Dark money: Alissa Jean Schafer’s Energy and Policy Institute (EPI) dupes Times Union writer

A shadowy group with ties to rooftop solar has been accepted at face value by yet another media outlet in Florida, this time, Nate Monroe and the Florida Times Union. Monroe is the latest Florida journalist to rely on messaging from the Energy and Policy Institute (EPI) without questioning the group’s motives or funding.

EPI is a front group funded by mysterious donors. Earlier this month, the group’s top representative in the state, Broward Soil and Water Commissioner Alissa Jean Schafer, was the subject of an ethics complaintregarding her sources of income. She is required to file an annual financial disclosure that includes a listing of all income and its sources. According to the ethics complaint, she lists EPI as a source of significant income paid into her consulting company.

But an Alabama-based group called the Jobkeeper Alliance alleged in the complaint that two independent searches (one by a private sector attorney, and a second by the Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill’s office) both failed to locate a single record in any state in the nation that could confirm that the Energy and Policy Institute is a legitimate organization. Merrill has demanded that the group reveal its legal status.

Continue reading at The Capitolist.