The Independent Women’s Forum and The Independent Women’s Voice:
Not Independent, Not Neutral on Environmental Issues

The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) says it’s a “non-partisan research and education
institution.” The Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) claims to represent the views of
independent women voters and to “ensure that mainstream women’s voices are heard.”
But these organizations are most definitely not independent, mainstream, or neutral.
IWF and IWV are deeply imbedded in the right-wing political infrastructure, have long
connections to the Koch Brothers, and promote right-wing, often anti-women, policies, and
politicians.
“Independent” branding is calculated and misleading
Passing themselves as “independent” and “neutral” has allowed IWF and IWV to garner media
opportunities to promote right-wing causes and candidates without scrutiny of their true agenda
or allegiances.
“Being branded as neutral, but actually having people who know know that you’re actually
conservative puts us in a unique position,” Heather Richardson Higgins, IWV President and IWF
Board Chair has admitted.
The IWF and IWV have taken advantage of their “neutral brand” and free pass from the media
to speak out against equal pay, paid family leave, the “Violence Against Women Act,” Title IX,
the Republican “War on Women,” rape on campus, regulated childcare, and provide false
equivalence on other women’s economic and social issues. They are also frequently asked to
weigh-in on a wide variety of public issues from guns to gay marriage, from education to the
environment.
Here is a snapshot of positions taken and quotes from IWF and IWV’s issue “experts” on
environmental issues:
•

The organizations have prioritized climate denial. As early as 2002 on its “Weird Science
Watch” campaign, “free-market environmentalists” like Jane S. Shaw adamantly denied
anthropogenic climate change and labeled people who care about global warming as
“control freaks” and “modern Puritans.”

•

The organization has received at least $75,000 in grant money from Exxon Mobil. The
Koch brothers have been major funders of climate denial and from 2004 to 2014, the
Koch Brothers’ charitable foundations and the DonorsTrust/Capital funds collectively
gave $6,140,719 to IWF.

•

IWF President Sabrina Schaeffer told Fox News a year ago that “the alarmism and
hysteria that [the Obama administration] likes to promote, especially related to climate
change is unbelievable.”

 •

IWF has also attempted to downplay the role of fracking and increased seismic activity,
arguing that even when hydraulic injections “induce earthquakes, they’re small ones.”

•

IWF has joined the fossil fuel-funded campaign to dismantle President Obama’s Clean
Power Plan, arguing that such efforts are pointless, because “the United States simply
isn't the problem.” Furthermore, solar and wind power, in IWF’s view, are “unreliable,
costly, and inconvenient, and depend on wasteful government subsidies to compete in
the energy marketplace.”

•

IWF’s Vicki E. Alger claimed in 2014 that “a majority of scientists believe that global
warming is largely nature-made, not man-made.” That blog post praised Wyoming for
becoming “the first state to reject Common Core ‘Next Generation’ Science Standards
because they push man-made global warming as a settled fact.”

•

Heather Higgins, representing IWV, and Sabrina Schaeffer, representing IWF, both
signed onto a full page advertisement in the New York Times on May 18 paid for by the
Competitive Enterprise Institute regarding state investigations into Exxon’s awareness
and denial of anthropogenic climate change. Significantly, as documented by the
Climate Investigations Center, the signatories of the statement have received at least
$10 million in financing from Exxon, at least $2.2 million of which was earmarked
specifically for climate change denial campaigns.