think tanks and the environment

Environmental Quality Management / DOI 10.1002/tqem / Winter 2006 / 107

Jim DiPeso

TIPS & TRENDS

Think Tanks and the Environment

Think tanks are to the nation’s capital what

smelters and sawmills are to industry: the first

stop in a supply chain of ideas for the town’s

main industry—politics.

The old image of think tanks as detached tem-

ples where objective scholars produce nonparti-

san recommendations has been superseded by

high-powered, ideologically driven institutions

that use thinly disguised lobbying to turn their

ideas on a broad range of domestic and foreign

policy issues into law.

Politically connected think tanks in Wash-

ington, D.C., grind out studies, books, confer-

ences, policy papers, congressional testimony,

op-eds, and TV talking heads. These are then

fed into the persuasion vortex of media and

lobbying that stokes the policy machine at the

White House and on Capitol Hill. The end

product is public policy implementing ideolog-

ical agendas that the think tanks and their fi-

nancial sponsors support.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI),

for example, founded in 1984, calls itself a “full

service” think tank. Not content to merely hand

down ideas from an ivory tower, the institute and

others like it try to shape the terms of political de-

bates to their advantage.

As the CEI states on its Web site, “It is not

enough to simply identify and articulate solu-

tions to public policy problems; it is also neces-

sary to defend and promote those solutions at all

phases of the public policy debate.”1

Tanks on the Right, Tanks on the LeftCEI, the Heritage Foundation,2 and the Amer-

ican Enterprise Institute,3 along with the libertar-

ian Cato Institute,4 are among the better-known

idea mills hawking the wares of the political

right. Playing catch-up on the left side of the

ideas street are persuasion shops such as the In-

stitute for Policy Studies5 and the Center for

American Progress.6

Environment and energy issues have drawn

the attention of politically oriented, multi-issue

think tanks. Those on the right (to the extent

they give credence to the need for environmental

protection) advocate policies minimizing govern-

ment regulation of business activities, which is in

line with their overall support for limiting gov-

ernment’s scope. Those on the left highlight the

urgency of strong government action in order to

reduce environmental threats to public health

and to natural resources.

The Rise of IdeologyIdeological think tanks have overshadowed re-

search institutions that have been around D.C. for

decades, and which continue to maintain a cul-

ture of detached objectivity and bipartisan cre-

dentials. The Brookings Institution, for example,

follows a centrist bent and has a cast of both Re-

publicans and Democrats on its board of trustees.7

© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).DOI: 10.1002/tqem.20126

Jim DiPeso108 / Winter 2006 / Environmental Quality Management / DOI 10.1002/tqem

Likewise, in the environmental arena, the

World Resources Institute includes on its board of

directors both former Vice President Al Gore (a

Democrat) and former EPA Administrator

William Ruckelshaus (a Republican).8

Resources for the Future describes itself as “in-

dependent, balanced and objective.” Its board of

directors includes Frank Loy, who served as under-

secretary of state for

global affairs during

President Bill Clinton’s

administration, and

former Republican

Congressman James

Greenwood, along with

a host of business, aca-

demic, and environ-

mental leaders.9

The growth and in-

fluence of ideological think tanks has raised con-

cerns that such institutions are functioning as

high-grade “washing machines” for lobbying

money from interests that promote self-serving

agendas. As Steven C. Clemons, a researcher at the

New America Foundation, wrote in a 2003 article:

It used to be that think tanks were funded

to do independent basic research that up-

held the organizations’ missions but

wasn’t targeted at creating a specific effect.

Increasingly, though, think tanks are

being funded to do applied research aimed

at creating what’s called an “advocacy im-

pact,” seducing legislators and administra-

tion officials to adopt their policy propos-

als or to heed their counsel on important

policy questions.10

Clemons’s New America Foundation tries to

steer clear of hard-edged ideology. Founded in

1999 by venture capitalists and technology en-

trepreneurs, its mission is to promote policy

ideas that “transcend the conventional political

spectrum.”11

Origins of the Idea MillsThink tanks have been around Washington,

D.C., since the early twentieth century. Brook-

ings, for example, was founded in 1916. The ori-

gin of think tanks and their political influence is

a product of deeply rooted Western thinking

about the importance of expert knowledge in

guiding society and the use of empirical research

methods to discover that knowledge.12

The idea of a think tank was first conceptual-

ized four centuries ago by Francis Bacon, an early

seventeenth-century British philosopher and the-

orist. In his book The New Atlantis, Bacon told the

story of a nation guided by scientists working in

a research institution called Salomon’s House.13

Laying the groundwork for American think

tanks were three developments:

• the emergence of social sciences as scholarly

disciplines,

• the early twentieth-century Progressive move-

ment’s belief that social science expertise

could solve public policy problems with a

minimum of partisan wrangling, and

• the federal government’s increasing need for

expert advice on the technical topics that

were becoming germane to a complex indus-

trial civilization.14

Until the latter third of the twentieth century,

think tanks were reluctant to enter the political

fray.15 But since then, these “idea mills” have pro-

liferated, growing from 70 to more than 300.

More than half of the new think tanks display a

distinct ideological complexion.16

Thought-Shop ProliferationThe rapid growth of think tanks in recent

decades reflects the expansion of the federal gov-

The growth and influence ofideological think tanks has raisedconcerns that such institutions arefunctioning as high-grade“washing machines” for lobbyingmoney from interests that promoteself-serving agendas.

Environmental Quality Management / DOI 10.1002/tqem / Winter 2006 / 109Tips & Trends

was earmarked for climate change policy devel-

opment and outreach.21

Richard Mellon Scaife, Joseph Coors, and

Koch Industries are among the leading benefac-

tors of think tanks on the political right. Coors

was the donor who gave the Heritage Foundation

its start in 1973, with a $250,000 contribution.

The Koch family fired up the Cato Institute with

a $500,000 gift in 1977.22 Companies that have

contributed to the Heritage Foundation recently

include ChevronTexaco, General Motors, Ford,

Pfizer, United Parcel, Boeing, and Lockheed Mar-

tin.23

Differences in Deployment But the success of

conservative think

tanks is a function not

so much of dollar

amounts, but of how

the dollars are de-

ployed, at least accord-

ing to an article by

think tank observer

Andrew Rich that was published recently in the

Stanford Social Innovation Review.24

Conservative foundations emphasize giving

their favorite multi-issue think tanks ongoing

general support, says Rich; by contrast, liberal

foundations prefer to give to single-issue organi-

zations or else finance specific, tightly defined

projects.

“By providing general operating support to

policy institutes far more rarely than their con-

servative counterparts, progressive foundations

make it difficult for progressive organizations to

sustain operating staff and functions,” Rich

states.25

The benefactors of conservative think tanks

have carried out a long-term strategy to win the

war of ideas. In a documentary aired in 2005,

the “Marketplace” business news radio program

ernment’s reach over American life, and the deep-

ening of ideological disputes that have riven the

nation’s politics since the 1960s.17

The influence of conservative think tanks has

grown spectacularly since the outset of President

Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1981. Reagan

often was ridiculed by his critics for his less-than-

accurate command of facts. He had other fish to

fry, however. The goal of his speeches was not to

describe the world as it was but to portray it as it

ought to be. Reagan, called the Great Communi-

cator, skillfully used language to speed the ad-

vance of ideas that had lain in the public policy

backwater during the New Deal and Great Society

years.

Armed (and Financed) for BattleOne explanation for the success of the Her-

itage Foundation and other think tanks on the

political right has been their focus on making the

marketplace of ideas the central battleground for

political power. Frustrated by their years in the

political wilderness, activists on the political right

were determined that their side would be the

most heavily armed in the battle of ideas.18

Money hasn’t hurt, either. Foundations on

the political right spend $100 million or more per

year producing and pitching their ideas to the

media and government officials.19 The Heritage

Foundation alone spent more than $36 million in

2005.20

Think tanks allow powerful individuals, foun-

dations, and industries to gain and hold political

influence in Washington. The institutes function

as nonprofit organizations, eligible to receive tax-

deductible contributions.

In 2004, for example, the American Enterprise

Institute received $225,000 in general support

grants from ExxonMobil, which is skeptical about

the role of human activities in global warming.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute received

$270,000 from ExxonMobil, two-thirds of which

Think tanks allow powerfulindividuals, foundations, and

industries to gain and hold politicalinfluence in Washington.


reported on the now-closed Olin Foundation.

During the latter half of the twentieth century,

the Olin Foundation distributed nearly $400

million for the purpose of encouraging think

tanks to push once-marginal ideas (such as So-

cial Security privatization) into the center of po-

litical debate.26

Conservative think tanks often spend heav-

ily on aggressive marketing and promotion. In

2002, for example, the Heritage Foundation

spent 20 percent of its $33 million budget on

public and government relations.27 By contrast,

in 2004, the Brookings Institution spent only 3

percent of its $39 million budget on communi-

cations.

No Regulation, Few LimitsThink tanks are not subject to the regulations

applied to lobbyists, who must register with the

federal government

and file regular reports

on their activities,

such as spending on

meals, trips, and gifts

provided to govern-

ment officials. Think

tanks face no such re-

quirements.28

Organizations that are eligible for tax-

deductible contributions must comply with lim-

its on lobbying. But the line between advocacy

(“Congressman, this bill benefits America”) and

outright lobbying (“Congressman, we ask you to

vote for this bill”) is tenuous. The clever can by-

pass—or tunnel through—that line with ease.

Consider this story about President Reagan

speaking to the Heritage Foundation in 1986: In

his speech, Reagan commended the Foundation’s

promotion of ideas and its contacts with mem-

bers of Congress—“for informational purposes

only, of course.” The latter phrase was greeted

with knowing laughter.29

Cachet and Credibility Think tanks have cachet that lobbyists may

lack. Notes the New America Foundation’s

Clemons, “One reason why think tanks are so at-

tractive to moneyed political players is that the

intellectuals who work for them seem more legit-

imate than corporate spokespeople or lobbyists.

So part of what’s being bought is credibility.”30

Do You Hear an Echo?Think tanks can gauge how extensively

elected officials are making use of their fact

sheets, briefing papers, and studies by tracking

the “echo chamber” effect. The “Marketplace”

program offered an example of this effect in prac-

tice, showing how the Heritage Foundation’s

skillful deployment of policy, media relations,

and public outreach strategies rapidly propelled

the idea of repealing the federal estate tax from

the margins of politics to the center of public de-

bate, with significant public support and majority

backing in Congress.31

Think tanks spare no effort to get the media’s

attention. Their researchers regularly show up on

television news programs, and their materials are

quoted by newspapers and magazines.

The Heritage Foundation, for example, boasts

that its recommendations for post-Hurricane Ka-

trina rebuilding on the Gulf Coast were reported

in 1,400 newspaper articles.32 Heritage has gone

so far as to offer reporters free training on using

computers to analyze data, through its $1 mil-

lion-per-year data analysis center.33

The rightist think tanks have served as the

policy seed bank for congressional Republicans,

the Reagan administration, and both Bush ad-

ministrations. Shortly after Reagan’s 1981 inau-

guration, the Heritage Foundation produced and

skillfully promoted a 1,000-page tome, Mandate

for Leadership, listing hundreds of foreign and do-

mestic policy proposals and steps for giving them

the force of law.

Think tanks can gauge howextensively elected officials aremaking use of their fact sheets,briefing papers, and studies bytracking the “echo chamber” effect.

Environmental Quality Management / DOI 10.1002/tqem / Winter 2006 / 111Tips & Trends

from liberal financier George Soros, the Center

for American Progress aims to push the political

left’s agenda as hard as the Heritage Foundation

and other conservative think tanks push the po-

litical right’s agenda.39

The Center for American Progress feels an ur-

gent need to catch up. As communications vice

president Laura Nichols commented shortly after

the Center opened:

We progressives feel we’re not in the game

when it comes to the media. We’re not on

cable to the extent the other side is. We

don’t have the talking heads. We’re not of-

fering effective pushback for the right-wing

agenda. So one of our goals is to start build-

ing a new bench of cable commentators.40

The Public Good: Lost in the Debate?If the Center for American Progress succeeds,

television viewers can look forward to future

news programs and cable shoutfests with dueling

scholars from D.C. think tanks on the right and

on the left.

But is the public well served by hard-edged

ideological debates? The New America Founda-

tion’s Clemons has his doubts, arguing that such

polarization leads to stale thinking and blocks

consideration of ideas that transcend heavily de-

fended ideological borders. He notes, “Deep lob-

bying is helping the think-tank sector thrive,

while enlightened policy decisions wither in the

well-worn grooves of a paralyzed debate.”41

Notes1. Competitive Enterprise Institute. About CEI. Available on-line at http://www.cei.org/pages/about.cfm.

2. The Heritage Foundation. About the Heritage Foundation.Available online at http://www.heritage.org/about/.

3. American Enterprise Institute. AEI’s organization and pur-poses. Available online at http://www.aei.org/about/filter.all/default.asp.

4. Cato Institute. About Cato. Available online athttp://www.cato.org/about/about.html.

Since then, Heritage has been the go-to think

tank for Republican legislators and Executive

Branch policymakers.34 Heritage has a sophisti-

cated “government relations” (or, as some might

more bluntly term it, “lobbying”) operation. In

2005, the foundation conducted more than 600

briefings for administration officials, lawmakers,

and members of their staffs.35

Hot Air on Global WarmingOn the preeminent issue of climate change,

the Competitive Enterprise Institute and many of

its conservative allies in the think tank commu-

nity continue to promote the position—largely

discredited by mainstream climate science—that

there is insufficient evidence of a human finger-

print on the observed rise in global average tem-

peratures. Based on this stance, they argue that

there is no need to cap emissions of carbon diox-

ide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases.36

For example, the Heritage Foundation high-

lights on its Web site the arguments of astro-

physicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas that changes in solar

activity are largely responsible for the observed

rise in global average temperatures.37 The solar

thesis has not been found credible by mainstream

climate researchers, however. For example, a

paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Re-

search by authors from the Max Planck Institute

shows that solar variability cannot explain more

than 30 percent of the rise in global average tem-

peratures that has taken place since 1970.38

Nevertheless, the efforts of Heritage and other

right-leaning think tanks give attention to con-

trarian climate-change views that most climate

scientists believe have little merit.

Catching Up on the LeftFeeling outgunned and left behind, the polit-

ical left’s leaders and benefactors have moved re-

cently to imitate the right in trying to shape the

terms of public policy debates. With seed money


5. Institute for Policy Studies. The Institute for Policy Studies.Available online at http://www.ips-dc.org/overview.htm.

6. Center for American Progress. What we’re about. Availableonline at http://www.americanprogress.org/site/c.biJRJ8OVF/b.3459/.

7. The Brookings Institution. Board of trustees. Available on-line at http://www.brookings.org/ea/trustees.htm.

8. World Resources Institute. WRI board of directors: Mem-bers. Available online at http://staff.wri.org/board.cfm.

9. Resources for the Future. Board of directors. Available on-line at http://www.rff.org/rff/About/Board_of_Directors.cfm.

10. Clemons, S. C. (2003, November 19). Thought control.Available online at http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&DocID=1405.

11. New America Foundation. Mission. Available online athttp://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=overview.

12. Ricci, D. M. (1993). The transformation of American poli-tics: The new Washington and the rise of think tanks. NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press.

13. Ibid.

14. Smith, J. A. (1991). The idea brokers: Think tanks and therise of the new policy elite. New York: Free Press.

Rich, A. (2005, Spring). War of ideas. Stanford Social Innova-tion Review. Available online at http://www.ssireview.org/arti-cles/entry/war_of_ideas/.

15. Abelson, D. E. (2002, November). Think tanks and U.S.foreign policy: An historical view. U.S. Foreign PolicyAgenda—An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department ofState, 7(3). Available online at http://usinfo.state.gov/jour-nals/itps/1102/ijpe/pj73abelson.htm.

16. Rich, op. cit., note 14.

17. Smith, op. cit., note 14.

18. Ibid.

19. Von Drehle, D. (2003, October 23). Liberals get a thinktank of their own. Washington Post. Available online athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2623-2003Oct22?language=printer.

20. The Heritage Foundation. 2005 Annual Report. Availableonline at http://www.heritage.org/about/reports.cfm.

21. ExxonMobil Corporation. 2004 Worldwide Contributions

and Community Investments: Public Information and PolicyResearch.

22. Lapham, L. H. (2004, September). Tentacles of rage: TheRepublican propaganda mill, a brief history. Harpers. Avail-able online at http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Repub-lican-Propaganda1sep04.htm.

23. The Heritage Foundation. 2004 Annual Report. Availableonline at http://www.heritage.org/about/reports.cfm.


25. Ibid.

26. Scott, A., & Tong, S. (2005, June). Under the influence:Think tanks and the money that fuels them. Marketplace.Available online at http://marketplace.publicradio.org/fea-tures/under_the_influence/


28. Clemons, op. cit., note 10.



31. Scott & Tong, op. cit., note 26.

32. The Heritage Foundation, op. cit., note 20.

33. Deane, C. (2002, April 19). Computer-assisted influence?Think tanks seek payoff by aiding press with data. Washing-ton Post.


35. The Heritage Foundation, op. cit., note 20.

36. Murray, I. (2006, July 11). Global warming FAQ. Compet-itive Enterprise Institute. Available online at http://www.cei.org/gencon/004,05430.cfm.

37. Baliunas, S. (2002, August 22). Warming up to the truth:The real story about climate change. Available online athttp://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/HL758.cfm.

38. Solanki, S. K., & Krivova, N. A. (2003). Can solar variabil-ity explain global warming since 1970? Journal of Geophysi-cal Research, 108(A5), 1200. Abstract available online athttp://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2002JA009753.shtml.

39. Von Drehle, op. cit., note 19.

40. Ibid.


Jim DiPeso is policy director for Republicans for Environmental Protection. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Formore information about Republicans for Environmental Protection, visit their Web site at http://www.rep.org.

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