Nearly 150 now say they didn’t agree to use their names on pro-fracking form letters

COLUMBUS, Ohio – As a state board barrels toward a decision Monday on opening two state parks and two protected wildlife areas for fracking, its public comments are flush with nearly 150 letters under the names of people who say they did not authorize or send them.

Those comments trace back to at least two different entities that wage advocacy and lobbying campaigns for the natural gas industry, an investigation from Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer has found.

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer previously reported on 28 people who say they did not knowingly allow their names to be used on a form letter drafted by the nonprofit Consumer Energy Alliance. They include a 9-year-old child and an older blind woman. Not one person interviewed for that report confirmed that they agreed to put their name on the letter.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has vowed to investigate. The Consumer Energy Alliance has said it does not use names without permission and challenged the accuracy of Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer’s reporting.

This week, Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to roughly 1,000 people whose names appeared on the alliance’s form letters. In interviews and emails, 25 additional people said they didn’t knowingly authorize their names to be used. Three people said they allowed their names to be used on CEA’s form letter.

Save Ohio Parks, a grassroots advocacy organization that formed to oppose fracking, conducted similar research. Its volunteers called 735 people, it said in a statement. Of 115 reached, 98 said they didn’t submit the letter, according to the organization. (An analysis shows 14 of these people were also contacted by Cleveland.com.)

In all, that means 137 people have told either Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer or Save Ohio Parks that they did not knowingly authorize the form letters submitted by the Consumer Energy Alliance, which has submitted more than 1,000 form letters in favor of fracking state parks to the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission.

The Consumer Energy Alliance has said that it uses a digital trail to verify identities of those whose names appear on its form letters. It previously described hiring a vendor to place ads on websites like “win.click2win4life.com” or “go.topcreditcardfinder.com,” from which users in Ohio were filtered out for the form letters. When they reached the form letter, according to the alliance, users were asked to verify biographical details again and given a chance to personalize the letters before clicking send.

However, some whose names appear on the letters rejected that explanation in interviews.

“So I searched the internet for a credit card, that doesn’t mean I gave them permission to use my name,” said Amanda Birmingham, of Cincinnati, who said her name was used without her knowing permission on a public comment.

Ohio’s Energy Future Coalition

Another organization, which registered out of a private mailbox out of a parcel store in Virginia that’s shared with a pro-natural gas super PAC, organized a public comment drive as well. And about half the authors who responded to emails denied allowing anyone to use their names.

The Ohio’s Energy Future Coalition incorporated with the state in June. Its paperwork listed only the name and law office of Columbus attorney James G. Ryan, who didn’t respond to phone calls.

From there it paid for a series of Facebook ads, disclosures show, with bold text calling to “unleash American energy,” to end dependence on “foreign oil,” or to lower gas prices and “make road trips great again.”

Those ads take viewers to the coalition’s website, which offers a portal to submit a pre-written comment to the state urging regulators to open Salt Fork State Park for fracking. The letters ask regulators to accept one specific application “parceling” Salt Fork into multiple bids to “guarantee much-needed competition in the bidding process.”

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer emailed 135 people whose names appear on letters that exactly matched text on the coalition’s website. Of 19 responses, 11 people said they never knowingly allowed anyone to use their name on such a letter.

“I absolutely did not give anyone [permission] to send this letter with my name and address on it,” said Margie Hoover, of Shelby, Ohio, whose name appeared on one of the OEFC form letters. “I never read this or even heard anything about it. This makes me very angry that someone could do this.”

Jeffrey Yates doesn’t know how his name got on another.

“Not that I know of,” he said when asked if he sent it or allowed his name to be used. “I’ve sent letters of this type on websites for 2nd Amendment rights in the past, but nothing like [fracking].”

However, some people reached by Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer said they remembered granting permission for their name to be used on the coalition’s form letter. Some specifically mentioned the Facebook ads they interacted with.

“Others may have forgotten that they sent it because they didn’t write the letter,” said Wanda Stephens, who said she remembered writing a letter to her elected representatives. “I believe we should be energy independent!”

Consumer Energy Alliance

After Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer published its findings, the Consumer Energy Alliance defended its practices and attacked the reporting.

CEA President David Holt wrote in a letter in response to Yost, who said he would issue subpoenas to investigate the situation, that the reporting “falsely and potentially libelously insinuates that CEA intentionally submitted comments … without knowledge of the people named.” Holt said this is untrue and that the organization has a “digital chain of custody” to demonstrate as much.

Since then, a team of reporters found another 25 people who say their names were used without their knowing permission on CEA form letters. A few examples:

· “That was definitely not me or done under my authorization. This is alarming,” Jaime Beavers said.

· “No, I’m not into tearing and destroying our land. Takes forever to recover which a lot of people do not realize. Land recovers quicker from a fire disaster. Take my name off list and you have my permission to use this paragraph to help others understand,” Kevin Chadrick said.

· “I did not write a letter. I did not ask anyone to write a letter. When I need to write a letter or make a call I do it myself,” Jo-Ann Krummel said.

· “As far as sending the letter, no, I didn’t do it,” Michael Lance said.

CEA has previously been accused of using people’s names without permission on petitions or similar government filings in Wisconsin, Ohio, and South Carolina over the last decade. It denied wrongdoing in the first two instances. In the South Carolina case, it blamed the misattributed identities on a vendor it hired.

Bryson Hull, a Consumer Energy Alliance spokesman, has previously denied that CEA uses anyone’s name without permission. He said CEA legitimately gathers people’s information through ad-serving websites and requires that they affirmatively agree to place their names on CEA’s form letter. He acknowledged that mistakes can happen at the margins but said CEA’s systems verify the authenticity of people’s identities before placing them on form letters.

When told of the newly identified people who say their names were used without permission, Hull noted only that the form letters were collected at separate times but submitted in batches to the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission.

Jake Zuckerman covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.