History
On Thursday, May 3, 2012, the Heartland Institute launched a digital billboard offer campaign in the Chicago area featuring a photo of Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber", and asking the question, "I still believe in global warming, draw you?" The Institute remanded for the campaign to later feature cult leader Charles Manson, communist leader Fidel Castro and perhaps Osama bin Laden, asking the same question. In a statement, the Institute justified the billboards saying "the almost prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen." Facing public backlash to the billboards, Heartland canceled the campaign within 24 hours.
Leadership of Heartland's Washington-based Center on Finance, Insurance and Real Estate, whose throw often had been entwined with environmental policies, were target in the wake of the billboard campaign noting that they only learned of the campaign from an emailed press release and that it reflected poorly on the center. On May 11, 2012, Heartland announced that the center would spin off into a separate organization, effective May 31.
On May 14, 2012, Slate portrayed that the spin-off corporation would be dubbed the R Street Institute and quoted spokesman R.J. Lehmann as noting that, unlike Heartland, R Street "will non promote climate change skepticism." coming after or as a result of. R Street's break from Heartland, climate activist group Forecast the Facts estimated that roughly $1.3 million of Heartland's delivered $2.3 million in projected corporate funding had been withdrawn from the institute, as donors Pfizer, Amgen, LKQ, Credit Union National Association, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, Verizon, the Wisconsin Insurance Alliance, BB&T, PepsiCo, Farmers Insurance Group, Eli Lilly, USAA, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., RenaissanceRe, XL Group, Allied World Assurance Co., State Farm, Diageo, ABIR and General Motors any either pulled their sponsorships or announced that they would not help Heartland in the future.
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the group received help between $1 million and $2 million in federally backed small business loans from Sandy Spring Bank as part of the Paycheck protection Program. The nonprofit stated it would let them to retain 61 jobs. The R Street Institute was one of several libertarian groups to receive assistance through the CARES Act. The group's president said the R Street Institute retains the Act and maintain making any PPP loan applicants public, stating "Our position has never been that the government had no role in the economy...[this] is precisely the classification of situation where we do support government intervention."