Beacon Hill Institute

The Beacon Hill Institute (BHI) is a right-wing think tank that is housed at Suffolk University in Boston, MA until the end of 2016. It was started as the research arm of the Department of Economics.

The institute’s executive director, David Tuerck, has a history of manipulating science on tobacco smoke and climate change. He is currently listed as an “expert” on Heartland’s website and is a regular speaker at their climate denial conferences.

BHI is also an affiliate of the State Policy Network (SPN) and has most recently been cited by both American Legislative Exchange Council members and SPN organizations to discredit renewable energy standards. The reports attacking the laws produced by BHI have been thoroughly debunked by independent economists at Synapse Energy Economics. Synapse found “fundamental flaws in both the energy data and the economic modeling used by BHI.”

In December 2015, Suffolk University announced it will end its partnership with the think tank. David Tuerck said the university made its work impossible by denying research proposals and imposing transparent fund-raising rules, which limited from whom the think tank could take money.