Dan Paris is a Michigan agent for a company that works with a national wind farm developer. Recently, he wrote an op-ed comparing activists who help state residents trying to halt wind farm developments in their townships to Adolf Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust.
Paris was referring to the Energy & Environment Legal Institute and the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition. The Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition has worked to halt wind farm developments promoted by Apex Clean Energy and other firms.
“History has well-recorded how Hitler used propaganda as a tool to persuade a country of good people to do unspeakably bad things,” Paris wrote in an Jan. 8 op-ed in The Daily News, based in Montcalm County. “He was able to do this by using carefully crafted messages to incite and inflame existing biases among the greater group of citizens against small ethnic groups. Propaganda blamed these ethnic groups for causing any manner of inconvenience such as economic hardship, and slowly demonized these groups until otherwise good people were willing to threaten, intimidate and eventually kill innocent people.”
Paris is the lead land agent for a group called Montcalm Wind, which is working with Apex Clean Energy to secure official approval for a proposed wind farm in Montcalm County. Montcalm Wind's senior project development manager Albert Jongewaard is an employee of Apex Clean Energy.
The Energy & Environment Legal Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., opposes the agenda of many climate change activists. The Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition is a Michigan-based nonprofit led by Kevon Martis, a Lenawee County resident who has opposed many wind projects in Michigan and the Midwest.
Apex Clean Energy develops industrial-scale wind and solar systems that utilities use to meet government renewable energy mandates and related requirements. The corporation has about 200 employees and annual sales of around $25 million, according Dun and Bradstreet
Apex Clean Energy, a private firm based in Virginia, manages wind farms in Isabella County for DTE Energy. Apex Clean Energy is pressing to place wind turbine developments in Ingham and Montcalm counties.
Neither Paris nor Apex Clean Energy responded to emails seeking comment. Apex Clean Energy states on its website that one of its core values is professionalism.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.