[2][3][4] It was initially formed by Charles Koch, receives donations from many large companies like Exxon, and publishes a stream of reports and position papers opposing any efforts to control greenhouse gasses.

After failing to pay the Texas state franchise tax, IHST lost its charter in 1989, and was later rebranded as the Institute for Energy Research, or IER, under the presidency of Robert L. Bradley Jr., the former director of public policy analysis for Enron.

[6] IER began by distributing quarterly reports to a small but growing list of donors in the early 1990s and eventually expanded its publishing capabilities to include highly publicized studies.

It called for withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement, overturning the Clean Power Plan, opening federal lands to exploitation for coal and oil development, and rolling back CAFE fuel economy standards.

[8] IER is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025,[9] a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election.

[4] In 2013, AEA provided an online petition to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry regarding the U.S. federal government administration's approval of the Keystone XL pipeline extension.