The leader of a local group opposing solar power admitted to Ohio regulators last week that a well-connected natural gas industry executive was among the group’s biggest donors.
The testimony of Jared Yost, founder of Knox Smart Development, offered the most comprehensive insight yet into the group’s ties to fossil fuel industry interests, disproving its claim that it was a “grassroots movement” representing local farmers and other residents.
“This changes things quite dramatically,” says David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that recently released a report on the fossil fuel industry’s long history of using money and misinformation to stoke local opposition to renewable energy projects.
Knox Smart Development emerged late last year as a prominent local opponent of the proposed 120-megawatt Frasier solar project near Mount Vernon, Ohio. Questions about its source of funding arose after the company hosted a town hall meeting at a local theater with free food and drinks for about 500 attendees.
Yost revealed last week during an Ohio Power Siting Board hearing that one of his biggest donors is Tom Rastin, the former vice president of Ariel Corporation, which makes compressors for the oil and gas industry. The Washington Post reported last year that Rastin is also one of the leaders of the Empowerment Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for the natural gas industry.
Yost said he was unaware of Rastin’s work with the Empowerment Alliance, but said the fossil fuel group has provided “non-financial” funding to Knox Smart Development to support opposition to the Frasier solar project.
Yost denied being influenced by corporate interests and said his group has not received any corporate funding. “The Empowerment Alliance has nothing to do with me or (Knox Smart Development),” he told Energy News Network via email. “I have contacted them several times and asked questions, as anyone can and as I have done with others.”
Multiple links
When asked at his hearing whether Knox Smart Development was “funded by individuals or companies that have an interest in or provide goods or services to the fossil fuel industry,” Yost replied, “No, not directly to my knowledge.”
However, under cross-examination, Yost admitted that Rastin was one of the group’s biggest donors. Yost is a former IT specialist at Ariel Corporation and his work supported Rastin’s department. Rastin’s wife, Karen Buchwald Wright, is Ariel’s former president and CEO and remains board chair. Her son, Alex Wright, succeeded her as CEO in 2021.
A July 2024 report from the Energy and Policy Institute includes links to recently released public records. A September 2023 email indicates that Rastin was scheduled to speak to the Ohio General Assembly’s Business First caucus in October. The email included a copy of Rastin’s biography with the Empowerment Alliance logo attached at the top.
Mitch Given, who was introduced as the Ohio director of the Empowerment Alliance at a meeting with Ohio lawmakers last year, spoke at a Knox Smart Development town hall meeting last November, where he was introduced as someone who travels the state to help farmers and others “find their voice” and push back against solar projects.
The moderator of this town hall meeting, Tom Whatman, is chief strategist at Majority Strategies. The Empowerment Alliance’s 2023 Form 990 shows that it paid the political consulting firm more than $620,000 this year, making it the group’s highest-paid contractor for five years in a row.
Yost also spoke last week about a dinner last summer on the Frasier Solar project that was attended by Rastin, Given, Whatman, Ariel employee Trina Trainor and Lanny Spaulding. Spaulding is listed on a lobbyist registration form in Ohio as a contact for The Empowerment Alliance. Yost’s father and others also attended. Yost had previously said he did not organize the meeting.
Yost denied being influenced by the Empowerment Alliance or other corporate interests.
“No one has ever tried to give me any direction with my opposition to this project. I am not anyone’s ‘puppet,'” Yost told the Energy News Network. “I do this for myself, my family, my community and my neighbors.” He also said it was “insulting that people try to question my intentions, integrity and intelligence. Frankly, it hurts.”
Incorrect information in the workplace
Nolan Rutschilling, executive director of energy policy at the Ohio Environmental Council, says the arguments of behind-the-scenes special interests are more credible when they appear to come from a grassroots initiative.
“People trust their neighbors because they often believe they have no interests other than the well-being of their community,” Rutschilling said. “Unfortunately, this allows misinformation to spread quickly, and communities have stopped renewable energy projects from moving forward.”
There is a lot at stake, he said, because local sentiment is one of the factors the Ohio Power Siting Board considers when assessing whether a project is in the public interest in addition to the interests of the state as a whole.
“If the fossil fuel industry wants to fight solar projects, it should intervene openly – not by spreading misinformation in communities,” Rutschilling said.
“The Empowerment Alliance prefers to stoke fear in the hope of eliminating perceived competition from clean, cheap, local renewable energy,” said Craig Adair, vice president of Frasier Solar’s developer, Open Road Renewables. “As always, Frasier Solar is ready and willing to consider local residents’ legitimate concerns about potential impacts of solar development.”
Testimony at Knox Smart Development meetings and in advertisements included numerous examples of misinformation. For example, Yost admitted during cross-examination that he did not know that a photo showing damaged solar panels was taken in St. Croix after a major hurricane—a highly unlikely event in central Ohio.
“It was to show what I think could happen,” Yost said.
Other examples include unproven claims that solar panels and other components release toxic chemicals. Steve Goreham, a speaker at the group’s November 2023 town hall meeting, made unproven claims about climate change. Goreham also drew false connections between rising electricity prices and high levels of renewable energy in California and Texas. In fact, wildfires, extreme heat and transmission grid upgrades were the driving factors.
A great deal of misinformation was spread in opposing parties’ testimony at three public hearings of the Ohio Power Siting Board in Knox County.
Half of the more than 100 individual arguments raised by project opponents at those hearings were not supported by facts, said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a professor at Cleveland State University School of Law, in her expert testimony for the Ohio Environmental Council on August 22.
“Overall, the arguments do not constitute a credible or convincing challenge to the proposed project,” Robertson said.
