{"id":4738,"date":"2015-06-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www-prod.greenpeace.org\/usa\/institute-for-energy-research-ier-american-energy-alliance-aea\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T07:44:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:44:37","slug":"institute-for-energy-research-ier-american-energy-alliance-aea","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/climate\/climate-deniers\/front-groups\/institute-for-energy-research-ier-american-energy-alliance-aea\/","title":{"rendered":"Institute for Energy Research (IER) & American Energy Alliance (AEA)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group<\/span>
$684,742 from Koch foundations, 1997-2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Institute for Energy Research was founded by Charles Koch<\/a>\u00a0and CEO Robert Bradley, a former Enron executive, in Texas under its former name<\/a>, the Institute for Humane Studies of Texas.<\/p>\n

Thomas Pyle, a former Koch and oil-industry lobbyist, is the President of IER and the American Energy Alliance, the 501c4 counterpart to IER. Pyle is directing\u00a0Donald Trump’s Energy Department transition team, after Trump cited\u00a0an IER study\u00a0in a promise to expand federal oil and gas leasing.<\/p>\n

Politico reports that Koch was among donors to $3.6 million advertising campaign<\/a>, run by AEA in the run up to the 2012 U.S. presidential election,\u00a0blaming President Barack Obama for high gas prices.<\/p>\n

According to ProPublica, AEA received $2,339,960 from organizations\u00a0in the Koch network. This\u00a0included almost $1.5 million from\u00a0Freedom Partners<\/a>, a 501c6 business league directed by many of the most prominent members of the Koch brothers’ inner-political circle (Richard Fink, Marc Short, Wayne Gable, and Kevin Gentry) with anonymous funding sources from attendees of “Koch World<\/a>” meetings.<\/p>\n

ProPublica visual: Koch network dark money to AEA<\/strong>\"American<\/a><\/p>\n

I<\/strong>ER promotes discredited research:<\/strong> IER supported and promoted the “Spanish<\/a>” and “Danish<\/a>” studies critical of clean energy jobs, both of which have been debunked.\u00a0As of 2015, IER staff were using\u00a0the “Spanish” and “Danish” studies to lobby state legislators, in support of efforts to end state laws requiring increased generation of clean energy, or “renewable portfolio standards.” One such effort succeeded in freezing\u00a0Ohio’s clean energy law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

IER argued that efforts to curb global warming would accomplish little at too great a cost<\/a>, promotes ACCF\/NAM and Heritage Foundation studies<\/a>\u00a0that exaggerate the costs of climate policy, and discourages U.S. leadership<\/a> on the international stage.<\/p>\n