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.

(The two men speak to the camera while rowing boats, which Roselund said could turn into a theme of the series. It echoes an Instagram post with a similar message from singer James Taylor.)

“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).