As researchers at Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab illustrated in a recent study on East Coast anti–offshore wind advocacy, right-wing groups—often funded by fossil fuel interests—frequently offer material support to these typically grassroots opposition movements. Polluter-backed think tanks such as the Caesar Rodney Institute have offered legal support, personnel, talking points, and financial resources to local groups fighting renewable energy projects. The right-wing legal movement has also been eager to take on cases brought by such groups; the board of commissioners for Cape May County, where several Loper Bright plaintiffs live, hired longtime anti-regulatory crusaders Nancie Marzulla and Roger Marzulla Jr. to challenge wind developments there. Isaac Slevin—a co-author of the report—cautioned against seeing offshore wind activism as a purely astroturfed project. Rather, he said, participants have been eager to seek out and accept support from groups willing to offer it.
Right-wing groups have also aided other plaintiffs in cases challenging Chevron in their opposition to offshore wind. For instance: Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for the Rhode Island–based company Seafreeze Ltd., a plaintiff in the Relentless companion case to Loper Bright, told Reuters in 2021 that she sought legal assistance from the Texas Public Policy Project. The Texas Public Policy Project is known for helping spearhead a nationwide campaign against environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, investment principles, and has provided no-cost legal representation to offshore wind critics in New England as well as a high-production-value video outlining its case against wind energy. The Relentless case plaintiffs are being represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit law firm. The NCLA is also a partner organization of the State Policy Network, whose members and affiliates include several groups that support anti-wind advocacy. Neither Lapp nor the NCLA responded to multiple requests for comment as to how NCLA came to take up the case.
Several boats owned by Reichle and Bright—as detailed in a website dedicated to the case—are on the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance’s member list. Other RODA members, which can be companies, business associations, and individual vessels enlisted by their owners, include F/V Relentless and plaintiffs in the case the Texas Public Policy Project brought against Vineyard Wind. Lapp serves on RODA’s board of directors alongside Lund’s Fisheries’ Greg Didomenico, the company’s fisheries management specialist. A 2020 letter publicized on the Lund’s Fisheries website calls for a five-year moratorium on offshore wind development pending the satisfaction of a long list of industry demands; Axelsson, Bright, and Jeff and Wayne Reichle are among its extensive list of signatories. A post on the Lund’s Fisheries website about the petition includes a now-defunct link to a sign-on form on RODA’s website.