New Washington energy chair’s industry ties raise ethics questions

Beckett possessed an inside view of the wind farm dispute – thanks to his recent work for a Seattle lobbying firm, which included promoting the wind farm and facilitating meetings with the developer, Scout Clean Energy, and local Tri-Cities groups.

He listed the next project, Hop Hill, a solar plant whose developer also paid Beckett to promote the project. Next: another solar farm – and another former client of Beckett’s.

Finally, Beckett called Goldeneye, a battery energy storage facility proposed for a site near Sedro-Woolley that has generated backlash even in liberal Skagit County. 

Beckett did not work directly for Tenaska, the Nebraska-based company behind the proposal, but according to the state Public Disclosure Commission, the company paid his former firm over $90,000 for lobbying while he was working there.

Beckett’s consulting work marked a relatively recent pivot in a career that included 15 years as a congressional aide for U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Norm Dicks, plus over a decade at the Port of Seattle and NW Seaport Alliance, where he rose to Deputy CEO. Gov. Bob Ferguson appointed Beckett in January and the state Senate unanimously confirmed him in February.

He arrives at a crossroads for the little-known but powerful agency, which has struggled to meet its legally required deadlines amid criticism from all sides: from developers and climate advocates frustrated by its slow pace, from county governments for using its power to overrule local zoning and from tribes for approving projects they say degrade the sacred landscapes of ceded, treaty-protected land. 

In an interview with Cascade PBS, Beckett promised to make permitting renewables more efficient and predictable, warning that consumers would ultimately bear the higher costs of long wait times and bureaucratic morass. Democratic lawmakers presented Beckett’s industry experience as an asset with the state hurrying to achieve its mandate of 100% clean energy by 2045 – a mission largely reliant on for-profit developers. 

Beckett acknowledged his industry ties in his first meeting as chair and vowed to recuse himself from decision making on projects he or his former firm advocated for. But not everyone is satisfied by his pledge. Cascade PBS also discovered further ties to EFSEC applicants that Beckett did not disclose publicly and financial interests in the solar industry.

“Who’s the regulator to regulate him?” Benton County Commissioner Jerome Delvin asked. “Is staff going to be holding him accountable, or is it up to the public and others to monitor that?”

Decision-maker

Beckett’s appointment to EFSEC follows a career of high-powered gigs in politics and business. But he credited his more recent work at Strategies 360 — a Seattle lobbying and public relations firm where he served as Chief Operating Officer — with sparking an interest in energy issues. His consulting work helped him empathize with process and transparency criticisms raised by EFSEC’s critics, he said. For example, he offered an 841-page document he recently read, one of a dozen related to an application for a modest-sized energy plant.

“We’re making choices in that indecision,” Beckett said. “When the electricity isn’t available, the consequences will only be that much more dire.”

Beckett promised to bring “time-certainty” to the permitting process, echoing critiques from a Legislature-commissioned report that found EFSEC’s lack of clear metrics and failure to meet statutory deadlines led to unpredictable outcomes and unnecessary delays. Former colleagues and legislators say his industry experience affords him valuable insight into the permitting system’s failures.

“We need people who know these projects inside and out to serve in these positions,” said Port of Seattle Commissioner Ryan Calkins, who praised his former colleague’s commitment to environmental justice and dedication to hearing all sides. “Do we discount a judge’s ability to be impartial because they’ve been a prosecutor their entire career?”

But others question Beckett’s close ties to applicants and whether any safeguards prevent him from influencing his former clients’ projects behind the scenes.

In one of his first official acts, Beckett passed the baton to another council member to preside over a vote on whether the battery energy storage project proposed for Sedro-Woolley complied with Skagit County’s local zoning codes. The council ruled yes, it was consistent, although two council members voted no. Beckett remained present for the vote, a fact that an attorney hired by Sedro-Woolley noted in a March 19 letter to EFSEC, raising objections about the battery storage project’s siting process. 

“The appointment of an acting chair, and continued presence by Beckett is an inappropriate influence on the administrative process by an individual with a conflict of interest,” the lawyer wrote.

Beckett wrote in an email that he takes any process concerns seriously.

“I have asked for additional legal review and guidance to ensure transparent, objective meeting procedures, including those put in place already,” Beckett replied.

Consulting work for EFSEC clients

Beckett has sought to get in front of conflict-of-interest concerns. He told Cascade PBS that he was upfront with the Governor’s Office about his ties to energy developers and sought the advice of the assistant attorney general, the EFSEC director and the Executive Ethics Board about whether anything he did crossed a line that would disqualify him. 

“I tried to say, ‘Look, I’ve done work in this space, it’s EFSEC. Are there nonstarters here that perception-wise or politically … create an issue that is more of a distraction or just can’t be resolved?’” Beckett said. 

Those gatekeepers gave him the greenlight, he said.

Beckett declined to share the documents he provided the Attorney General’s Office, and the AG office declined to discuss the meeting. Both cited attorney/client privilege. 

Cascade PBS requested that Beckett share contracts, scopes of work and other documents from his work on behalf of EFSEC applicants in order to clarify the nature of his work. He declined to provide those records, deferring to Strategies 360, which declined to provide them. He also would not say how much he was paid for his EFSEC-related client work, though court documents from the firm’s bankruptcy filing show he made about $237,000 after taxes in 2023.

He said he now makes $160,000 a year as EFSEC chair. 

State law prohibits employees or officers from maintaining outside interests that conflict with their state duties. The Executive Ethics Board offers guidance and reviews complaints on a case-by-case basis. Executive director Kate Reynolds did not speak directly to Beckett’s situation, but said the Board generally advises employees to disclose any potential conflicts and work with the agency to find ways to shift any conflicted responsibilities to someone else.

Beckett said he does not think his previous work presents any inherent conflicts, telling Cascade PBS he made his recusal pledge “out of an abundance of caution” to address the perception of bias.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “do I think that I can provide an objective, thorough review on anything before the EFSEC council? I do.”

He described his client work for Scout Clean Energy as facilitating meetings with elected officials and community groups like the Tri-City Development Council and promoting the benefits of and hearing concerns about the Horse Heaven Hills wind farm. His work included contact with the media, but he called those interactions “rare … and about the broader landscape of energy system issues and not driven by one client or project.” 

Court records show Beckett was copied on emails between Scout Clean Energy and a Seattle Times reporter regarding locations of endangered hawk nests. Beckett said he did not recall being copied on the email, but wrote that it “would have been done for awareness purposes.”

He did not advocate for any state legislation related to EFSEC, he said, nor did the firm.

Beckett used the term “strategic counsel” to describe his client work when he disclosed it publicly during EFSEC’s February meeting. In an interview with Cascade PBS, he pushed back on the term “lobbying,” pointing out that he is not registered as a lobbyist with the Public Disclosure Commission and his work did not meet the state’s definition of lobbying, which is limited to efforts to influence legislation or state agencies’ rules and procedures. 

“If community engagement and trying to engage key leaders and trying to make sure key issues are understood, if people want to call it lobbying, then that’s fine,” Beckett said. “It’s advocacy, it’s engagement. Different terms, I guess.”

In one case, he facilitated a meeting between the previous EFSEC chair and a green hydrogen company that was considering applying for a permit. The company later decided to drop the project. 

Revolving door

Former state Sen. Reuven Carlyle for years waged an unsuccessful campaign against what he called the “Friday to Monday problem” – in which lawmakers would quit on a Friday and show up at the Capitol the following Monday representing a corporate client. But Carlyle said he worries less about the “revolving door” in the other direction, as long as appointees are transparent and recuse themselves from dealing directly with their former employers.

“I don’t see an inherent conflict of interest,” said Carlyle, a former chair of the Senate energy committee who worked with Beckett during his Port days and now runs an environmental finance company. “Kurt’s experience in the private sector is an asset.”

Senate energy committee chair Sharon Shewmake pushed back on the idea that EFSEC should judge projects from a neutral perspective. County leaders have taken ideological stands against renewables, she said, and some opposition to wind and solar comes from people who resent change or simply do not believe in climate change.

“I also want to see more renewable energy get built, so maybe I share the same bias,” Shewmake said. “If he was personally making a lot of money from solar farms, that would be different.”

The Democratic chair and co-chair of the House energy committee declined requests to talk about Beckett’s appointment and did not answer emailed questions. Gov. Ferguson championed a “revolving door” bill while Attorney General. His office affirmed Beckett’s qualifications but did not directly address ethics questions. 

“EFSEC’s role is to balance a variety of interests as we consider new energy projects,” a governor’s office spokesperson wrote in an email, “and Kurt’s experience with both renewable energy and public policy will help him lead that process.”

Even Republican lawmakers critical of the state’s energy strategy refrained from making any judgements about Beckett’s fitness for the role. State Rep. Mary Dye, a Pomeroy Republican and ranking member on the House energy committee, sponsored a bill this session to weaken EFSEC’s authority by giving counties and tribes veto power over energy plants. She is no fan of wind and solar, which she called “irrational,” “reckless” and “useless.” 

But Dye praised Beckett’s qualifications and said she is withholding judgement on him. She stopped short of calling his consulting work a conflict of interest.

“It’s definitely a signal that, again, the state government favors someone who has a close relationship with the developers,” Dye said.

Financial interests

Cascade PBS discovered further industry ties Beckett left out during his disclosure at the Feb. 19 EFSEC meeting. Beckett owns between $30,000 and $60,000 worth of stock in a company called Applied Materials, Inc, which manufactures solar parts, according to financial forms filed with the Public Disclosure Commission. 

Asked about the investments, Beckett told Cascade PBS he was not aware of what the company did and that the stocks in that account are chosen by a broker.

“I had nothing to do with that investment decision,” Beckett said, adding that he would follow up on “any investments that might raise a question.”

Beckett also confirmed that he was paid by Avangrid Renewables, a company that applied to EFSEC to permit a solar plant that multiple tribes have warned would compromise cultural sites. Avangrid paused the permitting process last summer, but received an extension at EFSEC’s last meeting – in a vote Beckett presided over.

Beckett said he worked for Avangrid but on a solar project called Lund Hill, which did not seek a permit through EFSEC. Asked why he disclosed the firm’s connection to the Skagit County battery storage proposal but not his direct work for Avangrid, he said it did not occur to him as relevant.

“Any work I ever did for them, it had nothing to do with EFSEC itself,” Beckett said. “But if it needs some further scrutiny or review, we can certainly do that.”