Kevon Martis Cits Local Choice
fueling the Opposition
How fossil fuel interests are fighting to kill wind and solar farms before they are built
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
A WHO’S WHO OF RENEWABLE ENERGY OPPONENTS
Fossil Fuel Industry Funders:
Alliance Resource Partners:
American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers
Ariel Corporation
Desert Royalty Company
DonorsTrust
ExxonMobil
FirstEnergy
International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825
Koch Industries
Murray Energy
National Philanthropic Trust
Paul Singer
Strake Energy
Front Groups
Americans for Affordable Energy
American Legislative Exchange Council
Americans for Prosperity
Caesar Rodney Institute
Energy and Environment Legal Institute
Heartland Institute
Institute for Energy Research
Protect Our Pocketbooks
State Policy Network
Republican Governors Association
Republican State Leadership Committee
Texas Public Policy Foundation
Anti-Renewable-Energy Activists and Operatives
John Droz
Lisa Linowes
Kevon Martis
Tom Stacy
Tom Tanton
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Energy and Policy Institute (EPI) has been working for more than ten years to research and document how fossil fuel interests are fighting to block new wind and solar farms by spreading disinformation about clean energy to try to undermine the strong, bipartisan support for renewable energy that exists among the public.
In this report, EPI reviews and summarizes key findings from this research in one place for the first time. We identify some of the major players involved in disinformation campaigns targeting renewable energy projects and technologies, including:
Funders from the coal, petroleum, and methane gas industries;
Networks of front groups and political operatives paid by these fossil fuel interests; and
The cadre of top anti-wind and anti-solar activists who have coordinated closely with these front groups and operatives for over a decade
This report helps to answer frequently asked questions about the role the fossil fuel industry has played in stoking opposition to renewable energy projects and comes at a time when many of these same opponents are escalating their attacks and seeking to derail the Inflation Reduction Act’s historic investment in renewables.
INTRODUCTION
A national political network that’s funded by fossil fuel interests is fighting to block renewable energy projects
The State Policy Network (SPN), a nonprofit that sits atop a 50-state network of think tanks and associated advocacy groups, recently announced that it will focus on working with state lawmakers in 2024 to prevent states from adopting renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. SPN organizations frequently receive funding from fossil fuel interests, right-wing donors, and donor-advised funds that help conceal the origins of a considerable amount of the money that flows into the network.
The announcement came after SPN think tanks like the Caesar Rodney Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation had already spent years fighting to block the deployment of renewable energy resources like offshore wind. Still, the move marks a surprisingly public shift in legislative priorities for a network that traditionally framed its opposition to renewable energy mandates and subsidies as being based on principles of limited government.
The move may be sparking dissension within SPN’s ranks. The Show-Me Institute, a SPN think tank in Missouri, came out against a bill that would impose new siting limits on solar farms in the state, albeit while criticizing solar.
“Nonetheless, interfering in the free market and banning the sale of land for solar energy projects seems like a step too far,” Avery Frank, a policy analyst for the Show Me Institute, said of the anti-solar siting bill in a blog post. “While there are ample concerns with solar energy, why is the state government limiting property rights and picking winners and losers in the energy market?”
EPI previously documented SPN’s campaigns against state renewable energy standards for electric utilities and net metering policies that support the growth of rooftop solar in in-depth reports that covered 2013-14 and 2015.
Following the money from the fossil fuel industry
The latest analysis of annual tax reports filed by the network of nonprofits controlled by Charles Koch by the Center for Media & Democracy continues to show millions of dollars going to SPN groups and other organizations involved in anti-renewable energy campaigns. Koch is the billionaire CEO and chairman of Koch Industries, which profits from multiple sectors of the fossil fuel industry, but Koch Industries is just one part of the story.
EPI’s research exposed longtime gas industry executives Karen Buchwald Wright and Tom Rastin, whose family owns the gas compressor manufacturer Ariel Corporation, as the backers of multiple entities involved in anti-renewables efforts in states like Ohio and Michigan. An unredacted list of SPN donors obtained by EPI shows Wright also contributed $700,000 to SPN in 2019 alone, making Wright one of SPN’s four largest listed donors that year. The couple did not respond to an email from EPI seeking comment on the funding.
EPI found $750,000 in contributions to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) in annual IRS Form 990s filed by the foundation of Joseph Craft, the CEO and chairman of fossil fuel producer Alliance Resource Partners, for the years 2020-2022.
TPPF also received just over $2 million since 2011 from the Brigham Family Foundation, which is led by Ben “Bud” Brigham of the Brigham Exploration Company, an oil and gas company based in Texas. $837,000 of that money has been earmarked for TPPF’s Life:Powered Initiative, a pro-fossil fuels and anti-renewable energy campaign, in the Brigham Family Foundation’s annual tax filings since 2017.
Joseph Craft and Bud Brigham did not respond to emails from EPI seeking comment on their foundations’ funding of TPPF.
In a sign that some fossil fuel companies are feeling more emboldened in their opposition to renewables in today’s polarized political environment, Consol Energy is now publicly sponsoring the “Not So Fast” campaign resisting the rapid transition from coal and gas to renewables. The new campaign features a website with the blunt name thecoalhardtruth.com and related social media channels.
Earlier research by EPI helped to reveal how Cloud Peak Energy, Murray Energy, and Peabody Energy secretly funded multiple groups that deny established climate science and spread disinformation about renewables, based on mandatory disclosures these major coal producers had to make in their bankruptcy case. EPI also uncovered over $1 million in Murray Energy payments to an Ohio law firm involved in opposing multiple renewable energy projects.
We showed how ExxonMobil, Kinder Morgan, and Occidental Petroleum quietly backed the Texas Industrial Energy Consumers opposition to American Electric Power’s plan to bring power from its North Central Wind Energy project to Texas before the Texas Public Utilities Commission. While that project moved forward without Texas’s support, TIEC had previously helped to kill AEP’s major Wind Catcher project on behalf of U.S. Steel, which has several subsidiaries involved in the coal industry.
EPI was the first to begin to expose the secret money trail between the coal-burning utility FirstEnergy and Samuel Randazzo, a longtime attorney and lobbyist for the Industrial Energy Users-Ohio and anti-renewables activists in the Buckeye State. Randazzo was later indicted on multiple state and federal criminal charges in connection with millions of dollars he secretly received from FirstEnergy before his appointment as chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and Ohio Power Siting Board in 2019. New evidence continues to emerge in ongoing court cases and related regulatory investigations following Randazzo’s recent suicide.
Front groups for the fossil fuel industry have been coordinating with anti-renewables activists for well over a decade
Many of the arguments espoused today by anti-renewables activists can be traced back to the fossil fuel industry’s disinformation campaigns against climate science and global action to limit greenhouse gas emissions during the 1990s.
One example is a 1997 paper, “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green,’” authored by Institute for Energy Research (IER) president Robert L. Bradley and published by the Cato Institute. Both IER and Cato have deep ties to the Koch network. Lisa Linowes, today a top anti-renewables activist, described Bradley’s work as a “seminal policy paper” a decade later in 2007 on her website windaction.org.
Tom Tanton, an energy consultant who worked with fossil fuel industry front groups like IER, the Heartland Institute, and American Tradition Institute began to cultivate relationships with anti-wind activists by the 2000s.
What emerged was a tight-knit network of anti-renewables diehards who can’t exactly be described as Not in My Backyard (NIMBY) activists because they oppose all wind farms, regardless of location.
One Ohio-based anti-wind activist, Tom Stacy, eventually became a paid consultant for IER and the coal industry. Tanton still lists “friend” of Save Western Ohio (Stacy’s old anti-wind group) as his professional experience for 2009 on his LinkedIn profile. Stacy co-founded the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions and currently sits on the board of directors for the National Wind Watch, both clearinghouses for information utilized by anti-renewables activists nationally.
Other anti-renewables activists claim to be unpaid for their efforts, but have not been shy about publicly partnering with groups that do receive fossil fuel money:
John Droz, the co-founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions, a group that provides model local laws, strategic guidance, and information to anti-wind and solar activists, has held the title of fellow at the coal industry-backed American Tradition Institute. Droz has also been a regular contributor to IER’s blog MasterResource since 2009 and is a member of the CO2 Coalition, a climate skeptic group with a decades long record of accepting money from the fossil fuel industry.
Lisa Linowes, who currently helms the Industrial Wind Action Group, Save Right Whales Coalition, and Wildlife, Energy & Community Coalition, joined IER’s newly formed advisory committee in 2018. Linowes, whose work and writings have been promoted by IER on MasterResource since 2010, also served as a senior fellow at TPPF, where she authored two anti-wind reports.
Kevon Martis, the driving force behind the Michigan-based anti-renewables groups Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition and Our Home Our Voice, has been listed as a fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute (previously known as the American Tradition Institute) since 2016. IER has also featured Martis’s writings and efforts on MasterResource since 2012. Martis is now the public face of Citizens for Local Choice, a ballot initiative which seeks to overturn Michigan’s new law streamlining renewable energy siting, and received money from a longtime gas industry executive in Ohio.
These anti-renewables activists and the fossil fuel industry funded groups with whom they’ve teamed up represent some of the most prolific sources of information and strategies used by NIMBY activists in fights against wind and solar farms all over the country.
Opponents allied with the fossil fuel industry seek to use a mix of disinformation, litigation, exclusionary siting and zoning laws and ordinances, and moratoria and bans to block deployment of renewables. Opposition to renewable energy is also being fueled by the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories online.
Local residents who choose to lease their land for wind and solar farms are often villainized by project opponents. In South Carolina, state law enforcement officials are investigating death threats received by members of the York County Council for supporting the construction of a solar panel factory.
People who are skeptical of renewable development, but independent of the fossil fuel industry – who may have legitimate concerns about how a wind or solar farm may impact views, wildlife, agricultural lands, and other aspects of their communities – may be more open to public education, dialogue, and reasonable compromises that allow projects to move forward. Public input can even result in improvements to project plans, such as the addition of innovative agrivoltaics approaches that enable dual use of land for agriculture and solar power generation.
Foes of renewables allied with the fossil fuel industry tend to support the expansion of coal, gas, and oil extraction and infrastructure, and oppose what they call government mandates aimed at limiting the environmental and public health impacts of fossil fuels. Local residents whose concerns about a particular renewable energy project are based on values like conservation, by contrast, often support wind and solar power in general and may be concerned about problems like climate change that are caused by fossil fuels.
Renewables opponents who are paid by the fossil fuel industry sometimes pose as NIMBY activists. For example, a media outlet owned by Metric Media, which is known for its right-wing bias, reported that the emcee of an anti-solar town hall meeting in Ohio was a local farmer. A local journalist soon revealed that the emcee was actually a chief strategist for a political consulting firm that worked for a front group for the gas industry.
Public opinion research has long shown deep distrust of the oil and gas industry among the public. A new national labs survey shows that people living near solar farms trust project neighbors, nonprofit and community organizations, and universities more than other sources for information about energy projects. Exposing the money behind fossil fuel industry front groups and political operatives who pose as NIMBY activists, think tanks, and experts is a critical step to helping the public know disinformation when they see it.
The forces aligned against renewables are powerful but not immune to public scrutiny and accountability, which is why fossil fuel interests generally seek to hide their support. For example, a spokesperson for The Empowerment Alliance once told a reporter that the pro-gas and anti-renewables group won’t disclose its funders because its donors don’t want to face public protests.
NIMBY activists have also retreated from formal alliances with SPN think tanks like the Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI) when the funding those groups have received from the fossil fuel industry creates controversy. For instance, a Nantucket-based group recently publicly disassociated itself from the CRI-backed anti-offshore American Coalition for Ocean Protection after research and reporting followed the money trail from CRI and ACOP back to the fossil fuel industry.
A WHO’S WHO OF RENEWABLE ENERGY OPPONENTS
Fossil Fuel Industry Funders:
Alliance Resource Partners: