The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is a conservative think tank based in Austin, Texas, and a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). TPPF has used disinformation about offshore wind turbines killing whales to fundraise and filed a lawsuit to block an offshore wind project based on similar false claims. The Texas Public Policy Foundation has also pushed misleading claims about renewables. In 2018, it launched Life:Powered, a project that was run by Bernard McNamee with Kathleen Hartnett-White as a senior fellow and Mike Nasi as a senior advisor.
The think tank’s funders from 2010 were inadvertently made public a few years ago. According to Al Jazeera America, “A 2010 donor list from the IRS shows the Texas Public Policy Foundation receives funding from groups long associated with big oil, gas, and coal, such as Koch Industries, the electric utility Luminant, and the oil and gas investment company the Permian...
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is a conservative think tank based in Austin, Texas, and a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). TPPF has used disinformation about offshore wind turbines killing whales to fundraise and filed a lawsuit to block an offshore wind project based on similar false claims. The Texas Public Policy Foundation has also pushed misleading claims about renewables. In 2018, it launched Life:Powered, a project that was run by Bernard McNamee with Kathleen Hartnett-White as a senior fellow and Mike Nasi as a senior advisor.
The think tank’s funders from 2010 were inadvertently made public a few years ago. According to Al Jazeera America, “A 2010 donor list from the IRS shows the Texas Public Policy Foundation receives funding from groups long associated with big oil, gas, and coal, such as Koch Industries, the electric utility Luminant, and the oil and gas investment company the Permian Basin Acquisition Fund.”
A 2013 report by Progress Texas and the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) found that TPPF received over 3 million dollars from the Koch brothers or organizations they fund. For example, the Koch family foundations and Koch Industries sent $733,333 to TPPF, and $2,581,258 has been donated from the dark money groups DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. In 2016, the Charles Koch Foundation contributed $612,250. In 2015, the Charles Koch Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute contributed a total of $199,697.
TPPF is also a member of several task forces within the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
In 2015, TPPF was supportive of legislation that would have repealed Texas’ RES. The organization’s support for the legislation comes after its 2015-2016 “Legislators’ Guide to the Issues” recommended that state officials eliminate the policy. The guide was issued October 20, 2014.
