Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group
$83,284 from Koch foundations, 1997-2017.
The Commonwealth Foundation is a free market think tank that focuses on state issues in Pennsylvania. Commonwealth’s CEO personally called the integrity of climatologist Michael Mann into question following “climategate,” announcing the release of a Commonwealth report calling for an independent investigation of scientists whose emails were stolen.
Commonwealth’s “Energy Facts PA” website makes little attempt to hold back the bias of its financiers, citing the debunked “Spanish study” to conflate clean energy with job loss, promoting “climategate” as evidence that Pennsylvania does not need a climate policy, and denying pollution problems associated with hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.
Commonwealth’s Board of Directors links them to the Sarah Scaife and Carthage Foundations, through chairman Michael Gleba, and the Philip M. McKenna Foundation, through T. William Boxx. These foundations have collectively provided millions of dollars to Commonwealth, and millions more to other climate denial institutions also funded by the Koch foundations.
The Commonwealth Foundation is a member of the State Policy Network.