The New England Fishermen's Stewardship Association, better known as NEFSA, is a rising star in the anti-offshore wind movement. Tax documents show it's largely funded by a nonprofit affiliated with deep-pocketed conservative activist Leonard Leo.
erry Leeman III is a fifth generation Maine fisherman and looks the part: broad shoulders, muscular hands, scraggly black beard with streaks of gray. Sitting at the head of an empty boardroom table in his South Portland office, he rails against the buildout of offshore wind currently getting underway in the Northeast.
Since forming in early 2023, the nonprofit has become a rising star in the offshore wind opposition movement. In a matter of months, the group seemed to be everywhere — fromNEFSA’s anti-wind, anti-government regulation message resonates with many in the fishing community. But the scrappy group has also been turbocharged by the $1.1 million it received from a nonprofit linked toLeeman and other leaders at NEFSA say the nonprofit acts independently of its funders.
Before he founded NEFSA, Leeman became famous in the New England fishing community for posting Facebook videos critical of the federal fishery surveys that help determine catch quotas and other restrictions. One of those friends was Ronnie Musetti, a young lobsterman who currently serves as NEFSA’s part-time treasurer. Musetti co-owns a seafood restaurant in the picturesque seaside village of Northeast Harbor, near Acadia National Park.
As it turns out, Leo was interested. He invited Musetti and Leeman to his home in Northeast Harbor to discuss the details, and a little while later, NEFSA got a $573,000 donation.connected to Leo. These groups have taken in millions of dollars from anonymous donors and doled the money out to other organizations, effectively creating what Spatz of the Energy and Policy Institute calls"a slush-fund for billionaires to push their interests.
Leo declined an interview request, but in an emailed statement called it “a privilege" to help NEFSA. “Over the last year and a half, I spent probably two months just locked to three computers, just going through every piece of research we could find,” he says. Every study he read led to more questions.Chris Rillihan, a scientist at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology, says he hears this all the time from fishermen.
Barbara Sullivan Watts, senior marine research scientist and professor emeritus at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, was one of several scientists who looked at the documents for WBUR. While the reports cite scientific studies published in reputable journals, she says it seems Leeman did a bit of “cherry picking” to draw his conclusions.
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