The oil-funded American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and their Senior Fellow Benjamin Zycher have been vocal opponents of responsible investing. Zycher, who has been called to testify before Congress against responsible investing initiatives, has also been vocal about his denial of climate science–with the Union of Concerned Scientists calling him the “climate science denier in residence” at AEI.
Extreme Leaders. AEI’s Senior Fellow on Energy and Environmental Policy Benjamin Zycher has repeatedly testified before Congress disparaging responsible investing initiatives. In testimony before Congress, Zycher has called responsible investing “a blatant effort to use private sector resources for ideological purposes” and “heavily political.” One likely reason for Zycher’s opposition to responsible investing is the fact that he has repeatedly denied climate science. Zycher has stated that “there is no evidence of a climate ‘crisis’ in terms of temperature trends, polar sea ice, tornadoes, tropical cyclones, wildfires, drought, flooding, or ocean alkalinity.” Zycher also said “that humans are the single most significant cause of climate change is simply unsupported by the available science.” He called concerns about carbon pollution “propaganda.” Zycher has even gone so far as to suggest that climate change could be beneficial, arguing that global warming “might yield noteworthy benefits.”
Polluter Funding. Zycher’s statements come at no surprise – AEI has taken over $7.75 million in contributions from oil interests. This includes over $2.9 million from the foundations of Charles Koch, the owner of the dirty energy conglomerate Koch Industries. According to Charles Koch Foundation and Charles Koch Institute tax forms, the foundations gave $2.17 million from 1986-2017 and $742,500 from 2018-2021. Oil giant ExxonMobil has also contributed $4.86 million to AEI since 1998. The American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association for oil and gas companies, has contributed $70,000 to AEI since 2015, according to API’s tax forms filed with the IRS.
Fact: Zycher has argued that responsible investing is “heavily political.” However, even conservative organizations recognize that it is, in fact, anti-responsible investing initiatives that are playing political games, meddling in markets, and hurting taxpayers and retirees. As a Director of the CATO institute wrote, “by seeking to enshrine political ideology into financial decision‐making, ESG opponents undermine the same free markets they purport to protect, in turn decreasing returns for pension beneficiaries and raising costs for taxpayers.”