Secretive Donors Trust Pumps Far More Money Into Climate Denial And Inaction Than Kochs And Exxon Mobil Combined

A secretive funding organization called Donors Trust spent the last decade funneling vast sums of money to an array of think tanks and activist groups, all dedicated to undermining the science of climate change and heading off the progress of climate policy. That’s according to reporting last week by The Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg and a recent analysis by Greenpeace.

Working in concert with its sister organization, Donors Capital Fund, Donors Trust provided critical funding to some of the leading lights in the climate denial campaign: From 2002 to 2010, Americans for Prosperity received $11 million from Donors Trust, the Heartland Institute received $13.5 million, and the American Enterprise Institute received more than $17 million.

In 2010 alone, Donors Trust dedicated $30 million — 46 percent of all its grants to conservative causes — to climate denial groups, 12 of which owe from 30 to 70 percent of their 2010 funding to the organization. Indeed, some may not have even existed absent the largess; the Donors Fund boosted the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow from a $600,000 operation to $3 million over the years, to cite just one example.

According to Goldenberg, the total contributions of Donors Trust from 2002 to 2010 dwarfs the amounts given by Exxon Mobil or even the Koch Foundation:

By 2010, the dark money amounted to $118m distributed to 102 think tanks or action groups which have a record of denying the existence of a human factor in climate change, or opposing environmental regulations.

The money flowed to Washington thinktanks embedded in Republican party politics, obscure policy forums in Alaska and Tennessee, contrarian scientists at Harvard and lesser institutions, even to buy up DVDs of a film attacking Al Gore.

Throw in Greenpeace’s numbers for 2011, and the total contributions rise to $146 million.

Donors Trust is a form of organization called donor-advised funds, which are apparently not uncommon in America. According to Goldenberg, donor-advised funds offer wealthy donors a good deal of advantages: “They are convenient, cheaper to run than a private foundation, offer tax breaks and are lawful.” They also allow contributors an unusual level of control over where their money ends up going, an advantage that helps combat the tendency for foundation money to “drift left,” as Whitney Ball, the president and CEO of Donors Trust, put it. Finally, in the case of Donors Trust at least, there is complete anonymity for contributors:

“The funding of the denial machine is becoming increasingly invisible to public scrutiny. It’s also growing. Budgets for all these different groups are growing,” said Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, which compiled the data on funding of the anti-climate groups using tax records.

“These groups are increasingly getting money from sources that are anonymous or untraceable. There is no transparency, no accountability for the money. There is no way to tell who is funding them,” Davies said.

Ball told The Guardian that while the organization’s wealthy donors run the gamut of conservative ideologies, from libertarian to social conservative, Donors Trust has allowed them to find common ground in opposing action on climate change and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. “We exist to help donors promote liberty which we understand to be limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise,” she told The Guardian in an interview. The money “won’t be going to liberals.”

Recently, Donors Trust has been dedicating more of its resources to the relatively young Franklin Centre for Government and Public Integrity, marking a strategic shift away from activism centered in Washington, D.C., and towards efforts to scrap climate policy at the individual state level.

Here’s Goldenberg discussing her reporting with Democracy Now! and here’s an in-depth look at the Donors Trust money trail by the Center for Public Integrity, including more details on its state-level operations and a pretty slick interactive infographic.

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Tea Party Senate Hopeful Brags To Donors: ‘I Was The First To Call Obama A Socialist’

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) made no secret of his controversial positions on everything from the dangers of science to eliminating the Voters Rights Act in his time as a Tea Party favorite. In preparation for a Senate run, however, Broun has chosen to keep his views to himself — and his potential donors.

Broun is currently the only Republican who has announced a bid to replace Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the Senate upon the latter’s retirement in 2014. In the interest of winning over a state-wide majority of voters, Broun has sought to moderate his positions somewhat, referring to bipartisan efforts in manufacturing jobs in a recent radio interview.

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has pointed out, however, his new moderate tone has yet to reach the Congressman’s fundraising efforts. AJC’s Jim Galloway highlighted a few choice paragraphs from one of Broun’s fundraising letters to potential funders:

As a Member of the House of Representatives for the last few years, I have fought tooth-and-nail against President Obama’s agenda at every turn.

I was the first Member of Congress to call him a socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies like government control of health care and redistribution of wealth….

On the Senate side, I’m a staunch ally of now retired Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina — and of course, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky….

Broun is likely right that he was the first to call Obama a Marxist back in 2008. In the same interview, he also compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler.

The statements in Broun’s fundraising letter sound much more like the four-term Congressman. In his time in the House, particularly on the House Science and Technology Committee, Broun has put forward no shortage of controversial statements. Last year, Broun referred to the Big Bang Theory and evolution as “lies straight from the pit of Hell.” He’s also called for the abolition of the Departments of Energy and Education and promoted lowering the debt ceiling. As recently as January, Broun said that President Obama only upholds the “Soviet Constitution.”

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Secret Donors Back New Obamacare Push

Several former White House staffers have found a new way to promote Obamacare: They’re spending millions of dollars in secret corporate and union cash, and they’re harnessing grass-roots tactics to some of the biggest names in the health care industry.

Organizing for Action, the successor to President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and Enroll America, a group led by two former Obama staffers that features several insurance company bigwigs on its board, are planning to unleash the same grass-roots mobilization and sophisticated micro-targeting tactics seen in the 2012 campaign.

Continue Reading (Also on POLITICO: President Obama's challenge: Selling ideas, not just himself)

Instead of getting people to vote, they’re trying to get people to buy insurance.

If the coalition is successful, 30 million uninsured Americans will get health coverage and the now-unpopular law that Obama’s team pushed through Congress and defended at the Supreme Court could go down in history alongside lauded national institutions such as Medicare and Social Security.

But if large numbers of younger and healthier Americans don’t sign up for coverage this fall alongside the older and sicker ones, the whole thing won’t work.

The challenge is real: The White House has not been able to penetrate the confusion and skepticism about the law in the nearly three years since its passage. Numerous polls have shown that people still don’t know what’s in the law, or how it could benefit them. 

(PHOTOS: Supreme Court upholds health care law)

So it is both fitting and ironic that — for perhaps the most significant battle in the war over Obamacare — the president’s allies are completely setting aside their qualms about the unlimited cash they once railed against. They plan to use it to unleash the 20 million-address strong email list of Organizing for Action, to hire up to 100 people at Enroll America and to flood television, radio and social media with ads this fall. They even hope to go door to door, walking people through the sign-up process.

“This is going to be run like a political campaign,” said Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack, who helped conceive and fund Enroll America in 2010 and is chairman of the board.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama committees in black, red)

It’s clear Enroll America is a priority for Team Obama. The group received a blessing from Organizing for Action at a private gathering of Democratic donors during Inauguration weekend. Its new president, Anne Filipic, just resigned as the deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, where she had worked under Organizing for Action’s director Jon Carson. Its new managing director, Chris Wyant, led the ground game in Ohio for Obama’s reelection campaign.

The private effort is relying on many of the tools, donors and operatives that were pivotal to Obama’s reelection, but also streams of cash — including secret and corporate money — that Obama once eschewed.

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Inaugural committee releases donors' names

President Obama's inaugural planning committee on Friday released the names of several contributors to the president's swearing-in festivities.

The committee decided to accept corporate donations this time, after banning them in 2009.

Companies such as AT&T, Microsoft, biotech firm Genentech, Inc., healthcare company Centene Corp., Financial Innovations, Inc., Whittier Trust Co., and Stream Line Circle, LLC appeared on the committee's web site along with the names of several individual contributors.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee did not reveal the amount of the donations nor say when they would release more names.

The web site simply says donors' names will be "regularly" posted and to "check this page for future updates."

In December, the committee noted it would accept unlimited money from corporate and individual contributors but would not accept donations from PACs or lobbyists.

The inauguration is estimated to cost over $100 million thanks to the security needs and the parties that surround the Jan. 21 swearing-in. Most of the money comes from donors.

Obama's second inauguration will be much more toned down than his first with fewer balls, no celebrity concert on the National Mall and one fewer day of festivities.

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