Renewable Revolution

July 27, 2021



Yesterday we talked about the Heartland Institute’s 🐍 Jim Lakely taking umbrage  at the mention that the organization might be a shadowy group ExxonMobil has used to spread climate disinformation. After taking issue with two points, Lakely objected to the idea that the hundreds of thousands of dollars Exxon gave Heartland between 1998 and 2006 had anything to do with the organization’s climate (denial) efforts in the years since.

Lakely points to the climate (denial) conferences the organization has convened, and climate (denial) reports published, and claims that “none of that work, spanning decades, was due to any financial support from Exxon.”

Well, his next sentence admits that, yes, “Exxon was a donor to Heartland, from 1998 to 2006,” but downplays that the company’s “contributions of about $50,000 never exceeded more than 5 percent of our annual budget.” Which is probably true, given that Heartland was busy taking money from the tobacco industry, among others. (And in case you’re wondering, yes, they’re clearly still working on the issue.) 

But he admits they got some money from Exxon, so what did Heartland do with it? Surely Exxon was getting something in return?   

Lakely does not disclose what work Heartland did with the funding Exxon provided. What he says instead is that after Exxon ended its funding to Heartland in 2006, the organization still worked on the climate issue.

So Lakely really wants us to know that it’s not Exxon who funded a bunch of their recent climate denial. But Carter wasn’t talking about their recent work, as just prior to mentioning Heartland he was talking about how “the most interesting thing” he found from the sting was “the admission that day regarding Exxon’s battle against early climate science.” And then contrasting those early efforts (where they used Heartland as part of “this vast network of think tanks and other pressure groups”) Carter went on to say that he thinks “what Exxon does now is work through groups like the American Petroleum Institute or American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers” to advance their interests. 

Now the question is, if Exxon isn’t funding the group’s current climate denial efforts, then who is? Well, know that despite the financial hit the organization took as a result of an alleged mismanagement of funds by its former president, Heartland’s gotten plenty of dirty money in recent years. It gets millions from various conservative billionaires like surge protector magnate (?) Barre Seid and the the Insurrection-y Mercers, plus funds concealed through the “dark-money ATM” of DonorsTrust, which we know Heartland uses to hide its donors because they were caught on camera offering to do exactly that when an undercover investigator asked. 

But on top of that, in 2017 Heartland got $75,000 from none other than the group Carter mentioned as Exxon’s newest tool, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. 

Okay, so Heartland isn’t necessarily one of the shadowy groups that ExxonMobil is funding to lobby officials and propagate climate denial. Instead Lakely wants us to know that it was funded by ExxonMobil, and it does lobby officials and propagate climate (dis)information.

And then folks should be careful to note that the funding that supports Heartland's more recent efforts to lobby officials and propagate denial isn’t still coming from ExxonMobil, but instead came from one of the other shadowy groups ExxonMobil funds to lobby officials and propagate climate denial.