Media campaign against wind energy funded by anonymous conservatives

An investigation by The Guardian newspaper into the funding campaigns for climate denialists groups has revealed that rich conservatives have also used a pair of secretive trusts to fund a media campaign against windfarms and solar projects.

The Guardian report has revealed that the two trusts – Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund – served as the bankers of the conservative movement over the past decade, by promising them anonymity and guaranteeing that the $120 million in funds would be channeled as required.

According to The Guardian, the campaign has successfully muddied the water around climate change and renewables, and effectively wrecked the chances of Congress acting on climate change in the world’s largest economy.

The latest revelations suggest the funds also supported a campaign to stop state governments in the US moving towards renewable energy. The revelations come as questions are asked in Australia about the support of anti-climate and anti-renewables think tanks such as the IPA, and specific anti-wind campaigns such as the Landscape Guardians, and a recently launched anti-wind website called Stopthesethings.

The Guardian report identifies a new entity called The Franklin Centre for Government and Public Integrity as one vehicle supported by the Donors funds. Franklin received $6.3 million from the two funds in 2011, helping it expand the reach of its watschdog.org network, which purports to provide independent journalism on government waste and use of taxpayers funds, but is focused on promoting conservative and libertarian causes, particularly on issues such as renewable energy.

The Guardian said the funding of the Franklin Centre signalled a shift in priorities for the conservative billionaires who are funding the anti-climate cause towards local and state-level organising. In 2011, Donors Trust helped the Franklin Centre expand its media operations to Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia, the Centre for Public Integrity reported in an investigation on conservative funding networks.

As The Guardian explains:

 “The Franklin Centre purports to be a hub for a network of “citizen journalists” and “watchdog” groups reporting from state capitals. It claims on its website to provide 10% of all daily reporting from state capitals across the country. It says it is on a mission to uphold a media culture of “transparency, accountability, and fiscal responsibility at the grassroots level”.

But the Pew Research Centre’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has ranked Franklin’s watchdog.org affiliates as “highly ideological”. Many of the media organisations listed on Franklin’s website as affiliates are ultra-conservative groups.

Among them are several that have been active in the past year or two to stop the expansion of solar power and windfarms.

In North Carolina, the two Franklin affiliates, the John Locke Foundation and the John W Pope Civitas Institute, also led effort for a ban on the term “sea-level rise”. The state legislature eventually voted in June last year to bar state agencies from taking into account future sea-level rise in development planning.

The groups have also led opposition to offshore wind development in North Carolina, organising workshops against windfarms.

Another Franklin affiliate, the New Jersey Watchdog, pushed for the state to drop out of a regional emissions cutting programme.

Other Watchdog affiliates have cast doubt on the link between extreme weather and climate change.

CPI found multiple ties between the Franklin Centre and groups such as Americans for Prosperity, which has been funded by Donors Trust as well as the conservative oil billionaire Koch brothers. Some of the Franklin Centre’s blogs have received funds from AFP. There was also cross-over of board members in the two groups.”

The watchdrop.org’s articles on energy issues – mostly critical of incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, as well as critical of certain wind and solar projects – can be found here.