A Yellowhammer News investigation this week revealed that a surge in George Soros California environmental dark money is flowing into Energy Alabama, an organization running an aggressive advertising and lobbying campaign attempting to influence energy policy in Alabama.
Left-wing dark money and Soros-affiliated entities, even extending to China-linked money and to groups connected in public reporting to terror-designated organizations, are funding a campaign to impact Alabama energy policy — and they are using Energy Alabama to do it.
Public records and filings indicate that Energy Alabama is now operating as the in-state vehicle for a broader, out-of-state environmental funding network that has made gains for progressives the Southeast to influence utility regulation and energy policy.
Among those dark money sources include Multiplier, a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) that has distributed tens of millions in grants to progressive advocacy organizations. Based on Form 990 disclosures, documented $285,000 in Multiplier grants to Energy Alabama across 2023 and 2024.
But Energy Alabama’s broader funding sources are proving to be even more insidious.
At the center of the effort is Daniel Tait, the group’s executive director, and listed with the Alabama Ethics Commission as a lobbyist for Energy Alabama.
For years, Tait has been affiliated with the Energy and Policy Institute (EPI), a California-based group that describes itself as a “watchdog organization” targeting fossil fuel and utility interests.
However, for over a decade, EPI appeared to have no legal existence.
According to a 2021 report by the Campaign for Accountability:
- EPI had no nonprofit status
- EPI never filed IRS Form 990 tax returns
- EPI was not registered with any Secretary of State’s office
- EPI’s only public address was a post office box in San Francisco
- EPI’s website was registered through a privacy-shielding company in Panama
EPI was finally incorporated in California on April 12, 2024, after operating in the shadows for more than ten years.
In April 2020, then-Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill sent Tait a letter demanding answers about his funding.
“Being unfamiliar with the Energy and Policy Institute, I was puzzled that I could find no record of the group’s incorporation with any secretary of state’s office, including Alabama’s, or with the federal government,” Merrill wrote.
Merrill asked Tait three direct questions:
- What is the legal status of the Energy and Policy Institute?
- Who funds the Energy and Policy Institute’s activities?
- Who pays you personally for your work for the Energy and Policy Institute?
Tait never responded.
The Campaign for Accountability report traces EPI’s origins to Tigercomm, a California PR firm that calls itself “the top U.S.-based cleantech marketing communications, PR and public affairs firm.”
Tigercomm’s clients include major solar industry and environmental players: Trinasolar, SolarCity, Solar Energy Industries Association, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.
According to the report, a related nonprofit — Renew American Prosperity — paid more than 70% of its budget, at least $1.2 million between 2015 and 2018, directly to Tigercomm for “management services.” This arrangement likely served as the financial conduit for compensating EPI personnel like Tait during the years he received no documented salary.
What became clear is that Solar industry money, flowing through a California PR operation, funding attacks on homegrown utilities to influence energy policy.
Since 2023, two San Francisco-based dark money organizations have pumped $435,000 into Energy Alabama and Daniel Tait:
- Multiplier — $285,000
- Tides Center — $150,000
The money transformed Energy Alabama from a tiny nonprofit with $38,994 in annual receipts into an $886,000 operation. And Tait transformed with it, going from receiving zero compensation in 2020 to earning $55,520 as Executive Director in 2024.
These are organizations with a clear, aggressive ideology that promotes extreme policies on the far left of the political spectrum.
In addition to funding Energy Alabama, the Tides network has funded transgender advocacy ($4.3M), a pro-Palestinian antisemitic group linked to organizations that are on the terrorist watch list for Canada, Israel and the United States ($3.8M+), pro-abortion ballot measures ($6.8M), anti-Trump immigration policy, voter mobilization ($200M in 2024), and the Green New Deal coalition.
And where did Tides get its money? Among their donors, more than $43 million came from George Soros groups and more than $2.6 million from a Chinese government-linked entity.
Dark money clearinghouse Multiplier, led by Executive Director Laura Deaton, has received tens of millions from Soros-affiliated entities, Chinese interests, Breakthrough Energy Foundation, and Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Under Deaton’s leadership, Multiplier has distributed more than $76 million in documented grants to environmental and left-wing advocacy organizations nationwide, all funded by other liberal organizations, including Soros-affiliated groups and the Chinese government.
According to her official biography on Multiplier’s website, before joining the organization in 2013, Deaton “directed national policy research for an independent think tank that provides rigorous research, insight, and communications to advance LGBTQ equality and opportunity.”
She has also co-authored policy research for the Center for American Progress, including a 2011 paper arguing for “stronger protections for children raised in gay and transgender homes.”
The targeted campaign aggressively attempting to influence Alabama energy policy, bankrolled by shady funding and dangerous groups is expected to metastasize throughout Alabama’s 2026 legislative session and election cycle.
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
