Heartland Institute

In 2012, an insider published alleged internal documents from the think tank that enable conclusions about financing and strategies. Accordingly, the think tank is the discrediting of climate research into its core tasks. Important financiers were The billionaires Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch from Koch Industries, Microsoft and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which work mainly in the fossil energy industry. One of the largest donations to Heartland came from an anonymous donor who explicitly made $ 8.6 million available to attack climate research. Exxonmobil was also one of the sources of money from the Heartland Institute. Between 1998 and 2006, Heartland received more than $ 670,000 from Exxon, after which no data was published that enabled conclusions about further payments.

The Mercer Family Foundation is one of the largest donors from the Heartland Institute.

As President of the Heartland Institute, Bast headed the institute's finances, helped the organization and introduction of his annual conference on climate change and found his research and communication agenda. Bast was a regular speaker at the annual conference of the Heartland Institute on Climate Change.

In July 2017, Tim Huelskamp took over the presidency of the conservative and libertarian think tanks The Heartland Institute.