James M. Taylor

President of the Heartland Institute 

As the President of the Heartland Institute, James M. Taylor is responsible for the alleged crimes of fraud and crimes against future generations and the Earth. Under his leadership, the Heartland Institute continues to be the premiere climate denial organization in the United States spending millions of dollars and advertising campaigns and anti-climate science “education” to maintain the status quo of fossil fuel usage in America. The Heartland Institute is funded heavily by organizations associated with the fossil fuel industry and continues to promote well disproven lies as a distraction and deterrence from climate forward legislation. 

  • Birthday: 1967

    Hometown: unknown

    Primary residence: Arlington Heights, Illinois

    Current role: President of the Heartland Institute (March 2020-present)

    Net worth: unknown

    2022 Total Compensation: $331,563

    Education: 

    • BA in Government from Dartmouth College

    • JD from Syracuse University

    Board memberships, affiliations, and roles:

    • Organizer of Heartland’s International Conferences on Climate Change 

    Past roles: 

    • Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy 

    • President of the Spark of Freedom Foundation (April 2016 - March 2020)

    • Vice President of External Relations at The Heartland Institute (April 2001 - April 2016)

    • Managing Editor of Heartland’s Environment & Climate News (2001-2014) 

    • Legal Analyst for Defenders of Property Rights

    • Managing Editor of CCH Incorporated’s disability law publications 

    • Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute

    Fun facts: 

  • Climate misinformation

    • The Heartland Institute is the country’s most well funded climate misinformation organization. Having received $21,396,961 from other conservative non-profits since 2014. The Heartland Institute uses this money to run media campaigns across the country sowing doubt about climate change and its impacts. In 2023, Heartland reported that their spokespeople appeared in print, online, or broadcast media 9,398 times. 


    Support for fossil fuel industry

    • The Heartland Institute is deeply connected to the network of conservative politicians and organizations backed by the fossil fuel industry. It describes itself as “the pipeline between the freedom movement’s leading writers and thinkers and the nation’s 8,400 national and state elected officials.” In 2023, the Heartland government relations staff made 310,805 contacts with elected officials, including 15 face-to-face meetings. 

    • Through their temperature sensor development, the Heartland Institute is attempting to obtain evidence that CO2 emissions from the fossil fuel industry are not responsible for rising global temperatures, and that climate change is not occurring at a concerning scale. Enabling a climate denial project of this scale only prolongs the harmful pollution of the Earth’s ecosystems and environment for generations to come. 

    • In 2022, James Taylor was paid $331,563 from his work with the Heartland Institute. 

    • Heartland was ranked the #18 Top Influential Think Tank for 2023, #2 among libertarian think tanks, by Academic Influence.

    • The Heartland Institute remains one of the country’s biggest climate change misinformation organizations. 

    • As an Advisory Board member for Project 2025, the Heartland Institute is actively involved in making model policy that would roll back environmental regulations, increase domestic production of fossil fuel energy, and pull the United States out of international climate agreements. 

    • Recently, the Heartland Institute has started building a network of temperature sensors to disprove global warming. The initiative is led by claims that NOAA’s climate sensor readings are not to be believed and that 96% of available climate data is corrupted.

    • For a long time activists have called for major corporations to divest from any association with the Heartland Institute for their climate denialism and extremist beliefs. By removing their acceptability in the mainstream, activists have successfully pushed the Heartland Institute further into the shadows as a “radical” organization. While this has not put a stop to their efforts, the Heartland Institute certainly has less public support than it had 10 years ago. 

    • Science educators have pushed back against the Heartland Institute’s campaign to get teachers to share their climate denial book in classrooms. The National Center for Science Education is a non-profit organization focused on educating the public and educators on the controversies surrounding evolution and climate change, and have led initiatives more than once against the Heartland Institute’s influence in schools

    • “You heard it here, Donald Trump is coming back. Donald Trump is going to win…Donald Trump can be narcissistic, Donald Trump can engage in bad behavior…whether we like Donald Trump’s personality or not, it’s under Donald Trump that America pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement. It’s under Donald Trump that we had a rolling back of regulations on conventional energy. He’s coming back, and it’s going to be wonderful with the momentum we see in Europe for the…true conservative movement.” –Taylor, July 5, 2024 

    • “Climate change is a scapegoat for failed policies from loser politicians.” –Taylor, July 5,  2024

    • “They’re saying ‘the Heartland Institute casting doubt on climate science’... what an absolute joke we are being fed… don’t listen to what the media tell you. Don’t listen to what government bureaucrats for NASA NOAA or anywhere else say.” –Taylor, July 5, 2024

    • “The evidence is powerful, straightforward, and damning. NASA satellite instruments precisely measuring global temperatures show absolutely no warming during the past the past 10 years.” –Taylor, 2011

Connections within the Polluter Industrial Complex

What is the Polluter Industrial Complex?

    • In 2023, the Heartland Institute was described as being among “the most influential forces shaping U.S. conservative politics.”  

    • Heartland describes itself as “the pipeline between the freedom movement’s leading writers and thinkers and the nation’s 8,400 national and state elected officials.” 

    • In 2023, the Heartland government relations staff made 310,805 contacts with elected officials, including 15 face-to-face meetings. 

    • The Heartland Institute’s “Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy” is named after Oregon state Sen. Arthur Robinson, who is a climate change denier. 

    • The Heartland Institute’s Climate Conference – February 25, 2023

      • Keynote speakers: 

        • Marlo Oaks – State Treasurer of Utah – spoke about fighting ESG

        • Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) 

        • Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) 

        • Dr. Peter Hartley and Dr. William Happer 

    • The Heartland Institute has been reported to have connections to the far-right populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD). 

    • The Heartland Institute co-sponsored the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE)’s annual climate conference in 2019. EIKE is allegedly involved with the AfD’s attacks on Greta Thunberg, including AfD candidates likening her to Nazi youth.

    • The Heartland Institute has a very active media presence, both publishing its own content and appearing in other media. 

    • In 2023, Heartland reported that their spokespeople appeared in print, online, or broadcast media 9,398 times. 

    • From February 2020 to April 2020, the Heartland Institute hired Naomi Seibt, a German influencer who was advertised by Heartland as the opposite of Greta Thunberg to spread climate denial and pro fossil fuel messaging. 

      • Seibt was introduced by the Heartland Institute with the following statement: “Unlike the global legacy media’s favorite young climate communicator, Greta Thunberg, Naomi doesn’t want you to ‘panic.’ She wants you to ‘think’ – the way she did to free herself from the climate alarmist indoctrination.”

    • In 2015, the Heartland Institute paid for billboards along the Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago showing a picture of “Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber” with the text: “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” Other billboards featured Charles Manson and Fidel Castro.

    • In attempts to justify this campaign, The Guardian reported that Heartland said: “These rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about how man-made global warming is a crisis and how mankind must take immediate and drastic actions to stop it… these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the "mainstream" media, and liberal politicians say about global warming.”

    • According to its website, the Heartland Institute does not lobby – it contacts elected officials in an educational capacity: “Our government relations staff calls legislators to ask if they need information, are aware of new developments in other states, and if we can send the ‘best available research’ on issues they are coping with.” 

    • Between 2014 and 2020, the Heartland Institute was the top climate misinformation organization receiving large donations from nonprofits, receiving a total of $21,396,961. 

      • In this time period, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund (led by Lawson Bader, another 2024 Climate Criminal) gave the most money to the Heartland Institute – a total of $13.3 million. 

    • The Searle Freedom Trust gave $224,000 to the Heartland Institute from 2014 to 2020. 

    • Between 2014 to 2017, the Mercer Family Foundation donated nearly $2.6 million to the Heartland Institute. 

    • The Dunn Foundation (formerly known as Dunn’s Foundation for Right Thinking) donated $600,000 to Heartland from 2014 to 2020 as well. 

    • Heartland received $361,000 from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Bradley Impact Fund from 2014 to 2020. 

    • The Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund gave $213,000 to Heartland from 2014 to 2020. 

    • The Heartland Institute received $55,000 from Koch Foundations between 1997 and 2011, according to Greenpeace USA.

    • In March 2024, the Heartland Institute – along with Committee for Constructive Tomorrow and National Legal and Policy Center – filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden administration after it approved an offshore wind energy project in Virginia. The three groups claimed that the Biden administration did not consider the project’s impacts on endangered whales in the area. 

    • In 2028, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) sued the EPA for “failing to release information about the Heartland Institute’s efforts to attack climate science.” 

      • SELC and EDF filed a Freedom of Information Act, seeking information about correspondence between EPA and the Heartland Institute.

    • The Heartland Institute is a free market think tank and 501(c)(3) charity. The group describes itself as an “‘action tank’ as well as a ‘think tank’” on its website. 

    • The Heartland Institute is on the Advisory Board of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” 

    • James Taylor is a “frequent speaker” at meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council. 

    • The Heartland Institute is also a member of the State Policy Network.

    • In 2023, the Heartland Institute mailed 8,000 middle and high school teachers across the United States a textbook called “Climate at a Glance” to provide “the data to show the earth is not experiencing a climate crisis.” James Taylor and Anthony Watts co-authored this book, and assert that planetary warming is either good for ecosystems or doesn’t impact extreme weather. 

  • The Heartland Institute’s Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) – named to sow confusion with the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – has sent “educational” material to K-12 and college teachers trying to dispel accepted climate science.

    • American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) – led by Chet Thompson, another 2024 Climate Criminal – donated $150,000 to the Heartland Institute between 2015 and 2018.