Drilled Down: Old School Climate Denial Is Back

Source: Drilled Down: Old School Climate Denial Is Back

Over the past month or so, thanks in large part to the work of reporter Michael Thomas, the Internet has rediscovered an effort that’s been underfoot for more than a decade: the coal-funded attack on clean energy. In a few viral Twitter threads, Thomas has focused on the work of two longtime anti-renewables campaigners, John Droz and Kevon Martis, who have spent the past 15 years or so fighting renewable energy projects at the local level (and convincing and training others to do the same).

I first heard about Martis and Droz through Scott Peterson at Checks and Balances Project, back in 2018 when he was digging into the sudden, successful backlash against wind energy in Ohio and Michigan. They’re still going strong (Droz is now a member of the CO2 Coalition as well) and, according to Thomas, gaining steam. I suspect we’ll see a resurgence of anti-renewable activity as the fossil fuel industry looks to leverage the Inflation Reduction Act incentives for gas and dampen the benefit of the Act for renewables. So it’s a good time to look at where that work fits in the broader climate countermovement.

When I look at both Droz’s and Martis’s presentations, what I see are the fingerprints of a guy who predates both of them in the anti-climate battle: Steve Milloy. Which is interesting because Milloy also happens to be the highest-paid staffer at the same organization where Martis is a senior fellow: Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), previously known as the American Tradition Institute—the organization that went after climate scientists like James Hansen, Michael Mann, and Katharine Hayhoe in the early aughts, trying to discredit them, and climate science in general. E&E Legal is also affiliated or sharing counsel with the Energy & Environment Action Team, the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Droz, Martis, E&E, and CEI turn up on all sorts of documents and letters together, too, and Milloy and Droz are both frequent speakers at Heartland Institute events.