Taxpayers Protection Alliance
A self-styled “taxpayer watchdog” funded through the Koch network (Americans for Job Security, American Future Fund) and Leo’s Freedom & Opportunity Fund; a prominent opponent of renewable energy.
§ 1 · Background & fossil-fuel ties
Founded in 2002, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization that has become a prominent opponent of renewable energy and climate policies. Although TPA portrays itself as an independent taxpayer watchdog, investigations have identified it as part of the broader Koch political network, supported through a web of Koch-connected organizations and dark-money groups, as well as the Leonard Leo network.
Public records show TPA has received funding from numerous organizations tied to the Koch network, including Americans for Job Security, which provided $1.1 million in 2013, the American Future Fund, which contributed $350,700 in 2021, and other Koch-connected entities including Freedom Partners and America Encore (formerly the Center to Protect Patient Rights). According to the Energy & Policy Institute, Americans for Job Security also funneled at least $24 million into the Center to Protect Patient Rights, creating an interconnected funding network that ultimately supported organizations such as TPA.
TPA's leadership also reflects these ties. Board member Stephen DeMaura serves as president of Americans for Job Security, one of the Koch network's principal funding vehicles. The organization's operations are similarly intertwined with its leadership. According to TPA's IRS Form 990 filings, nearly all management responsibilities are contracted to MLM Consulting LLC, a firm wholly owned by TPA President David Williams, which manages the organization's day-to-day operations and advocacy.
In 2018, Leonard Leo's Freedom and Opportunity Fund awarded $70,000 to the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. According to reporting, the Fund operated as a pass-through organization that directed donor money to a network of politically active nonprofits. It was dissolved at the end of 2018 after Leo shifted his operations to a new nonprofit, a precursor to the broader network that later included the 85 Fund and Concord Fund.
§ 2 · Record of fronting
For more than a decade, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance has promoted policy positions that align closely with the interests of the fossil fuel industry by attacking renewable energy, opposing electric vehicle incentives, and working alongside Koch-funded advocacy organizations to slow the transition away from fossil fuels.
In 2014, TPA launched SolarSecrets.org, a website dedicated to portraying the solar industry as dependent on government subsidies and financially unsustainable. The project cited reports from fossil fuel-funded advocacy organizations and was created by Sean Paige, a former Americans for Prosperity staff member who also worked at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. TPA reinforced the campaign by publishing its own report, A House of Cards: Solar Energy's Subsidy-Based Business Model, which argued that public support for solar energy distorted markets while overlooking the longstanding government subsidies and tax preferences that have benefited the fossil fuel industry.
TPA has also opposed policies designed to reduce petroleum consumption. In 2018, it joined a coalition led by the American Energy Alliance—the advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research, another organization with longstanding fossil fuel funding—to oppose federal tax credits for electric vehicles. The coalition included numerous Koch-network organizations, including Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Competitive Enterprise Institute, FreedomWorks, and Americans for Tax Reform. TPA has similarly supported efforts to repeal state renewable energy standards and opposed policies expanding access to rooftop solar.
Together, these campaigns have consistently advanced a policy agenda that slows the adoption of renewable energy and electric vehicles while preserving demand for oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels.
§ 3 · The cover story, debunked
Climate accountability lawsuits are an attempt by states and local governments to regulate national energy policy through the courts.
Climate accountability lawsuits do not ask courts to set national energy policy or ban fossil fuels. Instead, they rely on longstanding state consumer protection and tort laws to determine whether fossil fuel companies deceived the public about the climate risks of their products and should bear some responsibility for the resulting damages. Similar legal theories have long been used to hold the tobacco, opioid, asbestos, and other industries accountable for deceptive conduct. Whether Exxon, Suncor, and other companies engaged in deception is a factual question for the courts—not an effort by states to rewrite national energy policy.