The Heartland Institute is “extremely influential” in Donald Trump’s policy circles, according to the head of the climate science denial group’s UK-EU branch.

Speaking on the Peter McCormack Show on 26 February, Lois Perry claimed that the institute boasts “very strong affiliations” with “certain big individuals” in Trump’s team. 

“Heartland has been extremely influential in helping to shape policy at the highest level… under Trump’s administration, and in other Republican administrations,” she said. 

In December, the Heartland Institute launched its new UK-EU arm, pledging to “establish a satellite office to provide resources to conservative policymakers throughout Europe”.

The launch featured a speech from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who made a keynote address to the group’s 40th anniversary fundraiser in Chicago, Illinois, in September. Farage is an ally of Lois Perry. Both are former leaders of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). 

As revealed by DeSmog, Heartland has been working closely with far-right politicians in Europe to undermine the bloc’s green reforms. Over the past year, the Heartland Institute’s campaigns in Europe have “quickly grown to a torrent”, according to the group.

Trump, who received more than $32 million from the oil and gas sector for his 2024 campaign, has pledged to once again withdraw the U.S. from the flagship 2015 Paris Agreement, which set an international target for limiting global warming. He has also declared a “national energy emergency” to allow the U.S. to “drill, baby, drill” for new fossil fuels.

These policies mirror the 10-point wish list delivered to Trump’s transition team by the Heartland Institute, which urged the incoming president to adopt a radical anti-climate, pro-fossil fuel agenda.

The group has denied that humans are driving climate change, which it has called a “delusion”. Heartland received at least $676,000 between 1998 and 2007 from U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil, and has received donations from foundations linked to the owners of Koch Industries – a fossil fuel giant and a leading sponsor of climate science denial.

Perry has said it’s her “personal belief” that climate change “is happening” but “is not man made”. She formerly ran the anti-net zero pressure group CAR26, which has claimed that carbon dioxide is “essential to all life” and that its “welcome growth has greened our planet saving countless human and other lives”.

The Heartland Institute “specializes in the promotion of climate change denial and fossil fuel industry propaganda” climate scientist Michael Mann told DeSmog.

“The fact that the Trump administration would have any connection to them at all speaks to how deeply embedded the fossil fuel industry – and petrostate actors such as Russia – are in the new Trump administration.”

The Heartland Institute was approached for comment.

Heartland’s Influence

According to Heartland Institute senior fellow Anthony Watts, Trump’s climate policies are epitomised by two phrases: “slash and burn”, and “scorched earth”.

During Trump’s first term, the Heartland Institute contributed to the president’s anti-climate agenda. 

The group advised a member of the president’s National Security Council on how to dispute long-established climate science. William Happer – who once claimed that carbon dioxide had been demonized much like “the poor Jews under Hitler” – sought Heartland’s advice on how to challenge the idea that burning fossil fuels is leading to dangerous levels of global heating.

Heartland’s then-CEO, Joseph Blast, was invited by the president to the White House Rose Garden on 1 June 2017 when Trump first announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement (a policy reversed by President Joe Biden in 2021).

The Heartland Institute also advised the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during Trump’s first term. Former Republican congressman Tim Huelskamp, who was at the time running the Heartland Institute, admitted in 2018 that the group had been “working with the EPA on policy and personnel decisions.”

He added: “They recognized us as the pre-eminent organisation opposing the radical climate alarmism agenda and instead promoting sound science and policy.”

Emails obtained by the Environmental Defence Fund and the Southern Environmental Law Centre showed how John Konkus, a senior EPA official, assured the institute that it would invite Heartland-affiliated scientists and economists to a public hearing on science standards.

While in Congress, Huelskamp’s top donor was Koch Industries.

Heartland has been an influential force on Trump’s administrations despite controversies surrounding the organisation. In 2012, the group launched a billboard campaign comparing believers in global warming to “murderers and madmen” such as the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Charles Manson, and Osama bin Laden. 

Heartland was forced to pull the campaign within 24 hours, and lost an estimated $825,000 in expected donations, a number of its directors, and almost its entire branch in Washington D.C.

“We’re bringing a little bit of the American magic to the UK,” Lois Perry said in her interview with Peter McCormack. “We want to influence policymakers. We want to talk to politicians. And we’re already doing all this stuff.”

Perry previously told DeSmog that Heartland is “advocating for a balanced, evidence-based approach to climate policy, not the one-size-fits-all alarmism that seems to make headlines.” 

She added: “As for my past with UKIP and CAR26, I wear those roles with pride. I’ve always been upfront about my views: climate change happens, but the hysteria around human causation is, frankly, a bit of a stretch. CO2 is indeed vital for life, turning our planet into a blooming, green paradise rather than a barren wasteland.”

In reality, authors working for the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.

The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide pollution “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought” – all of which “will put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”

The sole responsibility for any content supported by the European Media and Information Fund lies with the author(s) and it may not necessarily reflect the positions of the EMIF and the Fund Partners, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European University Institute.