Advocacy group has Trump ties
Fossil fuel backers are launching attacks on N.M. Dems on energy
A nonprofit fossil fuel advocacy group with ties to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has been targeting environmental organizations, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Democratic governors, including New Mexico’s Michelle Lujan Grisham, with criticism of energy policies it calls “radical” and “disastrous.”
In July, Power the Future attacked Lujan Grisham for participating in a “clean energy conversation” hosted by the Biden campaign.
Larry Behrens, the group’s Western states director, also has published opinion pieces in The New Mexican and other media outlets criticizing the Energy Transition Act, legislation Lujan Grisham signed into law in 2019 to create a timeline for shifting the state to renewable energy.
Behrens, who worked as a communications staffer for former Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, has portrayed Lujan Grisham’s administration as left wing and intent on destroying good-paying jobs in New Mexico’s oil, gas and coal industries.
Behrens declined a request for an interview on his work but defended it in an email.
“I work hard to research issues that are important in the energy conversation both nationally and here in New Mexico,” he said.
Power the Future, classified as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare organization” with the IRS, has been conducting opposition research as well as using blog posts, print media, appearances on
Fox News and digital advertising to praise Trump’s energy policies and slam what it calls “the eco-left” narrative and Biden’s energy policies.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Power the Future has spent $157,776 on Facebook ads since it formed in late 2017. In recent months, the group has largely focused on print and TV news organizations and opposition research.
Because of its IRS status, it does not have to disclose its donors — raising concerns among so-called good government groups that advocate for transparency in politics.
Executive Director Daniel Turner declined to say who is funding Power the Future and denied any illegal coordination with the Trump campaign, despite some loose connections.
The group’s mission nationally, in New Mexico and in six other states where it has a presence “is to inform on issues,” Turner said.
“We feel very passionately about the energy space, and we are extremely blunt in our messaging,” Turner said. “I started it for that reason, because sometimes messaging needs to be very clear and precise. … We want to advocate for our issues very, very clearly.”
An IRS form for Power the Future lists Bradley Crate, Trump’s campaign treasurer, as one of the group’s board members. And the firm that prepared the group’s IRS 990 form — Austin-based Atchley & Associates — also filed the tax forms for Trump’s nonprofit Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Power the Future uses Massachusetts-based Red Curve Solutions, which also was listed on campaign compliance documents for the Trump Victory Committee, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee and the Donald Trump Campaign Committee, according to the nonprofit National Institute on Money in Politics. The firm is led by Crate.
“The connection there is we use the same compliance firm, and Bradley is on our board as a compliance officer to fulfill our 501(c)(4) obligations, and he is for that organization as well,” Turner said, referring to the Trump campaign. “We’re a client and the Trump campaign is another client as well, but we’re not affiliated at all.”
Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the effects of campaign spending and lobbying, said such overlap is common.
What’s more concerning, she said, is when groups with 501(c)(4) “social welfare” status engage in political work, as Power the Future does, because “they are technically supposed to be social welfare organizations … and not for political purposes.”
Heather Ferguson, executive director of the nonprofit Common Cause New Mexico, said it is unfortunate such groups are not required to disclose donors because it leaves voters in the dark about who is trying to influence elections.
She also said the ties between Power the Future and the Trump campaign create at least “the appearance of coordination” — which she believes social welfare groups should try to avoid.
Former New Mexico state Sen. Dede Feldman, a good-government advocate who served in the Legislature for 16 years, offered harsher criticism of Power the Future.
“They’re on the dark side,” she said.
Feldman included the group in a recent report by Common Cause New Mexico detailing the outsize influence of the oil and gas industry in New Mexico politics.
“The [New Mexico] Oil and Gas Association — they’re the above-board legitimate lobbyists. But Power the Future, they’re the attack dogs,” Feldman said.
Prior to founding Power the Future in late 2017, Turner worked on U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 transition team during the presidential election and as a longtime Republican communications staffer, including in the State Department during former President George W. Bush’s administration and for the Charles Koch Institute.
Turner regularly appears on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight and on the conservative One America News Network.
Environmentalists in New Mexico say they view Power the Future as part of a misinformation campaign intent on denigrating climate science at a time when global warming is playing a role in fueling wildfires across the American West.
“Their principal spokesperson, Larry Behrens, has no background in energy,” said Camilla Feibelman, executive director of the Sierra Club’s Rio Grande Chapter. “He seems to be quoted by the press because he sends out press releases and he needs to be fact-checked because he is a misinformation machine.”
Power the Future says on its website its mission is “pushing back against radical green groups and the ideologues who founded them.”
It says it’s not opposed to renewable energy.
“Scientists rely on the energy industry of today to create the industry of tomorrow, to power labs, drive to work and feed their families,” the group says. “Hurt the energy industry and you hurt the ‘green’ advances, too. It’s yet another disastrous consequence of misinformed ‘green’ activism.”