Wall Street Journal opinion pieces.

In the following โ€œWhat the Scientific Data Tells Us About Climateโ€ section, they cited John Christyโ€™s testimony as evidence that โ€œ[S]ites [chosen by NASA to measure global temperatures] do not provide even or comprehensive coverage of the Earthโ€™s surface, nor are the sites immune to contamination from land use changes.โ€

They cited Anthony Wattsโ€™ SurfaceStations.org as evidence that โ€œEven the weather stations in the U.S., arguably the best of any country, have serious problems with data quality.โ€

The Heritage Foundation authors went on to accuse โ€œglobal warming alarmistsโ€ of โ€œadjust[ing] the data.โ€

โ€œIn recent years, the perceived need by global warming alarmists to adjust the data has increased dramatically. The leveling off of world temperatures in the unadjusted temperature record is in stark contrast to the accelerating warming forecast by the IPCC climate models. This hiatus in global warming has been an embarrassment to those who base their dire climate predictions on these poorly performing computer models.โ€

They added, โ€œDr. Judith Curry recently compared five data sets of global temperatures and found that all but one show the warming trend has been essentially flat for various periods exceeding 10 years in length during the past 18 years.โ€

They concluded, โ€œit is simply impossible to know whether any observed current warming is a continuation of this natural trend or represents some new man-made phenomenon. Regardless of what fraction of the observed warming is due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide, the actual temperature trends are not troubling.โ€

They commented, โ€œDespite trends in the actual climate data and the failure of models to accurately depict reality, many alarmists still argue that carbon mitigation policies are necessary to combat damages caused by future regulations on new power plants and existing ones (the Clean Power Plan) will only kill jobs and cut income, all without having any meaningful impact on global temperatures, now or in the future.โ€

On extreme weather, they claimed there were โ€œNo Trends for More Extreme and Frequent Natural Disasters.โ€

Discussing sea level rise, they claimed, โ€œAnother mainstay of the climate change alarmism movement is that glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, and the oceans are acidifying, which will disrupt ocean life and the food chain. Again, the data does not support such doomsday scenarios.โ€

The authors concluded, โ€œThere is, however, little in real climate science to argue for the urgency and magnitude of these policies [proposed by President Obama]. The expensive and invasive climate policies are a non-solution to an unlikely problem. Congress and the next Administration should reverse course on climate policy in order to unchain economic potential and allow for the world to adapt to the real problems the future may bring.โ€

April 13, 2016

Three Heritage Foundation researchers, including Nicolas Loris (formerly of the Charles G. Koch Foundation), claim to have modeled the impact of President Obama’s plans to combat climate change based on the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris and found it to have โ€œessentially zero environmental benefits.โ€172โ€œNicolas Loris,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived April 20, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/lyk3r 173Kevin D. Dayaratna, Nicolas Loris, and David W. Kreutzer. โ€œConsequences of Paris Protocol: Devastating Economic Costs, Essentially Zero Environmental Benefits,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, April 13, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/I6lrp

According to the authors, โ€œrestricting energy production to meet targets like those of the Paris agreement will significantly harm the U.S. economy.โ€ They contend that โ€œ Policymakers should therefore make every effort possible to prevent implementation of these harmful environmental regulations.โ€174Kevin D. Dayaratna, Nicolas Loris, and David W. Kreutzer. โ€œConsequences of Paris Protocol: Devastating Economic Costs, Essentially Zero Environmental Benefits,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, April 13, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/I6lrp

Shortly after the โ€œbackgrounderโ€ was released, Nicolas Loris published a similarly-themed article in The Heritage Foundation’s The Daily Signal entitled โ€œTop 5 Reasons Congress Should Reject Obama’s Climate Change Treaty.โ€175Nicolas Loris. โ€œTop 5 Reasons Congress Should Reject Obamaโ€™s Climate Change Treaty,โ€ The Daily Signal, April 19, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/FYmpk

March 4, 2016

Research fellows Salim Furth and David W. Kreutzer of The Heritage Foundation argue against Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, calling them a โ€œcostly mistake.โ€176โ€œFuel Economy Standards Are a Costly Mistake,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, March 4, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/kvF2K

They cite a research article by prominent economist Richard Tol and claim that a 2.5 degree Celsius increase in average world temperature would increase world gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 2.3 percent.177โ€œFuel Economy Standards Are a Costly Mistake,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, March 4, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/kvF2K

February 2, 2016

Steven Groves, Bernard and Barbara Lomas Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, testified before the Committee on Science, Space, & Technology  of the United States House of Representatives on why he believes the Paris Climate agreement is โ€œA bad deal for America.โ€ 178Steven Groves. โ€œParis Climate Promise: A Bad Deal for America,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, February 2, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/js013

Groves recommends that Congress should โ€œBlock funding for the Paris Agreementโ€ because he contends the agreement is โ€œillegitimate.โ€ His other recommendations include โ€œWithhold funding for the UNFCCCโ€ and to โ€œTake prophylactic legislative measures [โ€ฆ] to ensure that no adaptation funding committed under the Paris Agreement is authorized.โ€179Steven Groves. โ€œParis Climate Promise: A Bad Deal for America,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, February 2, 2016. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/js013

December 4, 2015

Nicolas Loris wrote a Heritage Foundation commentary titled โ€œApologize for Bad Policies, Not Industrial Progress,โ€ where he suggested, โ€œObama should not be apologizing for the economic growth that dramatically improved Americans’ and much of the world’s quality of life. Instead, the president should apologize for pushing costly and ineffective climate policies that will make us worse off and trap the world’s poorest citizens in poverty.โ€180Nicolas Loris. โ€œApologize for Bad Policies, Not Industrial Progress,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, December 4, 2015. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/e8J8r

โ€œThe real problem facing American households and businesses is the Obama administration’s climate policies,โ€ Loris continued. 

According to Loris, โ€œeven if you do believe that the Earth is heading to catastrophic warming, the warming mitigated by the president’s plan would be barely measurable – unlike the economic consequences.โ€

Loris argued climate change is โ€œhardly [a problem] at allโ€:

โ€œThis โ€˜problemโ€™ of climate change is hardly one at all. Natural variations have altered the climate much more than man has. Proponents of global action on climate change will argue that 97 percent of the climatologists agree on climate change,โ€ Loris claimed. He added, โ€œthere is no consensus that temperatures are increasing at an accelerating rate.โ€

โ€œIn fact, the available climate data simply do not indicate that the Earth is heading toward catastrophic warming or more frequent and severe natural disasters. Quite the opposite. The earth has experienced a pause in warming since 1998, and data shows that the climate is less sensitive to increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions than the climate models predicted,โ€ Loris claimed.

He went on to quote Roger Pielke as supposed evidence that extreme weather was not increasing:

โ€œRoger Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, testified last year, โ€˜There exists exceedingly little scientific support for claims found in the media and political debate that hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and drought have increased in frequency or intensity on climate timescales either in the United States or globally.โ€™โ€

December 4, 2015

In an article first published at The Daily Signal and republished at The Heritage Foundation titled โ€œ5 Facts the Left Isnโ€™t Trumpeting About Paris and Climate Change,โ€ Katie Tubb argued, โ€œEven as global carbon dioxide emissions have increased, warming has plateaued.โ€181Katie Tubb. โ€œ5 Facts the Left Isnโ€™t Trumpeting About Paris and Climate Change,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, December 4, 2015. Archived May 21, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/Y9V44

Citing Judith Curry, she went on to claim that โ€œMost scientists would agree that the Earth has experience [sic] some warming over the past century, but there is little agreement as to how much is attributable to human activity or if warming is even harmful.โ€

Tubb added, โ€œHowever, climate models have predicted far more warming than has actually happened in the past 18 years. If models have been unable to accurately project climate conditions ten years out, how can even longer-term projections be depended upon to make good policy decisions?โ€

She concluded, โ€œ[R]egardless of oneโ€™s position on global warming, the Paris climate agreement is shortsighted and a bad deal for Americans and the worldโ€™s most vulnerable.โ€

September 25, 2015

Nicolas Loris wrote Heritage Foundation commentary, originally published in the Bradenton Herald, titled โ€œThe Clean Power Plan Is a Great Way to Make the Poor Poorer.โ€182Nicolas Loris. โ€œThe Clean Power Plan Is a Great Way to Make the Poor Poorer,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, September 25, 2015. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/LcDqx

โ€œ[T]he Obama administration has been adamant in pushing the message that climate change will hit the poor the hardest. Theyโ€™re omitting one small but critical word, though. Itโ€™s climate change policies that will hurt the most vulnerable citizens. And not just in the United States, but around the world,โ€ Loris claimed.

According to Loris, โ€œCarbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic gas. The Clean Power Plan is predicated solely on carbon dioxideโ€™s alleged impact on the climate.
 He added, โ€œIn fact, the name โ€˜Clean Power Planโ€™ is misleading in and of itself. Americaโ€™s power plants are largely clean of the pollutants that we know have adverse health effects.โ€

He went on to mention claims by Paul Knappenberger: โ€œAccording to climatologist Paul Knappenberger, the Clean Power Plan will mitigate only 0.018 degrees Celsius of warming over the next 85 years,โ€ Loris said.

September 1, 2015

Katie Tubb wrote an article that originally appeared in The Daily Signal, titled โ€œObama Is Ignoring the Science on Climate Change,โ€ where she suggested, โ€œObama continues to ignore science that doesnโ€™t fit his narrative and has ignored sound evidence from people who disagree with him.โ€183Katie Tubb. โ€œObama Is Ignoring the Science on Climate Change,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, September 1, 2015. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/jsQsM

Tubb quoted Judith Curry:

โ€œJudith Curry, professor at Georgia Institute for Technology and participant in the International Panel on Climate Change and National Academy of Sciences, writes that when politicians talk about an undeniable climate โ€˜consensusโ€™ they are brushing over โ€˜very substantial disagreement about climate change that arises from:

Insufficient observational evidence

Disagreement about the value of different classes of evidence (e.g. models)

Disagreement about the appropriate logical framework for linking and assessing the evidence

Assessments of areas of ambiguity and ignorance

Belief polarization as a result of politicization of the science

All this leaves multiple ways to interpret and reason about the available evidence.โ€™

โ€œCurry, and others with evidence countering the presidentโ€™s narrative of an accelerating and catastrophic warming, are labeled by Obama as โ€˜critics,โ€™ โ€˜cynics,โ€™ โ€˜deniers,โ€™ and on โ€˜their own shrinking island.โ€™

โ€œYet data of observed reality collected from the U.N.โ€™s International Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. National Climate Data Center does not show increasing frequency of extreme weather across the globe, whether you look at hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, or floods.

โ€œWith so much yet unknown or unclear, one has to wonder if we are entirely misdiagnosing the problem.โ€

July 15, 2015

As part of its backgrounder report titled โ€œThe Many Problems of the EPAโ€™s Clean Power Plan and Climate Regulations: A Primer,โ€ The Heritage Foundationโ€™s Nicolas D. Loris suggested that Congress โ€œForce the EPA to withdraw its endangerment finding on greenhouse gas emissions, recognizing that greenhouse gas emissions are affecting the climate but that no credible evidence exists to suggest that the earth is heading toward catastrophic warming or that climate regulations will affect global temperatures.โ€184Nicolas D. Loris. โ€œThe Many Problems of the EPAโ€™s Clean Power Plan and Climate Regulations: A Primerโ€ (PDF)The Heritage Foundation backgrounder No. 3025 (July 7, 2015). Archived February 7, 2025. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

Loris also suggested Congress โ€œClarify in statute that the Clean Air Act does not apply to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions or other climate-related rulemakingโ€ and should โ€œPrevent the EPA and all other federal agencies from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, including prohibiting funding from being used for implementation.โ€

July 7, 2015

The Heritage Foundation’s Nicolas Loris published a research report titled โ€œThe Many Problems of the EPAโ€™s Clean Power Plan and Climate Regulations: A Primer,โ€ one month prior to President Obama’s and the EPA‘s announcement of the Clean Power Plan.185โ€œThe Many Problems of the EPAโ€™s Clean Power Plan and Climate Regulations: A Primer,โ€ Heritage Foundation, July 7, 2015. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/VU0D5 186โ€œClean Power Plan,โ€ EPA, August 3, 2015. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/xklfq

In the report’s abstract, Loris writes the โ€œObama Administrationโ€™s proposed climate-change regulations will exact a high price on Americans and have a negligible impactโ€”if anyโ€”on global temperatures.โ€187โ€œThe Many Problems of the EPAโ€™s Clean Power Plan and Climate Regulations: A Primer,โ€ Heritage Foundation, July 7, 2015. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/VU0D5

Loris continues, stating that โ€œHigher energy bills for families, individuals, and businesses will destroy jobs and strain economic growthโ€”and it will all be for naught.โ€188โ€œThe Many Problems of the EPAโ€™s Clean Power Plan and Climate Regulations: A Primer,โ€ Heritage Foundation, July 7, 2015. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/VU0D5

July 7โ€“9, 2015

The Heritage Foundation was a co-sponsor of The Heartland Institute’s Tenth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC10) in Washington, DC.189โ€œSponsors,โ€ ICCC10. Archived July 15, 2015. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Uyj2K

June 4, 2015

Ted R. Bromund, a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Thatcher Center for Freedom, wrote an article that first appeared in Newsday and The Heritage Foundation republished titled โ€œClimate change is not a national security threat.โ€190Ted R. Bromund. โ€œClimate change is not a national security threat,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, June 4, 2015. Archived May 21, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/6KWGq

โ€œJust for the sake of it, I’m going to assume that climate change is really happening, and that it’s really caused by people. Even if that’s true, climate change still isn’t a national security issue,โ€ Bromund wrote.

He added, โ€œThe White House’s report argues that climate change is โ€˜contributingโ€™โ€”note the hedged wordโ€”to โ€˜conflicts over basic resources like food and water.โ€™ There’s no evidence of this. But fundamentally, wars aren’t caused by natural resources like food, water, or even oil.โ€

He concluded:

โ€œIf climate change is a national security threat, then the Obama administration can claim that any rule the Environmental Protection Agency imposes, and any international climate agreement the White House negotiates, is justified in the name of national security.

โ€œSo the point of this isn’t to protect us. It’s to justify taxing, regulating, and controlling us. It’s about making us poorer and less free. Calling that a contribution to our security is an insult to our intelligence.โ€

April 2, 2015

โ€œThe science isnโ€™t settled, but apparently the dogma is: Costly CO2 restrictions need not have any climate impact. It seems they are their own virtue,โ€ Katie Tubb and David W. Kreutzer wrote in Heritage Foundation commentary that first appeared in The Daily Signal titled โ€œObama Outkicking the Coverage With International Climate Commitments.โ€191Katie Tubb and David W. Kreutzer. โ€œObama Outkicking the Coverage With International Climate Commitments,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, April 2, 2015. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/zOV6q

February 4, 2015

Katie Tubb wrote Heritage Foundation commentary, originally published in The Daily Signal, titled โ€œ5 Reasons Why We Shouldnโ€™t Keep Subsidizing Wind And Solar Energy.โ€192Katie Tubb. โ€œ5 Reasons Why We Shouldnโ€™t Keep Subsidizing Wind And Solar Energy,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, February 4, 2015. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/ks64i

โ€œ[I]n the long run, subsidies actually hurt the very industries theyโ€™re supposed to help by disincentivizing innovation and making U.S. companies less competitive at home and abroad,โ€ Tubb claimed.

According to Tubb, โ€œeliminating the tax credits would increase greenhouse gas emissions by 0.3 percent. In fact, if the president were truly concerned about environmental impacts, he might consider that a very efficient wind farm would need 260 times the amount of land to produce the same amount of electricity as a typical nuclear power plant, which has virtually no emissions.โ€

November 13, 2014

Kevin Dayaratna, Nicolas Loris, and David Kreutzer wrote a Heritage Foundation backgrounder on โ€œThe Obama Administrationโ€™s Climate Agenda,โ€ where they examined the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC).193โ€œThe Obama Administrationโ€™s Climate Agenda: Underestimated Costs and Exaggerated Benefits,โ€ The Heritage Foundation backgrounder no. 2975 (November 13, 2014). Archived February 12, 2025. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. 

โ€œIn practice, SCC estimates are far too flawed for serious regulatory use,โ€ they claimed in the report.

Citing several Cato Institute studies by Paul C. Knappenberger and Patrick J. Michaels, they claimed climate sensitivity to CO2 was โ€œ40 percent lower than the 3.3 degrees Celsius projected by the climate reports.โ€

โ€œThe failure to include the new studies on climate sensitivity and the inaccuracy of the models exaggerate many of the reportโ€™s other dire climate predictions, they claimed.โ€

โ€œGiven the uncertainties surrounding the science of climate change, the minuscule impact of the suggested remedies, and the high cost of proposed regulations, now is a good time to step back from precipitous actions and exaggerated rhetoric,โ€ Dayaratna, Loris, and Kreutzer concluded.

July 7-9, 2014

The Heritage Foundation is listed as an official Co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute‘s Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9).194โ€œICCC9 CoSponsors,โ€ Heartland Institute. Archived September 23, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/8JFQL 195โ€œReturn of Climate Denial-a-Palooza: Heartland Institute Hitches Anti-Science Wagon to Vegas FreedomFest,โ€ DeSmog, July 7, 2014.

May 12, 2014

The Heritage Foundation published a commentary by Nicolas Loris titled โ€œClimate change: A cure worse than the disease.โ€196Nicolas Loris. โ€œClimate change: A cure worse than the disease,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, May 12, 2014. Archived May 20, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/v9sVh

Loris claimed in the piece that โ€œAlthough the planet has warmed over the past six decades, and a broad consensus exists that part of that warming is attributed to man-made emissions, what we’re seeing and where we’re headed is not toward climate catastrophe.โ€

According to Loris, โ€œSea levels are rising, but not as fast as projected. There have been no significant trends for floods, droughts, hurricanes or tornadoes.โ€

Referencing the National Climate Assessment released by the Obama administration, Loris claimed that โ€œMany of the models the federal government relied on to promulgate these regulations projected a 0.3-degree Celsius warming over the past 17 years, when in reality no warming occurred (although CO2 emissions have increased).โ€

โ€œWhat’s most troubling is, even if climate change were occurring at an unsustainable rate, the administration’s policy prescriptions will not fix anything but will further harm the economy,โ€ Loris claimed. 

He added, โ€œAnd even if we were to stop emitting greenhouse gas emissions entirely, we would not moderate the Earth’s temperature more than a few tenths of a degree Celsius by the end of the century.โ€

March 22, 2014

Nicolas Loris wrote an article that originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel titled โ€œEPA’s coal regs: all pain, no gain for Wisconsin.โ€197Nicolas Loris. โ€œEPA’s coal regs: all pain, no gain for Wisconsin,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, March 22, 2014. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/JV6jt 

โ€œIn the real world, the war on coal is a war on affordable, reliable energy. It’s especially problematic for Wisconsinites, who rely heavily on coal for their electricity (more than 60% vs. the national average of 40%),โ€ Loris argued in the piece.

Loris wrote, without citation, โ€œYes, the climate is changing, and there is little doubt that man-made emissions are having some warming effect. But that does not mean we’re heading to catastrophic warming with more frequent and intense natural disasters. And even if we were, the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations wouldn’t stop it. At best, these job-killing regulations might โ€” in 85 years’ time โ€” help avert warming by 0.2 degrees Celsius.โ€

March 4, 2014

The Heritage Foundation published a backgrounder (No. 4158) claiming โ€œEPAโ€™s Climate Regulations Will Harm American Manufacturing.โ€198Nicolas Loris and Filip Jolevski. โ€œEPAโ€™s Climate Regulations Will Harm American Manufacturing,โ€ The Heritage Foundation backgrounder No. 4158 (March 4, 2014). Archived May 6, 2025. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. 

The authors, Nicolas Loris and Filip Jolevski described EPAโ€™s forthcoming climate change regulations as โ€œappropriately labeled the โ€˜war on coal.โ€™โ€

โ€œ[T]he casualties will extend well beyond the coal industry, hurting families and businesses and taking a significant toll on American manufacturing across the nation,โ€ they argued, adding, โ€œCongress should stop the EPA and all other federal agencies from regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.โ€

January 17, 2014

โ€œAction is necessary on climate change, but not to halt carbon dioxide and other GHG emissions. Congress should prevent the EPA and all other federal agencies from regulating those emissions or funding projects that have a specific aim to reduce them,โ€ Nicolas Loris wrote in an article originally published at National Review Online, republished at The Heritage Foundation, titled โ€œClimate-Change Busyness.โ€199Nicolas Loris. โ€œClimate-Change Busyness,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, January 17, 2014. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/vXPQZ

December 5, 2013

The Heritage Foundation released aย backgrounder (no. 2863)ย byย Nicolas D. Loris,ย Kevin D. Dayaratna, andย David W. Kreutzerย where, according to the abstract, the authors explain โ€œwhyย Congress should remove the EPAโ€™s and any other agencyโ€™s authority toย regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.โ€200Nicolas D. Loris, Kevin D. Dayaratna, and David W. Kreutzer.ย โ€œEPA Power Plant Regulations: A Backdoor Energy Taxโ€ (PDF),ย Theย Heritage Foundationย backgrounder No. 2863 (December 5, 2013).ย Archived October 12, 2015.ย Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.ย 

โ€œTo make matters worse, the scientific basis for GHG regulations is dubious at best, but what is certain is that these regulations will raise energy prices and destroy jobsโ€”with no noticeable climate impact,โ€ they claimed.

โ€œPolicymakers and regulators should not ignoreย the abundance of climate data and research thatย counters the claims that manmade greenhouse gasย emissions will lead to such problematic circumstances. Proponents of carbon caps often argue thatย there is no longer such a debate and that 97 percentย of the climate literature agrees that manmade emissions are causing warming. While a near-universalย consensus does exist that manmade emissions haveย some warming effect, that is simply not the pointย of controversy,โ€ they claimed, citing as evidence a statement byย Roy W. Spencerย beforeย the Environment and Public Works Committee of the United States Senate.

June 26, 2013

โ€œThough almost no one denies that the earth has warmed, there is no consensus on climate sensitivity, the role carbon dioxide plays or doesnโ€™t, whether global warming is a problem, or how data fit into the broader climate context. Obama cannot solve a problem if we donโ€™t know what it is or even if there is one. And itโ€™ll certainly take more than four paragraphs to explain why,โ€ Katie Tubb wrote in Heritage Foundation commentary that first appeared inย The Daily Signaltitled โ€œObamaโ€™s โ€˜Case for Actionโ€™ on Climate Change Doesnโ€™t Cut It.โ€201Katie Tubb.ย โ€œObamaโ€™s โ€˜Case for Actionโ€™ on Climate Change Doesnโ€™t Cut It,โ€ย The Heritage Foundation, June 26, 2013. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL:ย https://archive.ph/OfWZp

June 21, 2013

Katie Tubb wrote the following in an article that originally appeared inย The Daily Signalย and was republished by The Heritage Foundation, titled โ€œClimate Change: The Cost of ‘Bold Action’.โ€202Katie Tubb. โ€œClimate Change: The Cost of ‘Bold Action’,โ€ย The Heritage Foundation, June 21, 2013. Archived May 22, 2025. Archive URL:ย https://archive.ph/lmYtk

โ€œThe science is far from settled on the connection between carbon dioxide emissions and climate sensitivity, the role carbon plays or doesnโ€™t, if global warming is even problematic, or how data fits into broader climate history. Global average temperatures have plateaued for the past 16 years while carbon dioxide levels have continued to climb.

โ€œIt is not denial or cowardice to question interpretation of climate data, studies, and methodology. That is how the scientific method is supposed to work. So until scientists better understand how and why the climate is changing, politicians should have no business boldly regulating carbon dioxide emissions.โ€

Tubb cited a piece from theย Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)ย and a Heritage Foundation event as evidence.

May 28, 2013

David W. Kreutzer, a research fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Changeย atย the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation,ย wrote a Heritage Foundation backgrounder (No. 2802) titledย โ€œA Cure Worse Than the Disease:ย Global Economic Impact of Global Warming Policy.โ€203David W. Kreutzer.ย ย โ€œA Cure Worse Than the Disease:ย Global Economic Impact of Global Warming Policyโ€ (PDF),ย The Heritage Foundation, May 28, 2013.ย Archived May 6, 2025.ย Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

In the background, Kreutzer argued that the Liebermanโ€“Warner and Waxmanโ€“Markey cap-and-trade bills, as well as the Boxerโ€“Sanders carbon-tax bill, โ€œwould harm the U.S. and global economies.โ€

Kreutzer later questioned established climate change science, suggesting, โ€œThere is some debate about the magnitude of warming experienced worldwide over the past century. However, there is more debate about how much manmade carbon dioxide(CO2) emissions have contributed to this increase in temperature, and there is even greater uncertainty about how rapidly the Earth will warm over the next century and beyond.โ€

Kreutzer did not cite any specific scientific studies to support this, but rather included his citations as links toย Anthony Wattsโ€™s blogย Watts Up With That,ย Roger Pielke Jr.โ€™sย blog,ย Roy Spencerโ€™s website, andย the now-defunctย World Climate Report blogย edited by the lateย Patrick Michaels. He also included some websites that confirm the mainstream scientific consensus,ย such asย Real Climate.

August 29, 2012

Nicolas Loris argued against regulations that would affect the coal industry in an article originally published inย The Washington Times, republished at The Heritage Foundation,ย titledย โ€œCrushing Coal Under the Regulatory Steamroller.โ€204Nicolas Loris.ย โ€œCrushing Coal Under the Regulatory Steamroller,โ€ย The Heritage Foundation, August 29, 2012. Archived May 23, 2025. Archive URL:ย https://archive.ph/o07eP

โ€œA host of federal agencies are proposing and implementing new rules that will increase the costs of mining coal, building new plants (although new carbon-dioxide regulations make that next to impossible) and operating existing plants โ€” all for questionable or minimal environmental or public health benefit,โ€ Loris claimed. 

He wrote, โ€œThereโ€™s certainly no reason the U.S. should continue to mine coal or build coal-fired power plants just for the sake of using coal. But thereโ€™s also no reason why the federal government should artificially reduce coalโ€™s role in energy production by creating an environment that makes a decline in coal production inevitable.โ€

He concluded:

โ€œFor decades, coal has literally been the rock that has powered America with cheap, reliable energy. At current consumption rates, coal can provide enough electricity to fuel our nation for the next 500 years. Yet the current regulatory regime seems intent on penalizing and punishing traditional forms of energy, while simultaneously subsidizing and guaranteeing a market for its preferred (albeit as yet non-economical) alternative sources.

โ€œThe recent U.S. Court of Appeals ruling is a welcome recognition that the EPAโ€™s unelected bureaucrats have gone too far. But Congress must also step up to the plate and reform federal policies and regulations to enable the market โ€” not politicians and bureaucrats โ€” to determine the role of coal in U.S. electricity generation.โ€

August 28, 2012

The Heritage Foundation released a backgrounder (No. 2714) by Nicolas D. Loris titledย โ€œHydraulic Fracturing: Critical for Energy Production, Jobs, and Economic Growth.โ€205Nicolas D Loris.ย โ€œHydraulic Fracturing: Critical for Energy Production, Jobs, and Economic Growth,โ€ย The Heritage Foundationย backgrounder no. 2714 (August 28., 2012).ย Archived January 24, 2025.ย Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œDespite the length of time that hydraulic fracturing has been used, and despite the fact that fracking has helped create a burst in American energy production and economic growth, fracking has received much negative attention due to misreporting and dramatic exaggerations,โ€ Loris claimed in the report. 

He added, โ€œMuch of the publicโ€™s concern over hydraulic fracturing has been over the possibility of contaminated drinking water, the chemicals used in fracking, the potential to create earthquakes, and wastewater management. Such concerns do not take into account the federal and state.โ€

Loris listed the following statements as โ€œMythsโ€:

โ€œMyth #1: Hydraulic fracturing threatens underground water sources and has led to the contamination of drinking water.โ€

[…]

โ€œMyth #2: The chemicals used in the fracking process are foreign chemicals that industry hides from the public.โ€

[…]

โ€œMyth #3: Wastewater from hydraulic fracturing is dangerous and unregulated.โ€

[…]

โ€œMyth #4: Fracking causes earthquakes.โ€

Loris later described EPAโ€™s regulations of emissions around fracking as a โ€œbackdoor global warming regulationโ€:

โ€œIn April 2012, the EPA announced its first air-emission rules for hydraulic fracturing. Rather than being aimed at fracking itself, this is a backdoor global warming regulation: The rule highlights the supposed environmental benefits of reducing emission of methane, a greenhouse gas. The EPAโ€™s rule miserably fails the cost-benefit test […]โ€

Loris concluded with the following recommendations to Congress:

โ–  โ€œPrevent any federal agencyย from adding new regulationsย to hydraulic fracturing. The proposed federal regulations areย unnecessary and duplicative.โ€

โ–  โ€œProhibit federal regulators from using any statute to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas regulations would drive up the cost of energy for no meaningful change in the Earthโ€™s temperature.โ€

โ–  โ€œReaffirm the statesโ€™ authorityย and effectiveness in regulatingย hydraulic fracturing. The statesย have effectively handled the disclosure of chemicals used in theย fracking process and have effectively protected drinking waterย for decades.โ€

โ€œThe facts andย history of hydraulic fracturing indicate that many of the fears associatedย with the process are exaggeratedย or unsubstantiated,โ€ Loris finished.

May 21โ€“23, 2012

The Heritage Foundation is listed as an official Co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute‘s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7).206โ€œCosponsors,โ€ 7th International Conference on Climate Change. Archived May 10, 2012. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/VAY3r 207โ€œSeventh International Conference on Climate Change: Sponsored by the Heartland Instituteโ€ (PDF), the Heartland Institute. Archived August 15, 2015. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

March 26, 2012

In aย backgrounder report (No. 2668), the Heritage Foundationโ€™s Nicolas D. Loris recommended a range of cuts to the Department of Energy (DOE) budget, including fromย The Climate and Environmentalย Science subprogram:208Nicolas D. Loris.ย โ€œDepartment of Energy Budget Cuts:ย Time to End the Hidden Green Stimulusโ€ (PDF),ย The Heritage Foundationย backgrounder No. 2668 (March 26, 2012).ย Archived May 5, 2025.ย Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œ[F]unding for climate-change research should be cut entirely from the DOE budget. This would save the entire $315.6 million requested in the FY 2013 budget,โ€ Loris suggested.

โ€œResearch on, and modeling of, how and why earthโ€™s climate is changing can be valuable for future discussions, but it should be done objectively and not with the predisposition that greenhouse gas emissions are the main contributor to global warming and that reducing them is a top priority. Either way, leading such a discussion is not the role of the DOE,โ€ he added.

November 16, 2011

The Heritage Foundation’s Nicolas Loris, who was formerly an associate at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, published a report in the Heritage Foundation’s โ€œEnergy and Environmentโ€ section of its website titled, โ€œNew EPA Inspector General Report: One More Reason to Reject Climate-Change Regulation.โ€209โ€œNew EPA Inspector General Report: One More Reason to Reject Climate-Change Regulation,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, November 16, 2011. Archived September 22, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/WXFEM

Loris writes that โ€œCongress should vote to prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions, and foster a transparent debate about the EPAโ€™s endangerment finding and climate change generally.โ€ Citing Richard Lindzen as a โ€œrespected climatologist,โ€ Loris continues by stating โ€œthere has been plenty of dissent among the scientific community on the causes and magnitude of climate change.โ€210โ€œNew EPA Inspector General Report: One More Reason to Reject Climate-Change Regulation,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, November 16, 2011. Archived September 22, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/WXFEM

November 10, 2011

โ€œThe EPAย refuses to seriously consider broad dissenting science onย the causes of climate change. This is a breach of its responsibility, all the more so when proposing such massive newย regulations,โ€ย Heritage Foundation policy analyst Nicolas D. Loris argued in the abstract to a Heritage Foundation backgrounder (No. 2623) titledย โ€New EPA Inspector General Report:ย One More Reason to Rejectย Climate-Change Regulation.โ€211Nicolas D. Loris. โ€New EPA Inspector General Report:ย One More Reason to Rejectย Climate-Change Regulationโ€ (PDF), Heritage Foundation backgrounder no. 2623 (November 10, 2011).ย Archived May 5, 2025.ย Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œThe massive economic costsโ€”and minimal environmental benefitsโ€”associated with decisions made by unelected bureaucrats at the EPA who bypass the legislative process to regulate carbon dioxide emissions are reason enough for Congress to intervene,โ€œ Loris argued in the report.

โ€œCongress should vote to prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions, and foster a transparent debate about the EPAโ€™s endangerment finding and climate change generally,โ€ he added.

Later in the report, under a section titled โ€œEPA: Ignoring Dissenting Science,โ€ Loris went on:
 
 โ€œWhether it was providing independent judgment or summarizing existing studies, the EPA should reconsider the endangerment finding because there has been plenty of dissent among the scientific community on the causes and magnitude of climate change.โ€

When providing examples of โ€œobjections from respected climatologists,โ€ Loris mentioned Richard Lindzen and William Gray as well as Climate Change Reconsidered author Fred Singer

He also cited Craig IdsoKesten C. GreenJ. Scott ArmstrongWillie Soon, and Chip Knappenberger.

Loris concluded: โ€œCongress should insist on preventing federal regulators from mandating greenhouse-gas emissions caps, or from using greenhouse-gas emissions as a means to promulgate a rule.โ€

September 8, 2011

“Congress should open the limited area needed to drill in ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] and completely open Americaโ€™s coasts for exploration and drilling,” Nicolas Lorisย wrote in a Heritage Foundation WebMemoย titled “Energy Exploration Would Create Jobs and Raise Revenue Without Raising Taxes.”212Nicolas Loris.ย โ€œEnergy Exploration Would Create Jobs and Raise Revenue Without Raising Taxesโ€ (PDF),ย The Heritage Foundationย WebMemo No. 3357 (September 8, 2011).ย Archived May 12, 2025.ย Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

โ€œEnvironmental activists delay new energy projects by filing endless administrative appeals and lawsuits. Shell cited regulatory delays and legal challenges preventing it from moving forward with exploration programs in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Creating a manageable time frame for permitting and for groups or individuals to contest energy plans would keep potentially cost-effective ventures from being tied up for years in litigation,โ€ Loris added.

He also suggested, โ€œPlace a freeze on new environmental regulations.โ€[I]f the President truly wants to provide regulatory certainty, he should tell the EPA to withdraw other new environmental regulations that all miserably fail the costโ€“benefit test,โ€ Loris added.

June 30โ€“July 1, 2011

The Heritage Foundation was a sponsor of The Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC6) in Washington, DC.213Sixth International Conference on Climate Change Conference Program (PDF), the Heartland Institute. Archived July 25, 2015. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

DeSmog concluded that 17 of the 43 sponsors of the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, including the Heartland Institute itself, had collectively received over $46 million from either Scaife Foundations, Koch Foundations, or ExxonMobil.

October 1, 2010

The Heritage Foundation claimed that the Royal Society had โ€œsignificantly softened its position on global warming,โ€ but Greenpeace’s Polluterwatch reports that this was a misrepresentation of the Royal Society’s actual position.214โ€œU.S. Could Learn from U.K.โ€™s Global Warming Reversal,โ€ The Daily Signal, September 30, 2010. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/LbFsN 215Connor Gibson. โ€œHeritage Foundation Cuts and Pastes to Upend Scientific Report,โ€ Polluterwatch, October 19, 2010. Archived April 20, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/canXc

Heritage selectively edited the report in a way that manufactured doubt about man-made climate change by editing out 10 pages and 48 paragraphs of text that had provided context in the report.216Dan Lashof. โ€œHeritage Gate,โ€ Switchboard, October 1, 2010. Archived April 17, 2012. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zpFgO

The Royal Society’s view that man-made climate change is a problem is evidenced in the report summary: โ€œ[This report] shows that there is strong evidence that over the last half century, the earth’s warming has been caused largely by human activity.โ€217โ€œRoyal Society launches new short guide to the science of climate change,โ€ The Royal Society, September 30, 2010. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Z5EGR

Nicolas Loris, the author of Heritage’s controversial post, is a former associate of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.218โ€œNicolas Loris,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived April 20, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/lyk3r

May 16โ€“18, 2010

The Heritage Foundation was a sponsor of The Heartland Institute’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC4) in Chicago, IL.219โ€œ4th International Conference on Climate Change: Sponsored by the Heartland Instituteโ€ (Conference Program – PDF), The Heartland Institute, May, 2010. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

DeSmog found that ExxonMobil, Koch Foundations, and Scaife Family Foundations had contributed a combined total of over $40 million to co-sponsors of The Heartland Institute’s ICCC4.220Brendan DeMelle. โ€œDenial-a-palooza Round 4: ‘International Conference on Climate Change’ Groups Funded by Exxon, Koch Industries,โ€ DeSmog, May 13, 2010.

June 2, 2009

The Heritage Foundation was a sponsor of The Heartland Institute’s Third International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC3) in Washington, DC.221โ€œCo-Sponsors,โ€ Third International Conference on Climate Change. Archived July 14, 2010. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/7M3LQ

May 4, 2009

Heritage held a panel titled โ€œaimed to โ€œexplore the lessons of Spain, and examine some of the fundamental flaws in the green jobs-as-an-economic-salve line of argument.โ€222โ€œBusting the Myth of Green Jobs,โ€ The Heritage Foundation, May 4, 2009. Archived April 20, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Y2ZGa

Media Matters found that the entire Heritage panel had received money from ExxonMobil.223โ€œHeritage Foundation Green Jobs Panel – Bought and Paid For By ExxonMobil,โ€ politicalcorrection.org, May 4, 2009. Archived April 20, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/oGj5w

The Heritage Foundation’s senior policy analyst Ben Lieberman joined Robert Murphy, an economist at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), on a panel to discuss the study on renewable energy sources (PDF) done by economist Gabriel Calzada that suggested green jobs were harmful to the economy.224โ€œStudy of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources (PDF), Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, March, 2009. PDF archived at DeSmog.

Calzada’s study has been debunked on numerous occasions.225Pete Altman. โ€œImported Lies: Debunking the Spanish Green Jobs Smear,โ€ NRDC, April 16, 2009. Archived April 19, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/2tHMB

March 8โ€“10, 2009

The Heritage Foundation was a sponsor of The Heartland Institute’s Second International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC2) in New York.226โ€œCo-Sponsors,โ€ The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change. Archived April 28, 2011. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/8pEf7

DeSmog researched the funding behind Heartland’s Second International Conference on Climate Change and found that sponsor organizations had received over $47 million in funding from energy companies and conservative foundations.227โ€œHeartland Institute’s 2009 Climate Conference in New York: funding history of the sponsors,โ€ DeSmog.

November 5, 2008

In a โ€œWebMemoโ€ published on by the Heritage Foundation, Dr. Donald Kreutzer claimed that policy initiatives to advance green investment hurt economic growth and employment.228Robert Pollin. โ€œGreen Investments and Jobs: A Response to the Heritage Foundation,โ€ Center for American Progress, November 7, 2008. Archived February 9, 2009. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/g8zG2

Kreutzer claimed to have found three studies that had made false claims that green investment can promote job creation. Robert Pollin, the co-author of one of the studies (โ€œGreen Recoveryโ€) responded here. See a PDF version of his response here.229Robert Pollin. โ€œGreen Investments and Jobs: A Response to the Heritage Foundation,โ€ Center for American Progress, November 7, 2008. Archived February 9, 2009. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/g8zG2

1990s

The Heritage Foundation reportedly encouraged conservatives to work together to โ€œStrangle the environmental movementโ€ as โ€œIt’s the greatest single threat to the American economy.โ€230Andrew Rowell. Green Backlash: Global Subversion of the Environmental Movement. Page 52. Routledge; 1 edition (Sep 24 1996)

This originally presented in a blueprint for policy in the 1990s and published in its journal โ€œPolicy Review.โ€231Andrew Rowell. Green Backlash: Global Subversion of the Environmental Movement. Page 52. Routledge; 1 edition (Sep 24 1996)

Heritage Foundation Contact & Location

The Heritage Foundation lists the following contact information on their website:232โ€œContact Us,โ€ The Heritage Foundation. Archived May 28, 2016.  Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/dWYUe

The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Ave NE
Washington DCย 20002-4999

Phone: 202.546.4400
Email: [email protected]

Social Media

Other Resources

Resources

Related Profiles

Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) Background The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is a UK-based think tank founded by former Conservative Chancellor Nigel Lawson with the p...
Kevin Dayaratna Credentials Ph.D. Mathematical Statistics, University of Maryland, College Park (2014) โ€œKevin Dayaratna,โ€ George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and ...
The Heartland Institute Background Stance on Climate Change Funding Key People Actions Heartland International Conference on Climate Change Related&n...
Donald Trump Credentials Background Energy Policy Stance on Climate Change Key Quotes Key Deeds Funding Top Campaign Contributors Assets &am...