Enemies of Energy: Heising-Simons Foundation

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from Enemies of Energy, a research report created for the Capital Research Center. The page for the full report is here: Enemies of Energy.

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Donor type: direct grant maker

According to its IRS filings the Heising-Simons Foundation made $171.7 million in charitable disbursements during 2024 and has made at least $100 million in charitable disbursements every year since 2018. The foundation was created in 2007 as a giving vehicle for private equity billionaire Mark Heising and his wife, Liz Simons. ^[i]

A lot of the money disbursed has been spent on grants for what Heising-Simons claims are “clean energy” projects. “The goal of the Foundation’s Climate and Clean Energy program,” according to the website, “is to protect people and the planet from the worst impacts of climate change by helping make energy clean, affordable, safe, and reliable for all.” The foundation claims to be accomplishing this goal by staying “focused on four strategic areas,” one of which is “Cutting the most potent pollutants, such as methane.” [ii]

Translation: they’ve been wasting money and some of it was literally lost in space.

As described in the first section of this report, natural gas (i.e. methane) is—by a wide margin—the cleanest of all the hydrocarbons we burn for energy:

A 2010 report in Scientific American stated that when natural gas is used to fuel a power plant it “emits about half of the carbon dioxide emissions as conventional coal plants.” This assertion is confirmed by multiple reports from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA). In June 2021 the EIA posted an analysis with this headline: “Electric power sector CO2 emissions drop as generation mix shifts from coal to natural gas.” ^{[iii] [iv] [v]}

Blessed with an abundance of natural gas and the technical know-how to produce it cheaply, the United States electricity sector has spent most of the last two decades frantically substituting coal power plants for modern gas turbine generators.

In addition to the economic benefits, this has also produced almost miraculous results for those inclined to worry over American carbon dioxide emissions, such as the benefactors of the Heising-Simons Foundation. The first section of this report explains:

The net annual reduction from the coal-to-gas switch (867 million tonnes) accounted for more than 77 percent of the drop in CO₂ emissions in 2024 as compared to 2000.^[vi]

To put that number in perspective, in 2024 Germany’s total CO₂ emissions amounted to only 572.32 million tonnes. Similarly, France’s total 2024 CO₂ emissions equaled 264.16 million tonnes. And that’s not just gas and coal emissions (as in the American example) but gasoline, jet fuel, and everything else that drove the German and French economies in 2024.^[vii]

Germany and France are the world’s third and seventh largest economies. So, just the American transition from coal to natural gas in electricity production since 2000 has cancelled out the combined annual CO₂ emissions from two of the planet’s biggest economic engines.

But fighting against this progress has become a main mission of the Heising-Simons Foundation’s benefactors.

In February 2020, Mark Heising was elected chair of the board of the Environmental Defense Fund, a position he still held as of April 2026. As covered in the previous section of this report, during Heising’s tenure at the top EDF launched (and then lost contact with) an $88 million satellite to track natural gas emissions. EDF claims natural gas is “dangerously powerful” and that their “research and advocacy” has “driven global action on methane for over a decade.” [viii] ^{[ix] [x]}

EDF isn’t the only major anti-energy NGO or donor to same that Heising-Simons has been close to.

According to the annual filing submitted to the IRS, Heising-Simons provided grants totaling $10.4 million in 2024 to five of the fifteen most influential anti-energy NGO’s profiled earlier in this report: [xi]

• Environmental Defense Fund: $5 million
• Natural Resources Defense Council: $3.7 million
• Rocky Mountain Institute: $1 million
• Union of Concerned Scientists: $505,000
• World Resources Institute: $150,000

Additionally, and also in 2024, Heising-Simons provided grants totaling more than $3 million to three of the pass-through donors to anti-energy NGOs profiled later on this list: ^[xii]

• U.S. Energy Foundation: $1.2 million
• Climateworks Foundation: $950,000
• Windward Fund: $900,000

Cumulative 2024 grants from the Heising-Simons Foundation to both the major anti-energy NGOs and pass-through donors to the movement totaled nearly $13.5 million. ^[xiii]

PDF hyperlink to full report

Endnotes

[i] The Heising-Simons Foundation. (EIN: 26-0799587). ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Accessed April 14, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/260799587

[ii] Programs | Climate and Clean Energy. Heising-Simons Foundation. Accessed April 14, 2026. https://www.hsfoundation.org/programs/climate-clean-energy/

[iii] Kirkland, Joel (ClimateWire). “Natural Gas Could Serve as ‘Bridge’ Fuel to Low-Carbon Future.” Scientific American. June 25, 2010. Accessed January 14, 2026. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/natural-gas-could-serve-as-bridge-fuel-to-low-carbon-future/

[iv] “Environment: Carbon Dioxide Emissions Coefficients.” Energy Information Agency | U.S. Department of Energy. September 18, 2024. Accessed January 14, 2026. https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php

[v] “Electric power sector CO2 emissions drop as generation mix shifts from coal to natural gas.” Energy Information Agency | U.S. Department of Energy. June 9, 2021. Accessed January 14, 2026. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48296#

[vi] Ritchie, Hannah; Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser. “CO₂ emissions by fuel.” Our World in Data. Accessed January 15, 2026. https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel

[vii] Ritchie, Hannah; Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser. “CO₂ emissions by fuel.” Our World in Data. Accessed January 15, 2026. https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel

[viii] “Heising to Become New Chair of Environmental Defense Fund.” Heising-Simons Foundation. February 4, 2020. Accessed April 14, 2026. https://www.edf.org/media/heising-become-new-chair-environmental-defense-fund

Board of trustees. Heising-Simons Foundation. Accessed April 14, 2026. https://www.edf.org/board-trustees

[ix] Zhong, Raymond. “Methane-Tracking Satellite Is Lost, in a Blow to Climate Efforts.” The New York Times. July 2, 2025. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20250703035055/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/climate/methane-sat-lost.html

Simon, Julia. “A new satellite will track climate-warming pollution. Here’s why that’s a big deal.” NPR. March 5, 2024. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/05/1235694992/a-new-satellite-will-track-climate-warming-pollution-heres-why-thats-a-big-deal

[x] “Cutting methane pollution to slow climate change.” Environmental Defense Fund. Accessed April 14, 2026. https://www.edf.org/issue/methane

[xi] The Heising Simons Foundation. (EIN: 26-0799587). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 14, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/260799587/202543219349106499/full

[xii] The Heising Simons Foundation. (EIN: 26-0799587). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 14, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/260799587/202543219349106499/full

[xiii] The Heising Simons Foundation. (EIN: 26-0799587). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 14, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/260799587/202543219349106499/full