EIN: 52-1351785
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington, DC 20036
CEI calls itself "a non-profit, non-partisan research and advocacy institute dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government." The Boston Globe has called it "one of Washington's feistiest think tanks." CEI's commentaries frequently appear in media venues such as ABC's 20/20, American Spectator, Christian Science Monitor, Consumers' Research, Crossfire, Forbes, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, Moneyline, New York Times, Policy Review, PBS, Reader's Digest, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Washington Times. It postures as an advocate of "sound science" in the development of public policy. In fact, it is an ideologically-driven, well-funded front for corporations opposed to safety and environmental regulations that affect the way they do business. (Sourcewatch.org)
May 20, 2018
CEI at SourceWatch.org
http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute
December 12, 2016
CEI at ExxonSecrets.org
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=2
Judd Legum
Think Progress
September 19, 2006
ExxonMobil Stops Funding Competitive Enterprise Institute
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/20/exxon-cei/
In response to an inquiry from the Guardian, Exxon announced that the company “stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute this year.” Also, Exxon promised the Royal Society in July that they would “not be providing any further funding” to groups that distort global warming science.
Geoffrey Lean
The Independent (London)
September 16, 2006
Bush 'prepares emissions U-turn'
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1604092.ece
President Bush is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming, senior Washington sources say.
After years of trying to sabotage agreements to tackle climate change he is drawing up plans to control emissions of carbon dioxide and rapidly boost the use of renewable energy sources.
...Iain Murray, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Mr Bush's chief climate change cheerleader, is deeply alarmed: "We are left with the unpleasant conclusion that the only motivation is political."
ThinkProgress.org
Center for American Progress
June 5, 2006
CEI Scholar: Gore Thinks Climate Change is Caused by ‘Widespread Sin,’ a Sign of ‘the Antichrist’
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/06/cei-antichrist/
Ian Murray, senior fellow at the Exxon-backed Competitive Enterprise Institute, writes for the National Review on global warming issues. Today, he excerpts some promotional material from a horror movie that he says “mirrors Al Gore’s views” on global warming...Global warming skeptics can’t challenge Al Gore on the substance, so they just smear him personally. This is what is left of the “debate” about climate change.
Tim Lambert
Deltoid
May 27, 2006
CEI exaggerates by a factor of one million
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/05/cei_exaggerates_by_a_factor_of.php
After everyone laughed at their first two ads, CEI have made another one. This purports to compare Gore's CO2 emissions from flying around to give his presentation on global warming with that of an average person.
[A] screen capture shows that Gore's CO2 meter is about 683,000,000, while the one for the average person is 177, so apparently Gore's flying around produces 4,000,000 times as much CO2 as the average person does in their regular activities. The average person produces about 170 pounds of CO2 per day. According to the CEI video Gore only makes flights from one side of the USA to the other and never flies to somewhere in the middle of the country or on the same coast. This calculator says that a cross country flight produces 1600 pounds of CO2. It seems that the CEI believe that Gore must take 4,000,000*(170/1600)=400,000 cross-country flights every day of the year.
MediaMatters.org
May 24, 2006
PBS' Ifill failed to identify Competitive Enterprise Institute as conservative, energy industry-funded
http://mediamatters.org/items/200605250007
In a segment on Al Gore's global warming campaign, PBS' Gwen Ifill noted that "critics have called Gore 'alarmist,' " before airing a clip of an ad produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which she identified only as a "Washington think tank." But Ifill did not mention that CEI is a conservative institution largely funded by the energy industry, which has a financial stake in opposing policies that seek to combat climate change.
Think Progress
Center for American Progress
May 19, 2006
Climate Scientist To CEI: Stop Misrepresenting My Research
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/20/climate-scientist-to-cei/
On Wednesday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute – a front group funded by ExxonMobil and other big oil companies – launched two advertisements in response to Al Gore’s new movie about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.
One of the advertisements attempts to show that the scientific evidence for global warming is in dispute, claiming a study found the “Antarctic ice sheet is getting thicker, not thinner.”
The primary author of that study, Curt Davis, has issued statement blasting CEI’s use of his study.
Center for American Progress
Think Progress
May 16, 2006
CEI Founder on Global Warming: ‘It Looks Pretty Good…We’re Moving To A More Benign Planet.’
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/17/global-warming-looks-good/
Josh Marshall linked to our earlier post on the Competitive Enterprise Institute – a front group funded by big oil – and their attack on Al Gore’s new movie. Josh mentioned he remembered that CEI’s founder, Fred Smith, was on Crossfire years ago talking about how “global warming was actually a good thing because of all the cool new crops we could grow.”
John Eggerton
Broadcasting & Cable
November 9, 2005
CEI accuses FOX News of liberial bias!
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6283030.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP&nid=2228
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)...has written to Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes complaining about its planned news special this Sunday night, "The Heat Is On: The Case of Global Warming."
Specifically, it says that the participation of environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a "special correspondent" for the show is inappropriate, as is what CEI says is Fox's admission that the piece is one sided.
The group also cites an article on Foxnews.com by the show's host that "the vast majority of the scientific community says we're witnessing a unique and troubling kind of climate change" and that "no one can argue with this." CEI disagrees.
Tim Lambert
June 22, 2004
When Think Tanks Attack
http://timlambert.org/2004/06#tanks
Think tanks vs Open Source
The Alexis de Tocqueville Institute’s attack on Linux is just the latest in a series of attacks on Open Source by think tanks:
CEI Sep 19, 2002, Author: James DeLong Software Wars: Open Source And The New York Times
Greenpeace
September 2, 2003
Greenpeace obtains smoking-gun memo: White House/Exxon link
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en//news/details?item%5fid=308563
Conservative front group may have thanked White House for help in suing EPA
Did conservative elements in the White House provoke an Exxon front group to sue EPA to suppress a report on climate change? That's the question that two State Attorney Generals have asked US Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate, after Greenpeace uncovered a routine email in a Freedom of Information Act request.
In the email, Myron Ebell of the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute writes to Phil Cooney, a senior official at the White House Council for Environmental Quality. He describes his plans to discredit an EPA study on climate change through a lawsuit. He states the need to:
"drive a wedge between the President and those in the Administration who think that they are serving the president's interests by publishing this rubbish."
He notes his group is considering a call for the then-head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, to resign, and openly suggests that she'd make an appropriate "fall gal" if the administration is serious about getting back into bed with conservatives opposing action on climate change.
His memo to the US government official begins "Thanks for calling and asking for our help."
...The Competitive Enterprise Institute received nearly a half million dollars in funding last year from Exxon/Mobil, the world's largest oil company.
Glenn Adams
Associated Press
August 11, 2003
Did the Bush Administration Tell Think Tank to Sue EPA?
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/08122003/world/44413.htm
AUGUSTA, Maine - Attorneys general in two New England states suggested Monday that the White House is behind a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate a federal report on global warming.
Maine Attorney General G. Steven Rowe and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats, also asked U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft for an investigation.
Rowe and Blumenthal said they want to know whether White House officials working at the Council on Environmental Quality solicited a lawsuit filed by a conservative Washington think tank to discredit a 2000 report that documents the dangers of global warming.
The lawsuit was filed last week by the Competitive Enterprise Institute against the White House Office on Science and Technology.
Blumenthal said a June 2002 e-mail between a CEI executive and White House staffers "indicates a secret initiative by the administration to invite and orchestrate a lawsuit against itself to discredit an official United States government report on global warming dangers."
Such action, Blumenthal said, could constitute improper and possibly illegal conduct.
Rowe said the idea the administration is inviting a lawsuit from a special interest group in order to undermine the federal government’s own work under an international treaty "is very troubling."
Tom Paine
June 25, 2001
Competitive Enterprise Institute does field work for ABC News' John Stossel
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/4393
Head of institute looks for "examples of kids who have been 'scared green' by schools teaching doomsday environmentalism in the classroom"
The head of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Michael Sanera, sent out an email last March looking for kids who had been "scared" by environmental education:
"I have been contacted by ABC News," Sanera wrote..."A producer for John Stossel...needs examples of kids who have been 'scared green' by schools teaching doomsday environmentalism ... (He needs kids and/or parents to appear on camera.) I have some examples, but I need more. Would you send out a notice to your group and ask if they know of some examples.
As reported by Brills's Content and others, Stossel is now offically part of the conservative movement, raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year making the rounds of the sponsored conservative movement.
Impropaganda Review
PRWatch.org
December 31, 1999
A Rogues Gallery of Industry Front Groups And Anti-Environmental Think Tanks
http://www.prwatch.org/improp/cei.html
Competitive Enterprise Institute
CEI calls itself "a non-profit, non-partisan research and advocacy institute dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government..."
...In fact, it [CEI] is an ideologically-driven, well-funded front for corporations opposed to safety and environmental regulations that affect the way they do business...
Media Transparency
May 20, 1987
Conservative Philanthropy supported institutions involved in the attack on Open Source
* Competitive Enterprise Institute
* Washington Legal Foundation
* Defenders of Property Rights
* Pacific Research Institute
* Citizens for a Sound Economy
* Institute for Policy Innovation
* Alexis de Tocqueville Institute