Institute for Energy Research / American Energy Alliance
The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a nonprofit “partner” organization of the American Energy Alliance, which is a 501(c)(4) grassroots organization designed to communicate IER’s policies to voters. The groups are run by Tom Pyle, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. He also worked for former strident anti-environmentalist members of Congress Tom Delay and Rich Pombo. Pyle regularly attends the mega-donor summits organized by the Koch brothers.
In 2016, the Charles Koch Foundation contributed a total of $173,380.
In 2015, the Charles Koch Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute contributed a combined total of $97,495 to IER.
IER was founded in 1989 from a predecessor nonprofit organization registered by Charles Koch and Robert L. Bradley Jr. The American Energy Alliance was founded by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute to fight the BTU tax proposal in 1993, and in recent years has been funded by Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries.
One of IER’s directors is Steven Hayward with the American Enterprise Institute and the Pacific Research Institute. In 2007, Hayward was exposed for offering to pay scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change $10,000 for written critiques of the IPCC’s newest findings.
In recent years, IER has unsuccessfully worked to prevent extensions of the federal government production tax credit and investment tax credit for wind and solar energy. IER also echoes flawed industry-funded reports attacking the EPA’ Clean Power Plan.
