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Why an attorney for Dominion Voting Systems is now defending renewables companies.
My biggest takeaway of this year? Bad information is breaking the energy transition – and the fake news is only getting more powerful.
Across the country, we’re seeing solar, wind, and battery storage projects grind to a halt thanks to activism powered by fears of health and safety risks, many of which are unfounded, unproven, exaggerated, or conspiratorial in nature. There are some prominent examples, like worries about offshore wind and whales, but I’ve spent a large chunk of The Fight’s lifespan so far investigating a few crucial case studies, from wildfire fears confronting battery developers in California to cancer concerns curtailing a crucial transmission line in New Jersey. To tell you the honest truth, it is difficult to quantify just how troubling this issue is for the industry.
False information is something Mark Thomson, a D.C.-based attorney with the law firm Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch LLP, thinks about a lot these days. Thomson was one of the lawyers who won a record $787 million settlement for Dominion Voting Systems from Fox News Network after it broadcast incorrect claims about how the company’s ballot machines were used in the 2020 election. Today his attention is elsewhere – conspiracy-powered defamation against renewables developers and their projects. .
“This is a sizable and growing part of what we do here,” Thomson told me. “I think it’s because the developer sector writ large increasingly understands the severity and the pervasiveness of falsehoods in that space, and also just as importantly how quickly groups and communities can latch onto these falsehoods in ways that critically interrupt and even endanger some of these projects.”
Why are we talking about conspiracy theorists as an opposition powerhouse? Well, studies show that like working in agriculture or owning large tracts of land, scientific skepticism can be a big signal that someone will oppose a renewables project. A 2022 study published in the journal Nature Energyfound “moderate-to-large” relationships between indices of conspiracy beliefs and the likelihood that someone would oppose a wind farm, and that the relationship between wind farm opposition and conspiracy beliefs was “many times greater than its relationship with age, gender, education, and political orientation.”
Conspiracies or misinformation can also be weaponized by hostile local, state, or federal regulators if they have other reasons to try and curtail development.
Take St. Clair County, Michigan, where a leading local public health official is leveraging theories about the impact of solar energy to try and limit development. St. Clair County is home to its own fun blend of renewables consternation. The most acerbic fight is in the town of Fort Gratiot, where Ranger Power subsidiary Portside Solar has proposed to construct a 100 MW solar facility. The project is in a rural, largely agricultural region and has faced incredible resentment. (If you want a primer on the conflict, watch this interview segment – in between featured ads for Ivermectin.)
Last Thursday evening, St. Clair County medical director Remington Nevin testified before the county’s board of commission that “very clear health threats” caused by solar energy required “extraordinary actions” under the state public health code. Nevin specifically addressed noise, claiming that the sound produced by hypothetical solar facilities could “presumably be an unreasonable threat to public health” if not kept below certain decibel thresholds.
“This should not be controversial,” Nevin told the audience, which erupted into rapturous applause after his testimony.
This testimony, prompted by public comments from disgruntled residents, came after Nevin issued a report detailing his desires for quick action under the public health code that circulated widely on anti-renewables Facebook groups.
Nevin is definitely a qualified medical professional. “Occupational medicine is the successor to the field of industrial medicine,” Nevin told me when I emailed him about his qualifications, “and is the medical speciality most applicable to the health effects of industrial activities such as these.” He noted that he has a doctoral public health degree in mental health and psychiatric epidemiology, and has done fellowship training in occupation and environmental medicine.
But he is not a specialist in the health effects of solar panels. He’s actually an expert in quinism, a brain and brainstem disease caused by a toxic exposure to anti-malaria drugs. This position made him relevant during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when he spoke out about the risks of taking hydroxychloroquine, an unproven COVID-19 treatment that Trump and other socially conservative figures began recommending at the height of the pandemic lockdowns. Nevin took a more contrarian view of the scientific debate around COVID-19 during those lockdowns, signing a declaration to open society up before a vaccine was widely available. He still feels passionately about this topic today, celebrating Trump’s pick to run the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who coauthored that declaration.
When I asked Nevin about his lack of expertise in the health risks of technology like solar panels, he responded by saying he believes a court would consider him expert enough for his views to hold legal weight.
“In matters such as these, a court ultimately determines the validity of an expert's qualifications,” he said. “I am confident that my background is particularly germane and well-suited to this topic, and that my qualifications and recommendations will withstand judicial review should these matters become subject to litigation in due course.”
For what it is worth, it’s incredibly hard to find evidence that the noise emitted from solar farms creates a risk to public health. Industry says such data is infinitesimal.
There is also at least some apparent temptation of the courts at work in all this, too. Nevin, local leaders, and activists have in public comments about the health risks repeatedly referenced Act 233, a new state law that allows an independent agency to adjudicate conflicts between developers and towns with restrictions on renewable energy projects. As we previously scooped, municipalities and counties are challenging the legality of how that law is being implemented. It is entirely possible that part of Nevin’s crusade against the health impacts of solar on county residents is an attempt to stop the state from usurping the county’s local control.
As opponents of renewable energy look to use the court system in this way, it may be worthwhile for developers to do the same to combat misinformation. Courts can decide when a company is being defamed or unjustly maligned, and the legal system can be an avenue for resolving the vexing issue of conspiracies and misinformation about the health and safety of a renewables project.
Hence why as renewables deployment rises in the U.S., and opposition does too, attorneys like Thomson are going to see a lot more business from developers.
“The law provides some remedies in some circumstances,” Thomson told me. “It’s not a silver bullet. But for specific types of falsehoods, the law can provide an important source of accountability and just as importantly, invoking the law can help people realize that there is a price to be paid for just blatantly and often willfully misleading groups of citizens about this stuff.”
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And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy
1. Worcester County, Massachusetts – The town of Oakham is piping mad about battery energy storage.
2. Worcester County, Maryland – A different drama is going down in a different Worcester County on Maryland’s eastern shore, where fishing communities are rejecting financial compensation from U.S. Wind tied to MarWin, its offshore project.
3. Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania – A Pivot Energy solar project is moving ahead with getting its conditional use permit in the small town of Ransom, but is dealing with considerable consternation from residents next door.
4. Cumberland County, North Carolina – It’s hard out here for a 5-megawatt solar project, apparently.
5. Barren County, Kentucky – Remember the Geenex solar project getting in the fight with a National Park? The county now formally has a restrictive ordinance on solar… that will allow projects to move through permitting.
6. Stark County, Ohio – Stark Solar is no more, thanks to the Ohio Public Siting Board.
7. Cheboygan County, Michigan – A large EDP Renewables solar project called the Northern Waters Solar Park is entering the community relations phase and – stop me if you’ve heard this before – it’s getting grumbles from locals.
8. Adams County, Illinois – A Summit Ridge Energy solar project located near the proposal in the town of Ursa we’ve been covering is moving forward without needing to pay the city taxes, due to the project being just outside city limits.
9. Cottonwood County, Minnesota – National Grid Renewables has paused work on the Plum Creek wind farm despite having received key permits to build, a sign that economic headwinds may be more powerful than your average NIMBY these days.
10. Oklahoma County, Oklahoma – Turns out you can’t kill wind in Oklahoma that easily.
11. Washoe County, Nevada – Trump’s Bureau of Land Management has opened another solar project in the desert up for public comment.
12. Shasta County, California – The California Energy Commission this week held a public hearing on the ConnectGen Fountain Wind project, which we previously told you already has gotten a negative reaction from the panel’s staff.
A conversation with Heather Cooper, a tax attorney at McDermott Will & Emery, about the construction rules in the tax bill.
This week I had the privilege of speaking with Heather Cooper, a tax attorney at McDermott Will & Emery who is consulting with renewables developers on how to handle the likelihood of an Inflation Reduction Act repeal in Congress. As you are probably well aware, the legislation that passed the House earlier this week would all but demolish the IRA’s electricity investment and production tax credits that have supercharged solar and wind development in the U.S., including a sharp cut-off for qualifying that requires beginning construction by a date shortly after the bill’s enactment.
I wanted to talk to Heather about whether there was any way for developers to creatively move forward and qualify for the construction aspect of the credits’ design. Here’s an abridged version of our conversation, which happened shortly after the legislation passed the House Thursday morning.
How would this repeal affect projects that are already in the pipeline?
Projects in the pipeline are likely going to be safe harbored or grandfathered from these repeals, assuming they’ve gone far enough into their development to meet certain tax rules.
For projects that are less far along in the pipeline and haven’t had any outlays or expenditures yet, those developers right now are scrambling and I’ve gotten probably about 100 emails from my clients today asking me questions about what they can do to establish construction has begun on their project.
If they don’t satisfy those construction rules under the tax bill, they will be completely ineligible for the energy generating credits — the investment tax credit and production tax credit. A pretty significant impact.
What are the questions your clients are asking you?
I’m being asked how these credits are being repealed, if there’s any grandfathering, and how it’s impacting transferability. Also, they’re asking if these rules are tied to construction or placing in service or tax years generally. But also, it seems like people are asking what folks need to do to technically begin construction.
How much will this repeal affect fights between developers and opposition? I spoke to an attorney who told me this repeal could empower NIMBYs, for example.
I don’t know if it empowers them as much as NIMBYs will have less to worry about. If these projects are no longer economical, if these are no longer efficient to build, then the projects just won’t get built. NIMBYs and opponents will be happy.
I don’t think anything about the particular structure of the repeal, though, is empowering opponents. It is what it is.
Like, you can begin construction by entering into procurement contracts for equipment to build your facility so if you’re building a project you can enter into a contract today to get modules, warehouse those modules, and then use those modules to cause one or more projects as having begun construction based on when they were purchased.
If a developer today is able to enter into those contracts, that’ll be outside the scope of anything an opponent would have anything to do with.
Are we expecting people to make decisions before the Senate has acted on this bill or are people in a holding pattern?
When the election happened in November I had increased interest in clients who were concerned about a worst-case scenario like this, that credits would be repealed at or around the time of enactment. We had clients betting not that this would happen but [there was still] a 1% chance or a 5% chance. And folks asked then, how do we re-up thinking about how to begin construction on projects as a precautionary measure.
A lot of my clients were thinking about the worst case scenario beforehand. This is probably just escalating their thinking.
I don’t think people have a lot of time to think about what to do, though, given the 60-day cut off after enactment.
What is the silver lining here? Is there any? If I were to talk to a developer right now, is there an on the bright side here?
The short answer is no. Maybe it makes power projects a lot more expensive and American energy a lot more expensive and therefore those building power projects can make more money from their existing projects? That’s whether they’re renewable or otherwise. Other than higher power costs – for consumers, regular old taxpayers – there’s not really a bright side.
So, what you’re saying is, you don’t have any good news?
The good news is the Senate is still out there and needs to review this. There are a few senators who’ve expressed strong support of these credits – I’m not super optimistic, but four senators tend to have a bit more sway than congresspeople do.
How well-organized opposition is killing renewable energy in a state that’s desperate for power
The Commonwealth of Virginia is clamping down on solar farms.
At least 39 counties in Virginia – 41% of all the state’s counties – now have some form of restriction on solar development, according to a new analysis of Heatmap Pro data. Many of these counties adopted ordinances significantly reducing how much land can be used and capping the total acreage of land allowed for solar projects. Some have gone further by banning new solar facilities altogether.
I wanted to get to the bottom of the Virginia dilemma after we collected this data and crunched these numbers because, simply put, it didn’t make a lot of sense.
Historically Virginia, like Texas, has been a relatively favorable state for energy infrastructure. Culturally, it would make sense for people to welcome new forms of energy. The state is an epicenter in the American data center boom, home to about 35% of all hyperscalers in the world – an economic boon that’ll require inordinate amounts of power. One would assume people want that energy to come from cleaner sources!
Yet counties across the state have been rolling up the red carpets. Mecklenburg recently banned new solar projects. Surry limited solar projects to a tenth of the county’s acreage. Buckingham has put a firm limit on development to 7,500 megawatts of solar projects in total. Why?
Well, here’s where I’ve landed: the opposition’s well organized and benefits from a history of conflicts over other forms of development.
Citizens for Responsible Solar – an anti-renewables organization headquartered in Culpepper, Virginia, founded by a former special adviser to President George W. Bush – has been active in the state since at least 2018. Although it is a national organization in name, and does have factions in other states, its website primarily boasts “success stories” in Virginia counties, including Augusta, Culpepper, Fauquier, Gloucester, Henry, Madison, Mecklenburg, and Page counties.
CRS is primarily focused on opposing solar on agricultural lands – a topic we’ve previously covered thoroughly – as well as forested areas. It claims to not be entirely against solar energy but only wants projects on industrial-zoned acreage. But the organization is also well documented to spread misinformation about solar energy itself.
Dr. Faith Harris of Virginia Interfaith Power & Light told me this week that her experience speaking with individuals opposed to renewable energy in the state indicates that falsehoods and conspiracy theories are playing a large role in turning otherwise friendly counties against solar energy. In her view, this has become an even bigger problem since the state turned red with the election of Governor Glenn Youngkin, who this week vetoed a slate of climate bills, including one that would make it easier to permit small solar farms and battery storage facilities.
“We’ve had a lot of misinformation and directions and narratives changed trying to initiate a resurgence of more fossil fuels,” Harris said. “It’s part of the movement to prevent and stop renewable energy.”
There’s something else going on, too, and it’s historically linked to systemic social inequities in some of these counties. They’ve been burned before, Harris noted, over the construction of other forms of industrial energy.
For years, Buckingham County residents resisted the construction of a gas compression station smack dab in the middle of a historically Black neighborhood. I covered this conflict early in my environmental journalism career because it was central to the construction of the now-defunct Atlantic Coast gas pipeline. It was a fight Buckingham won, in no small part due to the support of organizations like Virginia Interfaith Power & Light.
Now, Buckingham has capped solar projects. I asked Harris why a county that was so aggressive in fighting gas power would be against renewable energy, and she bluntly replied that these two fights are “pretty much directly related” – with the added conspiracy factor making matters worse for solar projects. For example, she’s heard complaints from residents in Buckingham about trees that could be cut down for solar, echoing the claims spread by organizations like CRS.
“People in the communities have been challenged and frightened in some way that solar is somehow going to have an impact on them, and not really even recognizing that they’re constantly being exposed to air and water contamination,” she said. “I don’t think the average person understands how they get their energy.”
She added: “This is still an ongoing challenge and in many ways we – the climate movement – have failed to educate the public well enough.”