The Heartland Institute often is the target for misinformation and even outright lies about its mission, funding and donors, and members and staff. These attacks from a variety of sources seeking to undermine Heartland’s education and research efforts in a variety of areas, including the environment, school reform, and health care.

This page rebuts the most common attacks. The Heartland Institute welcomes alerts from allies about other attacks that should be confronted with facts. Please contact Dan Miller, executive vice president, at dmiller@heartland.org.

Additional information about The Heartland Institute’s programs, people, and funding is available in our 2008 annual report.

Q: What is The Heartland Institute?

A: The Heartland Institute is a national nonprofit research and education organization, tax exempt under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code, headquartered in Chicago, and founded in 1984. It is not affiliated with any political party, business, or foundation.

Heartland’s mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Such solutions include parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies.

Q: Is Heartland a ‘Front Group’?

A: No. Web sites such as ExxonSecrets.org, DeSmogBlog.org, Mediatransparency.org, and Sourcewatch.org claim The Heartland Institute is a "front group" for (take your pick) oil companies, drug companies, telephone companies, fast-food companies, and tobacco companies. These Web sites are full of false and misleading claims about Heartland and other groups that support free-market ideas. The very fact that they attack all free-market think tanks and advocacy groups makes their bias and dishonesty clear.

It is true that interest groups sometimes create front groups that are not really legitimate organizations with real histories, real members, and a real commitment to advancing the public interest. For example, ExxonSecrets.org, DeSmogBlog.org, Mediatransparency.org, and Sourcewatch.org were created by liberal environmental groups and a few foundations strictly to attack conservatives and libertarians. How "real" is that?

The Heartland Institute, by contrast, is the real thing:

• Heartland was created in 1984 by a small group of individuals who shared a deep concern over the growth in the size and power of government. They incorporated The Heartland Institute as a nonprofit charitable organization to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

• Joseph Bast, Heartland’s original executive director, is still there ... now as president and CEO.

• Heartland has grown slowly over the years. Today it has 2,700 supporters. In 2007 it received 71 percent of its income from foundations, 16 percent from corporations, and 11 percent from individuals. No corporate donor gave more than 5 percent of its annual budget.

• More than 125 academics and professional economists serve as policy advisors to The Heartland Institute, including members of the faculties of Harvard University, The University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and scores of other respected universities.

• Approximately 500 elected officials -- Democrats as well as Republicans -- serve on Heartland’s Board of Legislative Advisors. These elected officials use Heartland’s research and vouch for its credibility.

The Heartland Institute does accept corporate funding, as do virtually all of the nonprofit "think tanks" in the U.S. But that support amounts to only 16 percent of our annual income: 84 percent comes from individuals and foundations. No corporation gives more than 5 percent of annual income. Corporations contribute to us because they agree with free-market stands, just as unions and foundations fund liberal advocacy groups that take opposing views.

Heartland doesn’t take positions to raise money. If it did, it would avoid controversial positions on such topics as global warming, the war on drugs, and smoking bans.

Finally, and for the record, no one on Heartland’s board of directors works for the tobacco, oil, or automobile industries. Walter Buchholtz, a former member of Heartland’s board, was never a "public relations advisor" for The Heartland Institute -- that was his title with ExxonMobil, not Heartland. Roy Marden retired from Philip Morris long ago and left Heartland’s Board in 2008. Tom Walton retired from General Motors in 2008. Heartland’s board of directors has 15 members, some of whom were founding members of the organization.

Q: Can you reply to specific accusations made by MediaTransparency?

A: Yes. MediaTransparency is a Web site for conspiracy theorists that grew out of attempts in the 1990s to blame liberal set-backs on what Hillary Rodham Clinton famously called “the vast right-wing conspiracy.” It’s odd because while claiming to be devoted to “transparency” it doesn’t reveal who its own donors are, and it doesn’t dare mention who funds liberal advocacy groups.

The MediaTransparency Web site (as of November 2008) had posted a list of contributions to The Heartland Institute allegedly made by “conservative” foundations totaling $2.6 million. We raised approximately $30 million during the 20 years (1986-2006) covered by the report, so these gifts account for less than 10 percent of our total income. I suppose it is up to us to point out the obvious: More than 90 percent of our income came from sources other than the 37 foundations our paranoid critics think rule the world.

The truth is that we solicit the support of these foundations, and they contribute because they agree with our free-market philosophy, not because we are part of some vast right-ring conspiracy.

Q: Can you reply to specific accusations made by SourceWatch?

A. Yes. SourceWatch is a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, a partisan advocacy group. Heartland is one of scores of free-market think tanks that are unfairly criticized on this site.

The site devotes much space to Heartland’s alleged ties to Philip Morris and the tobacco industry. A former board member, Roy Marden, indeed worked for Philip Morris/Altria during some of his time on Heartland’s board, and he helped convince others in the company to approve contributions to us because of our opposition to high taxes on cigarettes, the abuse of tort law leading up to the Master Settlement Agreement, and other tobacco-related issues. This was not a conflict of interest: All nonprofit organizations put representatives of foundations and corporations on their boards with the expectation that they help “give or get” financial support.

Philip Morris’ support never amounted to more than 5 percent of Heartland’s annual budget. None of the correspondence between Marden and his colleagues at Philip Morris suggests any improper influence over Heartland’s programs or positions, and indeed there was none. Heartland was speaking up for over-taxed smokers and against nanny state regulations long before Philip Morris offered any funding and before Marden joined the organization’s board. None of these simple and exculpatory facts are reported by SourceWatch.

Similarly, SourceWatch reports contributions to Heartland by ExxonMobil and implies improper influence, but again presents no evidence of this occurring. Walter Buchholtz was a public relations advisor for ExxonMobil during his service on The Heartland Institute’s Board of Directors, and like Marden, he helped persuade his company to contribute to Heartland. He never exerted improper influence on any Heartland staff, and his company never gave more than 5 percent the organization’s annual receipts.

ExxonMobil has not contributed to Heartland since 2006. Indeed, gifts from all energy companies - coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear - combined did not exceed 5 percent of Heartland’s budget in 2007.

Q: Can you reply to specific accusations made by ExxonSecrets?

A: Yes. ExxonSecrets is a project of Greenpeace, the radical environmental group that seeks to ban all or nearly all logging, mining, and cars and trucks in the U.S. Fueling alarmism about global warming by wildly exaggerating the human role and the likely consequences of warming is one way they seek to achieve these goals. Naturally, Greenpeace doesn’t like us.

The “Factsheet” on Heartland at ExxonSecrets is loaded with errors, from the very first sentence (we were founded in 1984, not “the 1990s”) to the outdated lists of directors, to the false assertion that Walt Buchholtz, a former board member, “serves as Heartland’s Government Relations Advisor,” a deliberate misreading of a tax form filed several years ago.

The site presents a list of gifts from ExxonMobil to Heartland, apparently based on annual reports from ExxonMobil, but fails to mention that the gifts never exceeded 5 percent of Heartland’s annual budgets, makes no mention of Heartland’s policies that separate donors from our researchers and writers, and presents no evidence at all of an improper relationship. It should matter that Heartland gets 95 percent of its income from energy consumers and only 5 percent from energy producers, but this fact doesn’t appear on ExxonSecrets.

While the first gift to Heartland reported on the ExxonSecrets site appears to have been made in 1998, the site fails to report that Heartland was questioning the science behind the global warming scare since 1994. And although ExxonMobil hasn’t contributed to Heartland since 2006, Heartland greatly increased its concentration and publication output on global warming in 2007 and again in 2008.

Q: Who funds The Heartland Institute?

A: The Heartland Institute is a publicly supported charity under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. Its funding comes from tax-deductible contributions from approximately 2,700 individuals, foundations, and corporations.

Heartland does not solicit or accept grants from government agencies, does not conduct contract research, and it does not rely on direct mail to raise money. No corporate donor contributes more than 5 percent of its annual budget.

People contribute to The Heartland Institute because they share our belief that better information and understanding can improve public policies in such important areas as education, environmental protection, and health care. For more than two decades, Heartland authors have discovered and promoted free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

We do not take positions in order to appease or avoid losing support from individual donors. We have, in fact, a long record of standing behind our research even when it means losing the support of major donors.

For many years, we provided a complete list of Heartland’s corporate and foundation donors on this Web site and challenged other think tanks and advocacy groups to do the same. To our knowledge, not a single group followed our lead.

After much deliberation and with some regret, we now keep confidential the identities of all our donors for the following reasons:

• People who disagree with our views have taken to selectively disclosing names of donors who they think are unpopular in order to avoid addressing the merits of our positions. Listing our donors makes this unfair and misleading tactic possible. By not disclosing our donors, we keep the focus on the issue.
  

• We have procedures in place that protect our writers and editors from undue influence by donors. This makes the identities of our donors irrelevant.
  

• We frequently take positions at odds with those of the individuals and companies who fund us, so it is unfair to them as well as to us to mention their funding when expressing our point of view.
  

• No corporate donor gives more than 5 percent of our budget, and most give far less than that. We have a diverse funding base that is too large to accurately summarize each time we issue a statement.

If you do not approve of this policy, your argument is not with us but with those who would abuse a sincere effort at transparency. We urge anyone who sees the need for objective research and commentary on public policy issues to join us as a Member or donor.

Q: What is The Heartland Institute’s stance on environment issues, particularly global warming?

A: The Heartland Institute seeks to bring sound science and economics to the debate on environmental issues. We believe there is too much alarmism in the debates over many environmental issues, and too little attention being paid to the real science. In the specific case of global warming, we believe some warming occurred during the 20th century, but there is no consensus on how much of that warming was due to human activities, whether the warming will continue, or whether its consequences will be positive for plants and wildlife and human civilization, or negative.

Heartland is a major source of research and commentary in the U.S. questioning whether enough is known about climate change to justify government action. It has run newspaper ads challenging Al Gore to debate his critics; hosted an international conference in March 2008 that attracted some 550 scientists, economists, and policy experts "to explore issues ignored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)"; and distributed more than 1 million videos and books on global warming in 2007.

Heartland is not a scientific research organization. In recent years, it has been providing a platform for the so-called "skeptics" in the global warming debate because (a) it’s apparent that advocates of more government power exploit the public’s scientific illiteracy to advance their agenda, (b) the economic consequences of greenhouse gas emission programs (on the scale proposed by Gore etc.) would be devastating, and (c) no other group seems able to raise the dollars needed to run ads, host conferences, and distribute books, studies, and videos as we’ve been doing.

Q: How much funding does The Heartland Institute receive from energy companies?

A: Heartland reported income and spending of $5.2 million and a full-time staff of 25 in 2007. Funding comes from approximately 2,700 individuals, foundations, and corporations.

Heartland’s donor base has always been diverse. All energy companies combined -- oil, coal, natural gas, and utilities -- gave less than 5 percent of its budget in 2007 and probably will in 2008. About 16 percent of its budget comes from corporations, with the rest from foundations and individuals.

Q: Is Heartland's research improperly influenced by its donors?

A: No. Heartland has clear policies that protect its researchers from inappropriate contact or influence from donors. Specifically:

• Authors are kept at "arm's length" from funders and communicate only via the editor as part of a peer-review process. Comments from donors or potential donors are first vetted and then submitted as being from anonymous sources.

• Comments submitted by donors during peer-review procedures are given no greater weight than those of other reviewers, and no more than the qualifications of their authors may merit.

• Donors are not given the opportunity to "kill" research that turns out unfavorable to their interests, or to insist on changes to publications before their release.

• As a courtesy to donors, we share with them advance copies of the studies they helped fund, and we often solicit their advice on what audiences to target during promotional campaigns. We also provide donors with multiple copies of the studies they help fund for free or at reduced prices.

Q: What makes The Heartland Institute unique or distinctive?

A: Three things make The Heartland Institute distinctive: (1) we focus on reaching every state elected official in the U.S. (there are 7,300 of them) rather than national elected officials or officials in one particular state; (2) we publish "public policy newspapers" -- tabloid-sized, 20-page monthly publications on newsprint -- on five key public policy topics: school reform, environmental protection, budget and tax, health care, and telecom policy; (3) we act as a clearinghouse for the work of other free-market think tanks and advocacy groups in the U.S. (there are more than 300 of them now), featuring their work on our Web site, in our publications, and as speakers at our events.

Q: Who is Joseph Bast?

A: Bast (and Heartland) first began to address environmental issues in 1994 when Bast coauthored Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism (Madison Books, 1994, second ed. 1995). Of his perspective on environmental issues, Bast has written,

I was an outdoors boy growing up in a small town near Green Bay, Wisconsin and was deeply involved in environmental groups during my college days and even after starting The Heartland Institute. I edited the Sierra Club’s Illinois newsletter, subscribed to Earth First! read all of Edward Abbey’s books, etc. My epiphany occurred around 1993, when a professor of economics at Wheaton College, P.J. Hill, invited me to coauthor a book with him on environmental issues. I was astonished to learn that most of what I "knew" about environmental issues was simply wrong, and that market-based solutions exist to most environmental problems. That book, Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism, sold more than 20,000 copies and went through two editions.

Since 1995, Bast launched Environment & Climate News, one of Heartland’s five monthly public policy newspapers; coauthored several Heartland policy studies on climate change issues; and edited the revised second edition of Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1,500 Years by S. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, as well as a new edition of Roy Innis’ Energy Keepers – Energy Killers, The New Civil Rights Battle. His writing has appeared in many publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, The Cato Journal, and USA Today.