Natl Wind Watch
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:
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a### nti-Renewable-Energy Activists and Operatives
John Droz
Realtor John Droz resides in North Carolina and maintains a summer cottage in upstate New York. Based on undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics and some work earlier in his career for General Electric, Droz has presented himself as a scientific expert on a wide range of issues.
He’s emerged as an influential source of conspiracy theories and disinformation about everything from climate science and wind and solar power to Covid-19 and the 2020 elections.208(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QEZy450AR-6-iTNUOlslT8HzmnFAik8pMFt2QhpSY7k/edit#bookmark=id.ozwnc9q5gxxy)
Droz is a member of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Oil and Gas Commission. In 2018, he self-published a paper that was supportive of offshore drilling for oil and methane gas off North Carolina’s coast.
“Offshore wind energy is a much worse choice than is offshore natural gas,” Droz wrote in the paper.
He’s also a member of the CO2 Coalition, formerly known as the George Marshall Institute, a climate denial group that has received money from the Koch network and oil and gas producer EOG Resources.
Droz co-founded the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) with Ohio anti-wind activist Tom Stacy more than a decade ago. AWED and Droz have provided model local laws, strategies, and information utilized by anti-renewables activists all over the country.
A “Potpourri” section of AWED’s website wiseenergy.org lists individuals “who contributed constructive ideas for this website,” including:
- Rob Aliasso, an outspoken opponent of wind power in upstate New York who served as co-chairman of the Coalition for the Preservation of the Golden Crescent, and spent more than three decades as an executive at Stebbins Manufacturing and Engineering, which saw its coal scrubber business decline amidst the transition to cleaner forms of energy
- Charles Battig, a climate denier associated with the Heartland Institute and CO2 Coalition
- Steve Goreham, a paid speaker and climate denier whose clients have included numerous fossil fuel industry groups
- Jonathan Lesser, a fellow for the Manhattan Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation and economic consultant whose clients have included gas utilities, pipeline companies, and Bill Koch’s Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound
- George Taylor, a fellow for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute
Since 2009, AWED has published a monthly newsletter that’s frequently cross-posted on the Institute for Energy Research’s blog MasterResource.org, where Droz is listed as a principal contributor.
In 2011, Droz announced in the newsletter that he’d joined the American Tradition Institute as a fellow. He would later describe the position as unpaid.
“ATI has some great aspirations, and getting rid of unscientific options like wind energy is high on their list,” Droz wrote.
He pointed to ATI’s 2011 lawsuit against Colorado’s renewable energy standard as an example, and asked readers to donate money to support ATI.
ATI named coal producer Alpha Natural Resources as a member in a declaration by executive director Tom Tanton filed in the Colorado lawsuit in March of 2012. Tanton said ATI’s membership also included unnamed “electric power generating and transmission companies that generate energy from coal, natural gas and oil-fired and combustion turbine generation facilities.”
One month earlier, in February of 2012, Droz participated in a coordinating meeting between anti-wind activists and representatives of ATI and other national groups backed by the fossil fuel money. He also helped draft an anti-wind public relations strategy in advance of the meeting.
Droz was back in D.C. that December with Taylor and investor Larry Gerdes meeting with representatives of the American Legislative Exchange Council and Competitive Enterprise Institute and staff for multiple members of the U.S. House and Senate, according to an AWED report-back document EPI later found on one of Droz’s anti-wind websites.
“We gave each legislator a copy of the Rasmussen Renewable Energy report(2.0),” that document said.
Kimball Rasmussen is president and CEO of the Utah-based Deseret Power, a coal burning and mining electric cooperative. In 2010, Rasmussen credited Droz and Taylor with providing “thoughtful input” on the 2.0 edition of his report, “A Rational Look at Renewable Energy,” which disparaged renewables while promoting methane gas as an alternative for reducing CO2 emissions.
AWED’s D.C. trip report-back document from 2012 also illustrates how Droz quickly got to work implementing parts of the national anti-wind PR strategy, which included plans to distribute copies of the Rasmussen report and coordinate with well-funded national groups like ALEC and the Heritage Foundation. Droz later continued to coordinate his anti-wind efforts with Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.
“Everyone involved with AWED (including me) is an unpaid volunteer, who is committed to Science-based energy policies,” Droz told EPI 2017.
Lisa Linowes
Lisa Linowes founded the Industrial Wind Action Group in 2006 and has since emerged as one of the nation’s top anti-renewables activists. Her website, WindAction.org, describes her group as the “#1 Trusted Information Resource on Large-scale Renewables.”
WindAction is incorporated as a “Domestic Profit Corporation” in New Hampshire, where Linowes resides, though the group’s incorporation information states it was “organized exclusively for charitable, educational & scientific purposes.”
WindAction’s website claims the group is “not funded in any way” by the fossil fuel industry or “affiliated with large political activists groups.”
Linowes is the co-founder of the Save Right Whales Coalition that’s fighting offshore wind development along the east coast. In 2021, she joined the Caesar Rodney Institute’s American Coalition for Ocean Protection.
In addition, Linowes serves on the board of directors of Environmental Progress, a California-based group known for criticizing wind and solar power and advocating for nuclear energy and fossil fuels. Michael Shellenberger, the group’s president, is involved in the Save Right Whales Coalition with Linowes.
Linowes is also the co-chairman of the Wildlife, Energy & Community Coalition, which opposes “harmful industrial-scale renewables.”
Linowes has long coordinated her efforts with think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry. The Institute for Energy Research has promoted Linowes’ writings and efforts on its blog MasterResource.org since 2010, and in 2018 she joined IER’s newly formed advisory council.
In 2017, the name of IER’s former director of communications was listed as the “author” in the document properties of an open letter opposing the federal production tax credit for wind power that Linowes claimed she wrote alone.
She’s also served as a senior policy fellow for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where she authored a two-part anti-wind report in 2018.
Kevon Martis
Kevon Martis is a longtime anti-renewables activist in Michigan who has organized and led multiple groups opposing renewable energy projects. Martis has served as a leader of Our Home, Our Voice (OHOV) since its inception in 2023, when the self-described 501(c)(4) organization opposed the passage of legislation aimed at streamlining renewable energy siting in Michigan. OHOV reported over $145,000 in revenue on its annual tax report for 2023, but was not required to disclose its donors.
Martis is now the spokesperson for a Citizens for Local Choice ballot initiative that’s fighting to repeal Michigan’s new siting law. Matt Brewer, an attorney for a group that’s opposing the ballot initiative, told Planet Detroit earlier this year that OHOV’s contributions to Citizens for Local Choice may have violated campaign finance laws by hiding the source of some early donations to the ballot committee. Brewer then filed a campaign finance complaint against OHOV.
Citizens for Local Choice did publicly report a $10,000 contribution from longtime Ariel Corporation executive Tom Rastin of Ohio.
Martis joined the Energy and Environment Legal Institute as a Senior Policy Fellow in 2016, about a month after the Wall Street Journal reported that Arch Coal had to disclose its funding of the anti-renewables and anti-climate science group in its bankruptcy filings. In 2012, Martis participated in a coordinating meeting in D.C. between anti-wind activists from multiple states and representatives of the American Tradition Institute and other front groups backed by the fossil fuel industry.
Martis has also led the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition (IICC) since 2011.
“Martis’s co-founder at the IICC, Joshua Nolan, represented Martin County Coal Corporation in a lawsuit that same year,” as Distilled first reported.
The Institute for Energy Research has promoted Martis’s writings and efforts on its blog MasterResource since 2012.
“I have not and do not receive any support from any energy interest of any kind,” Martis said in a 2020MasterResource blog post by IER’s Robert Bradley. “This includes fossil fuel utilities or the Koch family, etc.”
Martis also described his fellowship position at E&E Legal as unfunded and said “I take no direction from them on any matter.”
Martis’s anti-renewables efforts have extended far beyond his own backyard in Michigan.
“And I have testified on wind energy land use issues across the Midwest, including OH, IL, MI and Kentucky as well as in Nebraska and North Dakota,” Martis said during his 2016 testimony to the Ohio Power Siting Board on wind siting rules.
“I have also been invited to testify before members of Congress in Washington DC,” Martis also said, in reference to a 2013 event hosted by IER.
Martis also appeared at anti-wind meetings in Ohio with Samuel Randazzo, the former attorney and lobbyist who was secretly paid millions of dollars by the coal-burning utility FirstEnergy between 2010 and 2019.
Tom Stacy
Tom Stacy has served as a director for the National Wind Watch (NWW), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts that serves as a clearinghouse for anti-wind information, since 2009.
NWW is frequently asked if it is “backed by the coal or nuclear industry.”
“NWW is not backed by, affiliated with, or funded in any way by these or any other industry, political organization, or ‘think tank,’” according to a FAQpage found on the group’s website wind-watch.org.
The FAQ page also states that members of the organization’s board of directors “are unpaid volunteers with no affiliations to fossil fuel or nuclear energy industries or any similar outside interests.”
Stacy began to fight wind power as the leader of Save Western Ohio from 2008 to 2010, and he also co-founded the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions with John Droz.
For many years, Stacy could be found speaking at events and hearings alongside other prominent wind power opponents like Lisa Linowes, Kevon Martis, and Samuel Randazzo.
By 2014, Stacy became a paid consultant for groups like the Institute for Energy Research and the coal industry group America’s Power. He’s co-authored multiple reports that mislead on the costs of renewable energy with George Taylor, a consultant and fellow for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.
In 2022, Stacy co-authored a report by the Center of the American Experiment, a State Policy Network group in Minnesota, that opposed Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’s 100% clean energy plan. The Center received $250,000 that year from the Koch group Americans for Prosperity.
Tom Tanton
Tom Tanton has been the president of the consulting firm T2 & Associates since 2003, and during that time he has churned out reports for groups like the American Petroleum Institute and American Legislative Exchange Council.
Tanton was a vice president at the Institute for Energy Research from 2003 to 2007, where he was part of the fight to kill the Cape Wind offshore wind project. He’s been affiliated with the American Tradition Institute and Energy and Environment Legal Institute for over a decade.
Tanton’s LinkedIn account lists “friend” of Save Western Ohio as his professional experience for 2009. Save Western Ohio was the anti-wind group led by Tom Stacy before Stacy became a paid consultant who co-authored reports for IER and the coal industry.
A slew of influential anti-renewables activists who emerged during the 2000s have cited Tanton as an early influence on their views on wind power.
A page from the website We Oppose Wind Farms last updated in 2009 includes a picture of Tanton posing with “statewide wind warriors” from New York. More recently, the anti-wind group Save Ontario Shores used public intervenor funds to pay Tanton to be an expert witness against the Lighthouse Wind project in upstate New York, which was never built.
“Much of my tutorial about wind energy and grid operations came from Tom Tanton’s knowledgeable bonhomie,” birder and anti-wind activist Jon Boone wrote in a 2006 paper. “His patient mentoring, enkindled through long phone conversations and voluminous exchanges of emails, made this work possible.”
Boone created the website stopillwind.com and produced and directed “Life Under a Windplant,” a documentary often cited by anti-wind activists. Some of Boone’s writings from more than a decade ago can still be found on IER’s blog MasterResource.org.
Tanton topped a 2008 list where anti-winder John Droz dubbed “the better writers regarding the industrial wind power business.”
That same year, Boone credited Tanton, Droz, Lisa Linowes, and others with reviewing a draft of his article “Why Wind Won’t Work.”
In 2010, anti-winder Ken Hawkins credited Tanton, Boone, Droz, and Stacy, as well as IER’s CEO Robert Bradley, with reviewing a draft of his paper on renewable energy grid integration.
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