Anti-wind NIMBYs backed by fossil fuel industry
By Mary Lhowe / ecoRI News contributor
Supporters and opponents of offshore wind often engage in a kind of schoolyard game where people — often with no factual basis — accuse their opponents of being on the payrolls of larger entities that pay the bills and call the shots.
A new paper researching anti-wind funding by an
institute at Brown University mostly bypasses images of monetary payoffs by
outside forces.
Instead, the paper focuses on non-cash valuables that
several big national organizations — often funded by the oil and gas industry —
offer to anti-wind activists in New England and across the country. Those
valuables may include networks of conservative think tanks, celebrity speakers,
legal advice, expertise in crafting public opinion, public relations language,
and other aids that the research paper calls “information subsidies.”
These information subsidies and expert resources fighting
offshore wind move within a large and interactive network of groups and
individuals, including many in Rhode Island and across the region. Much of the
money supporting national-level anti-wind groups comes from the fossil fuel
industry and conservative or libertarian think tanks.
The paper is titled “Beyond Dark Money: Information subsidies and complex networks of opposition to offshore wind on the East Coast” and was recently published in Energy Research & Social Science, a peer-reviewed international journal. One of the four authors is J. Timmons Roberts, a Brown University professor and leader of the Climate and Development Lab at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. The lab began researching disinformation by offshore wind opponents after the formation in January 2023 of Green Oceans, a Little Compton-based group that opposes offshore wind.
“Local efforts against offshore wind do not exist in a
vacuum,” according to the paper. “Journalists have documented instances of
collaboration between community-led offshore wind opposition groups and
conservative think tanks.”
The paper noted “our case study opposition group” — that is,
Green Oceans — operates locally, but “its rhetorical claims … do not stray far
from the deeply interconnected network of think tanks and legal and public
relations specialists that have advanced the interest of the fossil fuel
industry for decades.”
“In short,” according to the paper, “community-level
opposition groups do not act alone.”
“It’s important for decision-makers and citizens to know
about the connections these groups are relying upon, who they are in bed with,
so they know whose ideas and interests they’re hearing,” Roberts said.
Although the Brown research paper isn’t mainly about money,
it does include a table showing a total of $72.2 million in donations to 17
organizations — none headquartered in Rhode Island — involved in fighting
renewable energy. The table is titled, “Contributions from fossil fuel
interests and dark money groups to organizations in the anti-offshore wind
network.”
Local opposition
In 2023, the first year of operations for the nonprofit
Green Oceans, it received $550,000 in grants and donations, according to
its 990 tax report. (Data
for this year isn’t available.) The group has a voluminous website, an active
Facebook page, a published white paper, and some shorter documents.
Last year it spent $318,000 in legal fees, hiring lawyers to
engage in several lawsuits against state and federal offshore wind permitting
agencies. It distributes lawn signs, sells branded merchandise, and hosts
public meetings.
Members of Green Oceans read the abstract of the Brown
research paper and responded, “It’s disappointing but not surprising to see
that Brown’s Climate & Development Lab is up to its old tricks — smearing
non-partisan grassroots groups like Green Oceans in its proselytizing for Big
Wind. We’ve never taken a dime from the fossil fuel industry, and we certainly
don’t receive ‘information subsidies’ from any think tanks — all of our funding
comes from ordinary people who support us and we are quite
capable of conducting our own research.”
The paper never identifies the sources of any donations to Green Oceans.
A centerpiece of “Beyond Dark Money” is a complex chart
(shown above) in which East Coast and New England organizations and people
revolve around circles representing a handful of big national organizations
that are driving the fight against offshore wind.
The chart shows three overlapping circles, each with a major
organization in the center and many groups and individuals orbiting it. The
State Policy Network is orbited by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Caesar
Rodney Institute, the Federalist Society, and others. This overlaps a circle
centered by the American Coalition for Ocean Protection. In the third circle,
centered upon Save Right Whales, is Green Oceans. A separate part of the chart
shows Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) and Seafreeze Ltd. of
Rhode Island. The chart names several Rhode Island and Massachusetts
individuals, and many groups spreading an anti-wind message from Maine to New
Jersey.
National groups and resources
The following is a thumbnail summary of the major national
organizations; some descriptions are from the Energy and Policy Institute:
The State Policy Network (SPN) is the hub
of nationwide think tank affiliates that
lead disinformation campaigns against wind and solar power. It is funded by
right-wing donors and oil and gas interests such as Americans for Prosperity,
backed by Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, which operates in many sectors
of the fossil fuel industry.
Texas Public Policy Foundation, an affiliate of SPN,
is a powerful and well-financed renewable energy opposition group. Based in
Austin, Texas, this group has opposed efforts to move away from fossil fuels,
with financial support from ExxonMobil, Chevron, and the Charles H. Koch Foundation.
American Coalition for Ocean Protection (ACOP)
shares information, resources, and strategies to protect beach communities from
permanent interference in oceanfront life. “Beyond Dark Money” says five of
ACOP’s founding members were SPN-affiliated think tanks and six were local
turbine opposition groups.
Save Right Whales describes itself as “an
alliance of grassroots … organizations … working to protect the critically
endangered North Atlantic right whale … from the industrialization of our ocean
habitat.” Founder Lisa Linowes was a senior fellow for the Texas Public
Policy Foundation.
Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA)
calls itself “a broad membership-based coalition of fishing industry
associations and fishing companies with an interest in improving the
compatibility of new offshore development with their businesses.”
Caesar Rodney Institute is a Delaware-based
affiliate of the State Policy Network.
The Brown paper emphasized, “Local opposition groups do not
act in isolation. Some of their resources originate from organizations with
vested interests in fossil fuel dependence. National-level fossil fuel
interests fund state-level climate denial think tanks, which support and work
alongside offshore wind opposition groups that operate on the local level.”
On the ground in Rhode Island
Viewed from the outside, it’s not always obvious when and
where national opposition groups touch down in New England. But a few examples
are visible:
In July, Green Oceans hosted a talk by Robert Bryce, a Texas journalist and anti-wind activist. In the past, he has been a fellow at the Institute for Energy Research and the Manhattan Institute. The Institute for Energy Research has been described in The Guardian, Huffington Post, and Mother Jones as a front group for the fossil fuel industry.
It was
initially formed by Charles Koch, receives donations from many large
companies such as ExxonMobil, and publishes position papers opposing any
efforts to control greenhouse gases. The Manhattan Institute is a policy
think tank that has received significant funding from both ExxonMobil and
Koch Industries.
In April, Elizabeth Q. Knight, founder of Green
Oceans, was interviewed for more than an hour about the Green Oceans movement
by The Ocean State Current, the media arm of the right-wing Rhode Island Center
for Freedom & Prosperity, which is an affiliate of the State Policy
Network, a hub of anti-renewables activity.
In December 2021, the Texas Public Policy
Foundation sued the federal
government for violating legal standards when it approved Vineyard Wind. The
suit was on behalf of six plaintiffs — all fishing businesses — including three
in Rhode Island: Seafreeze Shoreside Inc. of North Kingston, the lead plaintiff;
Heritage Fisheries Inc.; and Nat. W. Inc., both in Westerly. (In
October 2023, Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District
of Massachusetts ruled in favor
of the federal government and Vineyard Wind in the Seafreeze Shoreside case and
in a related case, Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) v. U.S.
Department of Interior.)
Who likes offshore wind?
Rhode Islanders who support offshore wind power as an
alternative to oil and gas include environmental groups such as the Green
Energy Consumers Alliance and Climate Action Rhode Island, labor unions and
Climate Jobs Rhode Island, and residents, including shoreline property owners.
Among the most dynamic environmental groups is Climate Action Rhode Island (CARI), which is developing a pro-wind campaign called “Yes on Wind.” Christian Roselund, a CARI member, said the campaign is ramping up, with messages via press releases, letters to the editor, posts on Instagram, a video series, and a YouTube channel with personal messages from Rhode Islanders such as Newport resident Bart Lloyd and Barrington resident Hans Scholl.
“Green Oceans is giving the impression that people involved
in Narragansett Bay are universally opposed to offshore wind, and that is not
the case,” Roselund said. He agreed that CARI has not been as quick and as loud
on social media as Green Oceans, which he said has been better at “flooding the
zone.”
“It is easier to peddle fear than to present facts,”
Roselund said of the difference between Green Oceans and CARI. “But we who live
in Rhode Island and support offshore wind have a dog in this fight.”
He said Green Oceans is known for presenting data in a “Gish
gallop” — a debating technique that sprays a fire hose of statements — true and
untrue — so fast that opponents can’t refute data as fast as it flies from the
source. Roselund said CARI would respond to this by selectively choosing Green
Oceans statements to refute. An example of the latter might be when Green
Oceans said it was harder to clean up debris from a turbine blade collapse than
to clean up an offshore oil spill. As someone who lived in New Orleans during
the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Roselund said that assertion
stopped him in his tracks.
Green Oceans and other offshore wind opponents are loud, but
they don’t represent the majority of Rhode Islanders, according to Amanda
Barker, Rhode Island program coordinator for the Green Energy Consumers
Alliance. She said a recent poll of people
in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut by the Barr Foundation found
most residents of the Ocean State in favor of offshore wind. The poll stated,
“Large majorities of voters endorse using more solar, hydropower, and wind to
generate electricity.” The poll also found that, “Support in coastal counties
is as high as it is inland.”
Barker pointed to the Yes on Wind campaign, which is now
rolling out infographics on social media and preparing to ramp up its campaign
in January.
Barker said pro-wind organizations don’t want to amplify
wrong information presented by Green Oceans, but they will push back on some
claims that are patently false, including the claim that offshore wind turbines
harm marine mammals.
“It makes sense to start posting responses to some claims,”
she said. “If they go unanswered people will start to believe they are true.”
(Green Oceans claims that offshore wind harms whales have
been repeatedly denied by marine scientists from many sources, including the
University of Rhode Island. The Brown report noted that the anti-wind movement
has created some strange bedfellows, like ocean conservationists and fishermen.
It states, “The fishing industry is one of the largest threats to whales on the
East Coast; NOAA [states
that] fishing gear entanglement caused 65% of documented North Atlantic Right
Whale deaths, injuries, and morbidities between 2017 and 2023.”)
Barker hasn’t observed people from national anti-wind groups
working in Rhode Island, but she believes their influence is at work here,
mainly because she hears the same talking points in the Ocean State.
“[National anti-wind groups] are using the same rhetoric
that they are using here in Rhode Island,” she said. She has listened to
anti-wind conversation from Massachusetts to New Jersey and said the language
of wind opponents is parroted in all the states, implying a common source, or
“information subsidy,” in the words of the Brown report.
Another pro-wind party in Rhode Island is labor unions and
Climate Jobs RI. “We are front and center on offshore wind,” said Patrick
Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO. Crowley said of Green Oceans,
“They are provocateurs engaged by the fossil fuel industry. When you lie and
make extreme claims you get attention.”
Crowley also said he didn’t believe Green Oceans has truly
deep ties to the communities it says it represents. He believes Green Oceans
speaks mainly for rich property owners and engages in “class warfare.”
“When the oceans rise the first people to be hurt will be
Newport’s Fifth Ward [a working-class neighborhood], not Bellevue Avenue,” he
said.
What about the lawsuits?
Anti-wind groups have had an uphill battle in bringing their
objections to the courts. In recent years:
Rhode Island: In November 2023, the Preservation
Society of Newport County and the Southeast Lighthouse Foundation filed nearly
identical suits against
the federal government over the Revolution Wind and South Fork Wind projects,
claiming the government had failed to comply with federal laws when it
permitted the projects. The major objection in the lawsuits was that views of
the wind turbines could harm historic properties and views in Newport and other
coastal areas. The two cases were consolidated at the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia (Case 1:2023-cv-03510).
In June 2023, Green Oceans filed suit against the Coastal
Resources Management Council, claiming the council violated the state
Constitution, state regulations, and its own responsibilities when it approved
the Revolution Wind project. In April, Newport County Superior Court Judge
Richard Raspallo ruled against Green Oceans, saying Green Oceans didn’t have
standing to file suit.
In January Green Oceans led 35 co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit against
the federal government, claiming that laws were violated in the permitting and
approvals of the Revolution Wind project. In April the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia denied the plaintiffs’ motion to stay federal
approvals for the Revolution Wind project. In June, the same court denied the
plaintiffs’ second request for a stay of the approvals or a preliminary
injunction, declaring that the plaintiffs lacked standing in the case (Case
1:24-cv-00141).
Massachusetts: In August 2021, Nantucket
Residents Against Turbines/ACK For Whales first sued Vineyard Wind 1 and the
federal government, asserting that the federal government violated the
Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. In May 2023,
Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of
Massachusetts dismissed the original complaint. ACK For Whales appealed that
ruling in September 2023 to the First Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. In
April, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed the earlier ruling
of the U.S. District Court against ACK for Whales. In September, ACK For
Whales formally petitioned the U.S.
Supreme Court to take up the case (Case 23-1501).
Read the report here: Beyond dark money: Information subsidies and complex networks of opposition to offshore wind on the U.S. East Coast - ScienceDirect
