“Despite his folky style and positioning to the contrary, [Kevin] Martis is a highly polished, fossil fuel operative with aggressive tactics. The taxpayers of Seneca County and all of Ohio deserve a more honest broker than Kevon Martis.”

– Scott Peterson, Checks and Balances Project, October 25, 2018.

“When is an environmentalist not an environmentalist? … When it comes to wind power.

– an eco-joke

In “Coal-Backed Anti-Wind Guru Barrels into Ohio’s Seneca County to Attack Wind Energy,” Scott Peterson, executive director of Checks and Balances Project, “an investigative blog that seeks to hold government officials, lobbyists and corporate management accountable to the public,” goes after one regular citizen, Kevon Martis.

Citizen Martis is very well respected here at MasterResource, as evidenced by these posts:

• Enough! Martis Responds to Sinclair re Industrial Wind (March 5, 2018)
• Wind Siting Rules: Kevon Martis Testimony to the Ohio Power Siting Board (June 9, 2016)
• Citizen Martis to Ohio Lawmakers: Repeal the Renewable-Energy Mandate (January 27, 2014)
• Testimony Against Industrial Wind Power: Martis before the Ohio Senate and House PUCs (January 8, 2014)

And recall his 2013 post “Dear Michigan: Why Wind?…

“Kevon Martis is a ‘senior fellow’ of a Washington-based think tank, E&E Legal, which has a well-known history of support for tobacco, oil, gas, and coal interests. He can hardly be considered an unbiased presenter on energy topics…. Hopefully, in coming months as this discussion evolves, a more balanced picture of the issue can come to light.”

– Peter Sinclair, Yale Climate Connections. “Wind Turbines Could Provide Many Local Advantages.” Midland Daily News, December 17, 2017.

“My recent wind energy zoning presentation at the Bullock Creek High School on the behalf of the Ingersoll Township Concerned Citizens spawned an ill-informed Op-Ed by Peter Sinclair in which he accuses me of misleading and distorted statements and further questions my objectivity and financial motivations…. While Sinclair wishes to paint the Ingersoll meeting as a deck stacked sharply against wind energy development, the truth is that wind interests routinely refuse to share the platform with me anywhere.”

“Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once stated that ‘The right to swing my fist end’s where the other fellow’s nose begins’. If the State of Ohio deems wind development a worthy prospect, then– at bare minimum — Ohio’s rural residents should first give consent and then receive compensation for the ‘bloodied noses’ from the loss of amenity pervasive wind development brings.”

“By creating siting guidelines that protect private property rights at the property line rather than forcibly donating unleased property to utility scale wind developers, each landowner can determine for themselves what their loss of amenity is worth to them…. Wind developers claim that such reasonable regulations raise the cost of wind energy. So be it.”

My name is Kevon Martis. I am the Executive Director of the Interstate Informed Citizens’ Coalition (IICC) of Blissfield MI.…

[Ed. note: One of the most prolific citizen activists in the windpower-subsidy debate today is Kevon Martis, Director of the Interstate Informed Citizen’s Coalition. His testimony last week before the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee, with slight modification, follows.]

Senator Seitz, Vice Chairman LaRose, Ranking Member Gentile and members of the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee, my name is Kevon Martis. I am the volunteer director of the Interstate Informed Citizen’s Coalition, Inc. of Blissfield, MI (IICC), a bipartisan renewable energy citizen’s advocacy group.

In my role as director of IICC, I speak on behalf of the hundreds of Ohio citizens who are living on the front lines of industrial wind development that has directly resulted from the very complicated, highly intrusive mandates of Senate Bill 221 of 2008, which revised

state energy policy to address electric service price regulation, establish alternative energy benchmarks for electric distribution utilities and electric services companies, provide for the use of renewable energy credits, establish energy efficiency standards for electric distribution utilities, require greenhouse gas emission reporting and carbon dioxide control planning for utility-owned generating facilities, authorize energy price risk management contracts, and authorize for natural gas utilities revenue decoupling related to energy conservation and efficiency.