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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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A conversation with Jillian Blanchard of Lawyers for Good Government about the heightened cost of permitting delays
This week I chatted with Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice with Lawyers for Good Government, an organization that has been supporting beneficiaries of the Inflation Reduction Act navigate the uncertainties surrounding tax credits and grant programs under the Trump administration. The reason I wanted to chat with Jillian is simple: the IRA is under threat for the first time under a Republican Congress. I wanted to understand how solar and wind projects could be impacted by the House Republican reconciliation bill and putting IRA tax credits in doubt. I learned a lot.
The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.
Okay, Jillian, what’s the topline here? How would the GOP reconciliation bill impact individual projects’ development?
There are big chunks of the reconciliation bill that will have dramatic impacts on project development, including language that would repeal or phase out bipartisan and popular tax credits in a way that would make it very, very difficult to invest in projects. I can get into the weeds next.
But it’s worth saying first – the group of programs aside from tax credits that [House Republicans] would repeal represents every single part of America. Hundreds of projects that will not go forward if these programs are not going well. And they have several legally obligated grants that EPA has already mucked up in a litany of ways. But what they’re proposing to do is to pull the rug out from under those programs. On top of that they want to pull any unobligated funding out.
I think it’s extremely misrepresentative to say these are not big cuts. They’re significant cuts to clean air and clean water across the board.
Help me get into the weeds about how phasing out the credits will make it harder to invest in a project.
Right now, a bank might want to invest a certain amount of money in a clean energy project because they know on the back end they can get 30% or 40% back on their investment. A return through tax credits. They can bank on that, because tax credits are a guarantee.
Was that an intentional pun? “Bank”?
Yeah, it is. I love a good pun. You opened the floodgates, that was a mistake.
But anyway, the program itself was supposed to be around until at least 2032 and the bank could bank on those tax credits. That’s a big runway, because projects could get delayed and you could lock in the credit as soon as you started construction.
Now they’re doing a phase-out approach where if your project is not placed into service before a certain date, you don’t avoid the phase out. You don’t get any protections if you’re starting your project now or next year. It has to be placed in service before 2028 or else your project may not be eligible. You are constructing it, you are financing it, but then through no fault of your own – a storm or whatever – then suddenly that project is no longer entitled to get 30% or 40% back.
That’s a big risk. And banks don’t like risk.
Opposition on the ground also delays projects the way a storm does. Would this empower those opponents?
Oh, totally. Totally. If anyone wants to fight a project, a bank might be even less likely to invest in it. The NIMBYs for that particular project become a risk.
What would you tell a developer at this moment who is wondering about the uncertainty around the IRA?
I would tell them that now is the time to speak up. If they want to stay in this business and make sure their energy stays as low-cost as it already is, they need to speak up right now, no matter what their political party affiliation is. Make it clear solar isn’t going away, wind isn’t going away, storage isn’t going away. These are markets America needs to be competitive with the rest of the world.
And more of the week’s biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.
1. St. Lawrence County, New York – It’s hard out here for a 2-megawatt solar project in upstate New York.
2. McKean County, Pennsylvania – Swift Current Energy is now dealing with an insurgent opposition campaign against its Black Cherry wind project.
3. Blair County, Pennsylvania – Good news is elsewhere in Pennsylvania though as this county has given the go-ahead for a new utility-scale Ampliform solar project, the BL Hileman Hollow Solar project.
4. Allen County, Ohio – The mayor of Lima, a small city in this county, is publicly calling on Ohio senators to make sure that the pending reconciliation bill in Congress ensures Inflation Reduction Act tax credits can still apply to municipalities.
5. Vanderburgh County, Indiana – Orion Energy’s Blue Grass Creek solar project is now facing opposition too, with Orion representatives telling local press they actually expected some locals to be against the project.
6. Otsego County, Michigan – That state forest-felling solar farm that Fox News loved to hate? That idea is no more.
7. Adams County, Illinois – The Green Key solar project we’ve been following in the town of Ursa has received its special use permit from the county after vociferous local opposition.
8. Dane County, Wisconsin – We’re getting a taste of local worry about how the GOP’s efforts to change the IRA could affect municipal energy planning, thanks to the village of Waukanee.
9. Olmsted County, Minnesota – The fight over Ranger Power’s Lemon Hill solar project is evolving into a nascent bid to give localities more control over permitting renewables projects.
10. Cherry County, Nebraska – This county is seeking an investigation into whether Sandhills Energy’s BSH Kilgore wind farm is violating zoning standards after receiving requests from residents who are against the project.
11. Albany County, Wyoming – Bird conservation activists fighting wind projects in Wyoming claim the Interior Department is providing them incomplete information under the Freedom of Information Act about wind turbines and eagle deaths.
12. Santa Fe County, New Mexico – Renowned climate activist Bill McKibben is publicly going on the attack against opponents of an individual solar project, the AES Rancho Viejo solar farm near Santa Fe.
13. Apache County, Arizona – Opponents of the Repsol Lava Run wind project are now rallying around trying to stop transmission for the project.
14. Klickitat County, Washington – The Cypress Creek Renewables solar project we told you last week got fast-tracked by the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council? Turns out the county had a moratorium on new solar and anticipated a chance to formally file public comments before that would happen.
Will Sunrise Wind and Revolution Wind get the Trump treatment?
The sharks of opposition are circling the American offshore wind industry, as they await the federal government’s next victims.
This week, we received news that Equinor – developer of the Empire Wind project – is inching towards potentially canceling development after a visit to Washington and the White House yielded little success. In addition, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business that the department is now reviewing all offshore wind permits issued under the Biden administration.
“What people don’t realize, billions of tons of rock are poured into the ocean before they can begin the years of pile driving,” Burgum told Fox Business, claiming the review of offshore wind permits that Trump ordered uncovered new data about Empire Wind “that was never released to the public” showing the approval “lacked total rigor.”
Meanwhile, coastal opponents of wind energy have moved onto other projects: Orsted’s Revolution Wind project near Rhode Island and Sunrise Wind project off New York’s coastline. In petitions to the EPA, two anti-wind groups – Green Oceans and Protect Our Coast N.J. – have asked the agency to rescind key permits for air emissions and water discharges, asserting the federal government moved too fast to get them approved.
In addition, an environmental consultancy hired by Green Oceans called Planet A* Strategies sent a detailed report to Burgum examining “the background, legal requirements, and data used in Federal agency decision-making regarding offshore wind development.” The consultancy claimed it had found actual violations of environmental law and that facts in the report “include material information that may have been omitted or misrepresented by offshore wind project developers and governmental decisionmakers.” Planet A* Strategies is run by Maureen Koatz, a former policy director for the Nuclear Energy Institute and Senate staffer.
Green Oceans has also retained federal lobbyists from two different firms, a noteworthy move for an organization that previously had no obvious government affairs footprint.
It is likely no coincidence that all of these petitions and this report are all being filed right now, as we saw a similar flurry of activity surround Empire Wind before its stop work order was issued. Similar noise occurred in the days before Atlantic Shores lost a key EPA permit, sending work on the project into indefinite hiatus. For this reason, I suspect we will see more actions threatening other permits for offshore wind projects – and will be surprised if that doesn’t happen.
But at least this time there’s a countervailing force, as climate-minded environmentalists now swoop in too. Late Thursday, 10 major environmental non-profits – including NRDC, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and the National Wildlife Federation – filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit that was filed by Democrat-led states against Trump’s blanket ban on offshore wind approvals and leases. I obtained a copy of the filing this afternoon from NRDC.
The amicus brief focuses on the argument that Trump’s order and the government’s compliance with it violates the Administrative Procedures Act. This comes after months of relative inaction from the environmental movement, other than a handful of rallies and public statements against the offshore wind ban.
The brief also declares that “when robust environmental review and permitting frameworks are applied, the responsible deployment of U.S. wind power is compatible with wildlife protection, public health, community protection and economic development,” and that the agencies “have taken an abrupt, 180-degree turn in their approach to wind permitting, without acknowledging this about-face, and without providing any justification, let alone a reasoned one.”