The oil-funded Pacific Research Institute (PRI) has been one of the most outspoken opponents of responsible investing in recent years, following a 45-year history of denying climate science and Big Oil leadership.
Misleading Campaigns. In August 2024, PRI released a report criticizing ESG investing written by their Senior Fellow Wayne Winegarden. Winegarden, a former executive at tobacco company Phillip Morris, has previously called global warming a “scam” that “has nothing to do with the science behind global warming.” In 2023, PRI published a blog criticizing “scaremongering climate alarmists” that falsely claimed that “there is no scientific consensus of man-made catastrophic global warming.” In 2007, PRI produced the film “An Inconvenient Truth…Or Convenient Fiction?,” which was an attempted rebuttal to climate activist and former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary warning about the devastating impacts of climate change.
Polluter Funding. PRI is largely funded by oil interests. Since 2017, the organization has received over $660,000 from foundations funded by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch ($154,000 in 2021 and $150,000 in 2020 from Charles Koch Institute; $100,000 in 2018 and 2019 and $3,500 in 2021 & 2022 from Charles Koch Foundation; and $150,000 in 2017 from David H. Koch Foundation). ExxonMobil has contributed $665,000 to PRI since 1998. The organization has also received funding from the foundation of oil company Shell in both 2022 and 2019.
Extreme Leaders. Chris Wright, the president and CEO of oil company Liberty Energy is on the Board of Directors of PRI. In 2023, Wright uploaded a video to LinkedIn where he claimed “there is no climate crisis” and questioned established climate science by misrepresenting reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2024, Wright’s company Liberty Energy filed suit against the SEC challenging the agency’s climate disclosure rules that would provide investors with transparency into companies’ greenhouse gas emissions.
Fact: Despite divisive and misleading rhetoric from these wealthy extremists, Americans overwhelmingly and across party lines support standardized climate risk disclosures and responsible investing more broadly.