Exclusive: Tea Party, Fracking Industry Launch Astroturf Campaign Against Mansfield, OH Community Bill of Rights Referendum

picture-7018-1583982147.png
on

Ohio is referred to as a โ€œbattleground stateโ€ due to its status as a โ€œswing stateโ€ in presidential elections. But another important battle is brewing in the Buckeye State, also set to be settled in the votingย booth.

This battle centers around a โ€œCommunity Bill of Rightsโ€ referendum in Mansfield, OHย and will beย voted on in a simple โ€œyes/noโ€ manner.ย Mansfield is a city with roughly 48,000 citizens locatedย 80 miles southwest of Cleveland and 66 miles northeast of Columbus, right in the heart of the Utica Shale basin.ย 

Eric Belcastro, the Pennsylvania Organizer for theย Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), explained the rationale behind the โ€œBill of Rightsโ€ push in a blog post:

Faced with the permitting of two 5,000 foot deep injection wells in Mansfield by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR)โ€ฆ[t]he amendment would drive a community Bill of Rights into Mansfield’s charter and then prohibit the injection of fracking wastewater on grounds that such prohibition is necessary to secure and protect those community rights. The amendment also recognizes corporate โ€œrightsโ€ as subordinate to the rights of the people of Mansfield, as well as recognizing the rights of residents, natural communities, and ecosystems to clean air andย water.

The ODNR, in a study published in March 2012,ย linked the 12 earthquakes that have occured in Youngstown, Ohio to injection wellsย located in theย city.ย 

Though the โ€œBill of Rightsโ€ย has the full support of the City Council and the Law Director, as well as the city’s newspaper, theย Mansfield News Journal, one faction in particular isn’t such a big fan of the Bill of Rights: the oil and gas industry. In response to the upcoming referrendum vote, the industry has launched an 11th hour astroturf campaign to โ€œwin hearts and mindsโ€ of those voters still on the fence as it pertains to the โ€œBill of Rightsโ€ in the week before theย election.ย 

DeSmogBlog has obtained images of flyers distributed via a well-coordinated direct mail campaign conducted by the oil and gas industry in Mansfield, made public here for the first time in an exclusiveย investigation.

โ€œMansfielders for Jobs,โ€ Front Group, Leads Astroturfย Charge

At the metaphorical 11th hour of the Mansfield referendum campaign, literally in the week before the vote is set to take place, a new group rose out of the dust called โ€œMansfielders for Jobs.โ€ The group isn’t traceable viaย LexisNexis or Factiva and has only been written about by theย Mansfield News Journalย on threeย occasions.ย 

An Oct. 30ย News Journalย article explains,

A group called Mansfielders for Jobs, which has not filed any campaign spending forms locally with the Richland County Board of Elections, has distributed a flyer [obtained by DeSmog]ย arguing the charter amendment would do nothing to improve the environment, and contains โ€œvague wordingโ€ that would open the door for costly lawsuits that could hurt local smallย businesses.

Two days later, theย Journal published a follow-up piece, further highlighting that Mansfielders for Jobsย distributed a flyer that โ€œlists no contact address and no campaign treasurer.โ€ That flyer obtained by DeSmogย says the โ€œBill of Rightsโ€ will โ€œhurt job creation in our city.โ€ย 

The follow-up piece offers one key hint at who the founders of the upstart โ€œMansfielders for Jobsโ€ might be –ย it notes thatย Energy Citizens is another group distributing โ€œvote noโ€ flyers.ย 

Energy Citizens is a front group of the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a public relations campaign dreamed up by Edelman, an outfit well-known for, among other things, working as a โ€œmerchant of doubtโ€ on behalf of Big Tobacco. That might explain why API has also spent time and money flyering.

And then there is the APIย front groupย Energy in Depthย (EID).ย Earthworks‘ย Sharon Wilson, the author of the blogย Texas Sharon, refers to EID as the Joe Camel of fracking, appropriate given API‘s Edelmanย ties.ย EID Ohioย has gone on an offensive against the prospective โ€œBill ofย Rights.โ€

โ€œThe activist organizations furthering these efforts are taking cues from out-of-state organizations that oppose the responsible development of fossil fuels at every turn,โ€ย Dan Alfaro,ย EID Ohio‘s spokesman, told theย Akron Beacon Journalย on Sept.ย 8.

Roughly a month later, he told theย Mansfield News Journal:

While this (charter amendment) is being marketed as a homegrown, organic movement coming from local concerned citizens, it is, in fact, a well-funded, coordinated effort being directed from a national organization opposed to the development of fossil fuels at every turn. This proposal โ€ฆ promotes a well-documented agenda under the guise of a localย charter.

Two weeks later,ย EID Ohioย chimed in with a blog post written byย Anneย Carto.

โ€œClearly, Mansfield needs to be shown facts before making a decision to deter business from coming to the area,โ€ she opined. โ€œAs EID has covered before, Mansfield, Ohio is not in a position to create regulations that will hurt its chance for a betterย economy.โ€

Alfaro, according to his LinkedInย profile, formerly served as head of Ballot Access and as Field Representative for Republican John McCain’s presidential run in 2008 in Ohio. His colleague Anne Carto, according to her LinkedIn, served as a Petitition Circulator in Ohio in the early days of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s run forย President.

Barbara Walter and the Tea Partyย Patriots

The most recent story about the โ€œBill of Rightsโ€ in the Mansfield News Journalย revealed that Barbara Walter, head of the Richland County Republican Party, is the head of โ€œMansfielders for Jobs.โ€ Walter formerly was an organizer for the Mansfield Tea Party Patriots, a stint she held until being offered the Richland County GOP Chairย position.

On January 30, the Mansfield Tea Party Patriots hosted a forum titled, โ€œFracking and Injection Wells What Do We Really Know?,โ€ touting the so-called โ€œbenefitsโ€ of brineย injection.ย 

The three featured speakers were David Hill, the Secretary/Treasurer of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association; Michael Chadsey of Energy in Depth Ohio and Rebecca Heimlich of the American Petroleum Institute. Chadsney and Heimlich spoke at a forum on the same topic in Aprilย hostedย by theย New American Patriotsย in Ashland, OH, a 20-minute drive fromย Mansfield.

Mansfield Tea Party Patriots and New American Patriotsย are both local-level branches of the national-level Tea Party Patriots,ย a right wing front group started by FreedomWorks in the summer of 2009, according to a Sept. 2009 investigative report titled โ€œThe Lie Machineโ€ byย Rolling Stone‘s Timย Dickinson.

Dickinson, in explaining Tea Party Patriot‘s origins,ย wrote,

After FreedomWorks orchestrated the original Tea Party protests last April, it ostensibly handed over the reins of the movement to a third group, called the Tea Party Patriots. But internal correspondence from the group’s private listserv obtained by Rolling Stone makes clear that FreedomWorks is still calling the shots.ย ย 

An offshoot ofย Citizens for a Sound Economy,ย FreedomWorksย isย the sister of another offshoot,ย Americans for Prosperityย (AFP). What was once known asย Citizens for a Sound Economyย was heavily funded by the Koch Brothersย and today AFP is still funded by the Kochs.ย Frank Rich, former columnist for The New York Times wrote that โ€œFreedomWorks received $12 million of its own from Koch family foundationsโ€ in an August 2010 article.

It’s unsurprising then, that before her current stint at API, Heimlich served as AFP‘s Ohio Director from December 2009-November 2011.

When asked in an interview withย DeSmogBlog where the idea and money for โ€œMansfielders for Jobsโ€ originated from and whether or not it was an actual grassroots organization, Walter would not comment, only stating, โ€œI don’t know the exact date [of origin of the group], but my husband and I just feel strongly that this is badย legislation.โ€

Walter gave $6,025 to Republican Gov. John Kasich in the run-up to his 2010 electoral victory, according to theย National Institute on Money in State Politics‘ campaign finance database. Kasich, a formative member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and former Fox News show host, received overย $332,000 from the oil and gas industry during his 2010ย race.

History Repeatingย Itselfย 

This isn’t the first time the oil and gas industry has deployed its astroturf batallion to fight back against a local ordinance at the 11thย hour.ย 

One year ago,ย Consumer Energy Allianceย (CEA) waged an astroturf campaignย to defeat the hotly contested fracking ban ordinance in Peters Township, PA. CEA – an oil and gas industry front group – came out on the winning side of this one, a testimony to the effectiveness of its slick public relationsย campaigns.ย 

Theย Pittsburgh Post-Gazette summarized the situation in Peters Township a November 2011 story:

Right up to Election Day, Peters residents were receiving sleek fliers in the mail encouraging them to vote against a referendum to ban gas drilling in the Washington Countyย community.

The mailers weren’t coming from local opposition, but from Houston-based industry group Consumer Energyย Alliance.ย 

CEA‘s 2012 annual report lists the 2012 victory in Peters Township as one of its chiefย accomplishments.

A High Stakes, Life-or-Death Game inย Mansfield

The stakes are higher than most would imagine inย Mansfield.

ProPublica‘sย Abrahm Lustgarten pointed out in a June 2012 investigation titled, โ€œInjection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us,โ€ that injection wells are a public health hazard in-the-making of epic proportions that hardly anyone is talking about.ย There are a staggering 150,000 injection wells in 33 states andย 10 trillion gallons of toxic fluid have been dumped in them, according toย ProPublica.

โ€œIn 10 to 100 years we are going to find out that most of our groundwater is polluted,โ€ Mario Salazar, an engineer who worked for 25 years at the EPA‘s underground injection program told ProPublica. โ€œA lot of people are going to get sick, and a lot of people mayย die.โ€

The battle in Mansfield – literally one of life and death – is on between corporate profits and scientificย integrity.ย 

Photo Credit: Eric Belcastro | Community Environmental Legal Defenseย Fund

picture-7018-1583982147.png
Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

Related Posts

on

DeSmog estimates raise questions over climate benefits as EU officials consider whether the technology should qualify for billions of euros in subsidies.

DeSmog estimates raise questions over climate benefits as EU officials consider whether the technology should qualify for billions of euros in subsidies.
Analysis
on

Experts accuse Farageโ€™s party of a โ€˜deliberate campaign of misinformation about climate changeโ€™ in the House of Commons.

Experts accuse Farageโ€™s party of a โ€˜deliberate campaign of misinformation about climate changeโ€™ in the House of Commons.
on

A Conservative peer and former UK trade advisor were among those who spoke at the summit.

A Conservative peer and former UK trade advisor were among those who spoke at the summit.
on

All Conservative appointees to the Board of Trade have been binned by the new Labour government.

All Conservative appointees to the Board of Trade have been binned by the new Labour government.