Heartland Institute
From SourceWatch
The Heartland Institute, according to the Institute's web site, is a nonprofit organization "devoted to turning ideas into social movements that empower people"[1] (http://www.heartland.org/). It campaigns on "junk science", "common-sense environmentalism" (i.e. anti-Kyoto, pro-GM), smokers' rights (anti-tobacco tax, denial of problems from passive smoking), the introduction of school vouchers, and the deregulation of health care insurance. It also provides an online resource for finding right-wing think tank policy documents called PolicyBot.
The institute was founded in 1984 by David H. Padden and Joseph L. Bast.
Mission (from the web site):
"The Heartland Institute is a genuinely independent source of research and commentary founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1984. It is not affiliated with any political party, business, or foundation. Its activities are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
"Heartland's mission is to help build social movements in support of ideas that empower people. Such ideas include parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies."
Tobacco ties
Although Heartland calls itself "a genuinely independent source of research and commentary," its role as a pliant mouthpiece for the tobacco industry can be documented by searching the industry's internal document archives (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx?type=boolean&c=at&c=bw&c=ct&c=da&c=ll&c=mg&c=pm&c=rj&c=ti&c=ub&sid=0472c17c55a04693d129b93b82b44757&xc=1&q1=heartland&rgn1=entire+record&op2=And&Submit+Query=%A0%A0Search%A0%A0&q2=marden&rgn2=entire+record&op3=And&q3=&rgn3=entire+record&op4=And&q4=&rgn4=entire+record&op5=And&q5=&rgn5=entire+record&op6=And&q6=&rgn6=entire+record&date1=00000000&date2=20040503&datetype=dm&datesince=00000000).
Roy E. Marden, a member of Heartland's board of directors, is the manager of industry affairs for the Philip Morris tobacco company, where his responsibilities include lobbying and "managing company responses to key public policy issues," which he accomplishes by "directing corporate involvement with industry, business, trade, and public policy organizations and determining philanthropic support thereto." In a May 1991 document prepared for Philip Morris, Marden listed Heartland's "rapid response network" as a "potential spokesperson" among the "portfolio of organizations" that the company had cultivated to support its interests. [2] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/yqs75c00)
In January 1993, PM executive Craig L. Fuller reported that Heartland was one of the "public policy organizations" being considered to sponsor a "conference on the impact of federal mandates/EPA regulations," as part of PM's strategic response to the EPA's decision that secondhand smoke should be classified as a proven lung carcinogen. [3] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/pau93e00)
In an April 1993 report, Marden noted that he was "developing strategy and tactics" to defeat legislation in California aimed at restricting smoking in public places. He was "liasing with contacts in the public policy arena (think tanks, public interest legal foundations) and the media to generate editorial, op-eds, letters-to-the-editor and position papers." With the Heartland Institute, he was working "re sponsorship of environmental seminars for interested journalists and legislators throughout the Midwest." Simultaneously, he was talking with PM's Washington office to decide how much money the company should give to public policy organizations in 1993. [4] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/grs75c00)
Fuller's monthly report for August 1993 noted that he had "leveraged numerous contacts in the public policy arena to generate positive publicity for PM and/or a fair hearing on our issues, with particular reference to the misapplication of science by the EPA and the resulting poor public policy ... and the policy arguments against the use of excise taxes to fund proposed health care reform." The Heartland Institute was one of the contacts they had "leveraged," along with the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, Capital Research Center, Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Consumer Alert, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and the National Center for Policy Analysis. He had also provided "background material" about environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) to "various policy groups and media contacts. As a result, EPA Watch, the Heartland Institute and Capital Research Center wrote commentaries addressing the EPA and ETS. These commentaries are expected to appear in various newspapers around the country." [5] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jau93e00)
Marden's monthly report for February 1994 noted that he was "working with the Heartland Institute in the planning of a health policy forum for state-level think tanks to develop a unified strategy and action plan, and in the use of their fax-on-demand technology to promote health care positioning consistent with our interests to legislators, public opinion makers and the public." [6] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/irs75c00) In April, he reported that he was working with PM's Washington office "and the Heartland Institute in the development of strategy and ally mobilization to preserve the deductibility of tobacco advertising expenditures." [7] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/irs75c00)
In 1995, the Heartland Institute introduced "PolicyFax," a fax-on-demand service that offered to send thousands of policy position papers by fax as a free service to government officials and journalists. On February 2, 1996, Marden reported that the service would be adding the summary of a report on secondhand smoke. "This telephone service is linked to ALL state legislators and key regional media throughout the country and is free to those audiences," he wrote. "Heartland maintains statistics on documents requested and we will be able to track requests." [8] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fqr53a00)
Later that month, Heartland president Joseph Bast wrote a letter to Tina A. Walls, PM's Vice President for State Government Affairs, informing her of a collaboration between Heartland and the American Legislative Exchange Council, another Philip Morris-supported policy advocacy organization on whose board Walls sits. In a handwritten note at the bottom of the letter, Bast added, "Roy Marden's on our board!" [9] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lll57d00)
In 1999, Heartland was listed again in an internal Philip Morris document as one of the "portfolio of organizations" with which the company planned to mobilize against a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit, with Heartland's "rapid response network" among the company's "potential third party activities." [10] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/end62c00) On October 26 of that year, Marden sent an email to John Ostronic and Frank Gomez in which he listed "the key groups in my portfolio & key actions taken by those groups in opposition to the Fedsuit." Heartland's contributions to the effort included "blast faxes to state legislators, off-the-record briefings, op-eds, radio interviews, letters." [11] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/boa85c00)
Notwithstanding this long and intimate partnership with the tobacco industry, Heartland president Joe Bast bridled in February 2005 when writer Glenn Fleishman characterized the institute as a "sock puppet of industry" and criticized its role as both a tobacco mouthpiece and an opponent of municipal wi-fi initiatives. "No, there is no 'Philip Morris exec.' on our Board of Directors," Bast wrote in reply to Fleishman's article, adding, "We do not take positions in order to appease or avoid losing support from individual donors. We have, in fact, a long record of standing behind our research even when it means losing the support of major donors." However, Bast did not respond when Fleishman pointed out that Marden is listed as a member of Heartland's board of directors on the institute's own website, and he also had no response when asked to provide specific examples from its "long record" of publishing reports against the pecuniary interests of its funders. [12] (http://wifinetnews.com/archives/004765.html)
[edit]Personnel
[edit]Board of Directors
Herbert J. Walberg, Chairman
Joseph L. Bast, President and CEO The Heartland Institute
James L. Johnston, Amoco Corporation (retired)
Thomas Walton, General Motors Corporation
Walter F. Buchholtz, ExxonMobil Corporation
Roy E. Marden, Philip Morris
David H. Padden, Padden & Co.
Robert Buford, Planned Realty Group
Frank Resnik, Medline Inc. (retired)
Paul Fisher Piper, Marbury, Rudnick & Wolfe
Leslie Rose, Fidelity Bank
James Fitzgerald, BankNote Capital LLC
Lee Tooman, Golden Rule Insurance Company
Dan Hales, Peterson & Ross
Lee H. Walker, New Coalition for Economic & Social Change
William Higginson, Chicago Equity Fund Inc.
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