Niskanen Center
| Formation | 2014 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Washington, DC, United States |
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Key people
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Revenue (2015)
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$1,954,786 |
| Expenses (2015) | $1,665,531 |
| Website | niskanencenter.org |
The Niskanen Center is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for environmentalism, immigration reform, civil liberties, and a national defense policy based on libertarian principles. The center is named after the late William A. Niskanen, a former economic adviser to president Ronald Reagan. The Niskanen Center states that its "main audience is Washington insiders."
The Niskanen Center was founded in early 2015 by Jerry Taylor. At its launch, the center was composed primarily of former staffers of the Cato Institute who departed in the wake of a 2012 leadership struggle pitting Ed Crane against the Koch Brothers for control of the libertarian think tank. Niskanen Center founder Taylor and vice president Joe Coon publicly aligned themselves with Crane during the dispute. Both departed shortly after Crane was replaced by John Allison as president of Cato as part of the settlement with the Kochs.
Funding for the center includes donors who seek to counter conservative hostility to anti-global warming measures. North Carolina businessman Jay Faison, a Republican donor, announced his contributions to the Niskanen Center as part of a long term strategy for climate action to gain a foothold within the GOP. Some supporters of the Niskanen Center are more traditionally aligned with liberal causes. They include the Open Philanthropy Project, which supports the Center's work to expand legal immigration, the Lawrence Linden Trust for Conservation, which provided the Niskanen Center with a grant "to develop and analyze a potential economy-wide carbon tax", and a $400,000 operations grant from the Hewlett Foundation.
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