David G. Tuerck

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David G. Tuerck is the Executive Director of the Beacon Hill Institute and is listed as an "expert" at the Heartland Institute.

Biographical notes

In 2015, Tuerck's biography on the Heartland Institute website stated "David G. Tuerck serves as professor and chairman of the Suffolk University Department of Economics and president of the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University. Tuerck is an authority on public policy issues including state tax policy and analysis, welfare reform and the economics of regulation. He has made more than 100 television and radio appearances and has testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Subcommittee on Children and Families, as well as various committees of the Massachusetts legislature. He is past president of the North American Economics and Finance Association and a Heritage Foundation Policy Expert in Economics. Prior to joining Suffolk University in 1982, he was a director in the Economic Analysis Group at Coopers & Lybrand, Washington, DC. Prior to that, he served as director of the Center for Research and Advertising at the American Enterprise Institute."

For more than a decade, Tuerck has produced numerous research reports pertaining to economic, tax, energy and environmental policies at the Beacon Hill Institute. Many of these research reports, which attack solutions to climate change, have been cited by numerous right-wing groups and politicians. In 2012, Gov. Paul LePage from Maine used his research to claim renewable-energy policies would cost electricity ratepayers and kill jobs. In January 2013, the American Legislative Exchange Council cited one of Tuerck's report after they announced its focus on clean energy attacks

Funding

In December 2013, after The Guardian published a set of documents containing 40 funding proposals to the Koch-funded State Policy Network, including one from the Beacon Hill Institute for $38,825 to study the fiscal and economic effects of the Regional Summary Greenhouse Gas initiative. "BHI appeared to have already arrived at its conclusions in advance, admitting from the outset that the aim of the research was to arm opponents of cap-and-trade with data for their arguments, and to weaken or destroy the initiative.'Success will take the form of media recognition, dissemination to stakeholders, and legislative activity that will pare back or repeal RGGI,' the funding proposal says. The Beacon Hill Institute, technically an affiliate rather than a full member of the SPN, operates out of the economics department of Suffolk University in Boston. David Tuerck, its executive director, denied the group had engaged in lobbying. 'There is never any lobbying,' he told the Guardian. 'Maybe I need to look up the definition again, but lobbying consists of buttonholing legislators and other policymakers to get a particular result on a particular issue, and we never do that,'" The Guardian reported.

Global Warming Denier ties

In 2008, Tuerck said the very question of the climate warming was in doubt. “And that’s because, first of all, the very question [of] whether the climate is warming is in doubt, the question whether this is caused by manmade activity, whether climate change legislation they support would make a difference," Tuerck said in an interview with the Carolina Journal Online.

At the Heartland Institute Third International Conference on Climate Change in 2009, Tuerck said scientific questions were above his pay grade. "Scientific questions are above my pay grade ... I'm not in the business of asking whether the earth is warming ..." Tuerck said at the conference. He went on in the speech and said "I have found it necessary to go around the country pointing out that claims about green jobs are all phony."

In a 2011 Beacon Hill Institute research report on wind energy that Tuerck produced, the report stated the effects of global warming was a matter of "considerable debate." “When wind power reduces fossil fuel use, it also indirectly contributes to cleaner air through lower emissions of sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The reduced emissions of CO2 are believed to reduce the greenhouse effect and thereby moderate the effects of global warming, although the strength of these effects is a matter of considerable debate,” the 2011 report stated.

Communications

• Speaker at the Heartland Institute's First International Conference on Climate Change in 2008.

• Speaker at the Heartland Institute's Fourth International Conference on Climate Change in 2010.

• Speaker at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change in 2011.

• Speaker at the “Boston Tea Party,” an event organized by the Tea Party to “voice their displeasure with the egregious growth of government and the irresponsible policies our local, state and federal governments are pursuing.” At the event, Tuerck said global warming polices would “stifle economic growth, kill good jobs, and drive up energy costs.”

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• Global warming skeptics
• First International Conference on Climate Change
• Second International Conference on Climate Change

External links

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