There's always a KOCH connection:
The foundation argues that any offshore wind development would pose risks for the environment given North Carolina’s location and vulnerability to hurricanes, “depressed tourism,” and potential ecological damage. But those concerns were not raised a few years ago, when the John Locke Foundation, which is funded heavily by the Charles Koch Institute and Charles Koch Foundation, advocated for oil drilling off the coast of North Carolina.
Lee Fang at The Intercept on the slimy efforts of one Big Oil-funded libertarian think tank to end a wind energy project off the coast of Delaware and Maryland.
—Erika
In November 2019, local property owners in Delaware and Maryland were sent a letter from “Save Our Beach View” asking neighbors to lobby local politicians against the Skipjack wind farm.
The plan, which was approved in 2017, sanctioned a Dutch company to build a 120-megawatt capacity wind energy project — enough to power 40,000 homes by placing turbines 26 nautical miles offshore. The letter warned that the project would “irreparably damage beach tourism, home values and the economy,” “lower rents generally,” and produce “no environmental benefit.” “In fact,” the letter claimed, “regional air quality would become worse because of them.”
While the letter was signed by a local resident, it made no mention of its true author: the Caesar Rodney Institute, a libertarian think tank at the time funded by the oil industry. The subterfuge was intentional. In an interview with the State Policy Network, a group that coordinates best practices for oil-and-gas-backed and libertarian think tanks, the Caesar Rodney Institute said it produced the letter and had it signed by a local concerned beach homeowner to “establish rapport” with the target audience of local residents and merchants.
Save Our Beach View was also created by Caesar Rodney expressly for the purpose of undermining the Skipjack project. “Our strategy was to market and promote the ‘campaign’ rather than our organization, so we came up with the name ‘Save Our Beach View,’ a project of the Caesar Rodney Institute,” said the think tank’s representative in the interview.
