# Heartland Institute Chicago-area libertarian think tank, founded 1984, best known internationally as the **most active institutional driver of climate-change denial** in the United States, and domestically as a longtime partner to [[ALEC]] on energy, environmental, education, and "free-market" model legislation. ## Role in the ALEC orbit Heartland is a [[State Policy Network]] associate and a longtime ALEC ally. On energy and environmental policy especially, Heartland functions as the "research" front-end whose white papers, expert witnesses, and conference presentations feed directly into ALEC's Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force model-bill drafting. Heartland staff regularly testify at ALEC annual meetings; ALEC model bills regularly cite Heartland publications. Heartland's **International Conference on Climate Change** (ICCC), launched in 2008, became the world's largest regular gathering of climate-denial researchers and advocates. ICCC programming has overlapped in both personnel and argumentation with ALEC's anti-climate-regulation agenda. ## Funding and disclosure controversies - **Tobacco-industry origins (1990s):** Heartland received direct funding from Philip Morris in the 1990s and produced public-facing material disputing the health consequences of smoking and the scientific consensus on secondhand smoke. Internal tobacco-industry documents (released via the Master Settlement Agreement litigation) document the relationship in detail. - **Fossil-fuel funding (2000s–2010s):** ExxonMobil, [[Koch Network]] foundations, and [[DonorsTrust]] flows have funded Heartland's climate work. The leaked "Heartland Documents" (February 2012) revealed the funding structure and strategic planning around climate-denial outreach, including to K-12 schools. - **DonorsTrust flows:** A substantial portion of Heartland's funding has passed through [[DonorsTrust]] — intentionally obscuring original donors. ## Recent activity - **Anti-ESG coordination:** Heartland has been a partner to ALEC and the **State Financial Officers Foundation** in the 2022–2025 push for state-level anti-ESG investment rules. The EXPOSEDbyCMD July 2024 analysis identified Heartland as one of the coalition organizations that received dark-money support for anti-ESG legislative campaigns. - **Education-choice work:** Heartland operates a school-reform program aligned with ALEC's education task force. - **AI and platform regulation:** Heartland has extended its libertarian framing into contemporary tech-policy debates on AI, content moderation, and antitrust. ## See Also - [[ALEC]] — Model-legislation partner - [[State Policy Network]] — Associate member - [[Koch Network]] - [[DonorsTrust]] - [[ALEC Ecosystem]]