Anti-offshore wind fishing group backed by right-wing money eyes support from Maine towns

Since its founding three years ago, the New England Fishermen's Stewardship Association has been a vocal opponent of offshore wind and relied on funding from a right-wing advocacy group connected to one of the most influential conservative activists in the U.S.

Now, the fishermen's organization known as NEFSA is looking to diversify its revenue sources by asking coastal communities in Maine for financial support.

Jerry Leeman is the founder and CEO of NEFSA. And for the past three years he's been the star of an advocacy campaign that's led him up and down the northeast coast to preach against offshore wind.

Sometimes it's in a banquet room in Rye, N.H., or in one of NEFSA's slickly produced videos.

"These ridiculous data assessments that are based on little to nothing, we're doing falsified research. It's political science. This isn't real science. Real science is the real observation of what things are," Leeman said in one of NEFSA's videos.

That message — and his sharp critiques of offshore wind — have also landed Leeman interviews on FOX News. When a blade from the Vineyard Wind project near Nantucket broke and sent debris onto nearby beaches last summer, Leeman joined a protest flotilla that drew interest from the network's business channel.

"Is it making any headway, putting a stop to this?" the host asked.

Leeman replied, "I don't know so much about putting a stop just yet, but it's definitely making some noise and that's what we need to make around this. I mean, we've been greenwashed to think this is a good idea and now we're displacing (fishing) stock."

Leeman and NEFSA have been making some noise. They also has a pretty big megaphone, courtesy of the $1.1 million the group has received from The Concord Fund, a right-wing advocacy group connected to Leonard Leo.

Leo, who has a home in Northeast Harbor, is the activist often credited with reshaping the federal judiciary and the U.S. Supreme Court by helping to install conservative judges. The Concord Fund was a key tool in that effort, but it went by a different name, the Judicial Crisis Network.

The group has since been renamed and repurposed. Now it's used for an array of conservative causes, including by groups pursuing abortion restrictions and downplaying climate change. In Maine, it's helped bankroll a referendum that would require a photo ID to vote, boosted the funding for Republican political committees and funded NEFSA.

According to tax filings, The Concord Fund accounted for nearly 80% of NEFSA's funding in 2023 thanks to a donation of more than a half-million dollars.

That kind of cash is enough to sustain many nonprofits, but now NEFSA is eyeing support from the taxpayers it said it's serving.

"You know, Harpswell being built on fishing and what a statement the three of you could make to support fishing," Alison Hawkes, NEFSA's secretary, told the Harpswell Board of Selectmen in January.

Hawkes is from Harpswell. She's also part of the NEFSA team. In January she joined Leeman and another NEFSA board member to ask the town's selectboard to give the group $5,000.

It's not a ton of money, even for a town of only about 5,000 people. And NEFSA's message is especially resonant here. The group's bumper stickers and "fight salty" logoed merchandise are common. After all, Leeman, a fifth-generation fishermen, is a local guy. NEFSA claims more than 100 members from his hometown.

Hawkes emphasized those connections when appealing to the selectboard.

"This is really just us coming to the town to say, 'Harpswell, you know, support your fishing community. And I don't think it's asking too much of the town's budget," she said.

Hawkes' pitch was well received by selectboard chairman Kevin Johnson, a NEFSA member. But selectwoman Jane Covey, who has since stepped down, found it curious.

"The $5,000 you're asking for is miniscule. It's just a nominal amount given your budget is $855,000," she said. "So I see it as a request actually for the selectboard to endorse NEFSA and the work you are doing."

A municipal endorsement might be just as valuable to NEFSA as the money, giving the group additional clout in its advocacy efforts and possibly paving the way for more taxpayer funding.

Dustin Colson, the group's development director, told Maine Public that the request is part of a larger strategy to diversify revenue sources. He said that just because NEFSA has received a large slug of cash from The Concord Fund doesn't mean it shouldn't also engage the beneficiaries of its advocacy — fishing and lobstering towns.

And it has. Last year, voters in Swan's Island approved a $5,000 donation to NEFSA. The group will now ask voters there for $7,500 at the community's town meeting on Saturday.

Colson said other requests are forthcoming in Trenton and Mount Desert. According to application documents in Harpswell, NEFSA is expecting $100,000 in funding from municipalities.

And Leeman, NEFSA's CEO, is sometimes playing pitchman.

In January, he told the Harpswell selectboard that the organization was key in beating back a rule that would have increased the size of catchable lobsters by a sixteenth of an inch.

"With the gauge increase, we've done the math on it. That was looking at a 10 to 15% reduction to our local fishermen. That's money straight out of the pockets of their families," he said.

The fight over the gauge increase illustrates the sharply divergent views of how to preserve Maine's heritage fisheries.

And while NEFSA has planted itself firmly on the self-regulating, anti-wind side of that debate, its request to Harpswell illustrates the power of public empathy for the industry's plight.

When the $5,000 warrant article came up during Harpswell's town meeting last month, residents like Amy Haible argued that voters can support local fishermen without fully endorsing NEFSA.

"Most Maine Street business in small towns belong to the chamber of commerce and the town may or may not support the local chamber of commerce. So, I look at this as supporting our local chamber of commerce. That's why I will vote yes," she said.

While some residents alluded to it, NEFSA's primary funding source and its sprawling political advocacy for right-wing causes was not mentioned during the debate.

And it's unclear if that's the reason why voters narrowly turned down the group's request.

But it will be choice confronting residents in other coastal communities in the coming weeks.