** Blocking renewable energy is a top state legislative priority for network of pro-fossil fuels think tanks ([link removed])
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By Dave Anderson on Mar 06, 2024 01:00 am
The State Policy Network (SPN) announced on its website ([link removed]) last month that it will focus on working with state lawmakers to prevent states from adopting wind and solar power in 2024.

SPN ([link removed]) is the national organization that serves as the central hub of a network ([link removed]) of affiliated think tanks located in all 50 states, and is funded by right-wing and corporate donors that include fossil fuel interests. The network also includes associate groups ([link removed]) like the Donald Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute and multiple organizations backed by Charles Koch, such as Americans for Prosperity.

Koch is the billionaire CEO and chairman of Koch Industries, which operates in multiple sectors of the fossil fuel industry. His Stand Together Trust contributed $5 million in 2022 to SPN-affiliated think tanks and millions more to SPN associates like the American Legislative Exchange Council and Cato Institute, according to the Center for Media & Democracy ([link removed]) .


** The Energy and Policy Institute is publishing new research profiles of SPN and several affiliated think tanks involved in coast-to-coast efforts to block renewable energy projects
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Highlights and links to the new profiles can be found below:
* State Policy Network ([link removed]) : SPN has brought on Amy Oliver Cooke, a political consultant who previously worked for a SPN-affiliated think tank in Colorado that was funded by coal producers in Wyoming, to lead its Energy Policy Working Group. Sponsors of SPN’s annual meeting in Chicago last year included the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, Stand Together Trust, and the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity.

* Texas Public Policy Foundation ([link removed]) (TPPF): TPPF, which received more than $3 million from Stand Together Trust and the Charles Koch Institute in 2021 and 2022, ran an online fundraising campaign last year that featured false claims about offshore wind farms “beaching whales” and aimed to raise $500,000. Ten of the nineteen individuals listed on TPPF’s board of directors web page have direct financial connections to the fossil fuel industry.

* Caesar Rodney Institute ([link removed]) (CRI): CRI is leading SPN’s national campaign against offshore wind power. The Delaware-based SPN affiliate received $162,500 from the du Pont family’s Longwood Foundation in 2022. The Longwood Foundation’s president Thère du Pont is a director for the DuPont Company, which sells products used by coal and methane gas power plants, and the foundation’s chairman Charlie Copeland works for CRI. Ben du Pont chaired a $150-per-person fundraising dinner for CRI’s anti-offshore wind campaign in November.

* Cascade Policy Institute ([link removed]) : The Oregon-based SPN affiliate published a report, “Quantifying the Unreliability of Wind and Solar Power in the Northwest,” last year by Eric Fruits. Fruits is also a senior scholar for the International Center for Law & Economics, which received $500,000 in 2022 from Koch’s Stand Together Trust.


** Other SPN affiliates and associate groups have also been ramping up efforts to block renewable energy
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The Buckeye Institute, an Ohio-based SPN affiliate, has made the Frasier Solar project and Knox County officials the latest targets of its campaign against Ohio’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program ([link removed]) . PILOT payment arrangements provide renewable energy developers with tax certainty, while ensuring counties benefit from reliable revenue from wind and solar projects for local schools and services. Frasier Solar has faced opposition from Knox Smart Development, an anti-solar LLC that has connections to the gas industry ([link removed]) and has used ([link removed]) the Buckeye Institute’s flawed analysis
([link removed]) in its efforts to derail the solar project.

The Buckeye Institute’s Board of Trustees includes Mark Jordan ([link removed]) , the president of the gas exploration and production company Knox Energy. Jordan also serves on the board of the Kirkpatrick Jordan Foundation, which contributed $35,000 to $40,000 annually to the Buckeye Institute in recent years, according to IRS Form 990s ([link removed]) .

The Center of the American Experiment, which received $250,000 ([link removed]) from Koch’s Stand Together Trust in 2022, has run multiple ([link removed]) anti-wind and anti-solar ad campaigns on Facebook ([link removed]) . The Minnesota-based SPN affiliate also received $20,000 from Americans for Prosperity ([link removed]) in 2021, when it published an anti-renewables report, “Not in Our Backyard ([link removed]) ,” by Robert Bryce, a leading purveyor of anti-renewable energy disinformation.

Image from one of the Center of the American Experiment’s Facebook ads ([link removed])

The John Locke Foundation, a North Carolina-based SPN affiliate, is busy fighting solar farms ([link removed]) and offshore wind. The group received $100,000 ([link removed]) in 2022 from “the dark money ATM of the right ([link removed]) ,” Donors Trust, which contributed $19.3 million to SPN affiliates ([link removed]) that year.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Michigan’s SPN affiliate, received $525,000 from Stand Together Trust ([link removed]) in 2022. The group is supporting ([link removed]) the Citizens for Local Choice ([link removed]) ballot initiative, which aims to repeal Michigan’s new law aimed at streamlining renewable energy siting in the state. The leaders of the ballot initiative include longtime anti-wind and solar activist Kevon Martis ([link removed]) .

Martis is also listed ([link removed]) as a Senior Policy Fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), a Virginia-based SPN associate ([link removed]) that’s received funding from the coal industry ([link removed]) . Martis and Bryce spoke last month at a Knox Smart Development anti-solar event in Ohio ([link removed]) . E&E Legal received nearly $950,000 in 2022 from Donors Trust ([link removed]) .

The Cato Institute, a national SPN associate, received $1.8 million ([link removed]) from Stand Together Trust in 2022. Cato hired former Trump Department of Energy politico appointee Travis Fisher, a longtime foe of renewables ([link removed]) , last year. Fisher spoke in January at an anti-offshore wind meeting ([link removed]) in Maryland led by several Republican members of Congress.

Linnea Luekin of the Heartland Institute, another SPN associate located in Illinois, called for 2-mile setbacks for wind turbines ([link removed]) in an appearance last month before state lawmakers in West Virginia. Heartland received more than $1.25 million ([link removed]) from Donors Trust in 2022.

The Manhattan Institute, an SPN affiliate based in New York, received $495,000 from Stand Together Trust ([link removed]) and $1.6 million from hedge funder Paul Singer’s foundation ([link removed]) in 2022. Adjunct fellow Jonathan Lesser has churned out a steady stream of anti-renewables opinion pieces ([link removed]) featured in Forbes, the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

Lesser is also president of the consulting firm Continental Economics, where his clients ([link removed]) have included multiple pipeline companies, and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the group backed by OxBox Carbon CEO Bill Koch ([link removed]) that fought Cape Wind.

Top image from photo by Wayne National Forest ([link removed](3725860708).jpg) found on WikiMedia Commons. Creative Commons ([link removed]) Attribution 2.0 Generic ([link removed])

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