Communist China’s Support for U.S. Green Activists Should Invalidate Efforts to Bypass Congress

In true communist fashion, green groups continuously work to circumvent democratic institutions in the U.S.

Communist China’s financial support for environmental activists working to impose energy taxes on the American people without a vote by their elected representatives should invalidate those efforts, according to policy analysts familiar with the operations of left-leaning foundations.  

In January, House Republicans opened an investigation into a green energy operation known as the Energy Foundation China after reports from Fox News showed the foundation was steering millions of dollars of grants into “progressive,” U.S.-based environmental activist groups.

The Energy Foundation China is a former affiliate of the Energy Foundation, a top left-of-center grantmaker to environmentalist groups. Both outfits continue to list the same San Francisco address as their headquarters in their tax filings. They also share some of the same major donors such as the MacArthur Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In its review of the Energy Foundation China’s financial reports, Fox News concluded that the “majority” of the foundation’s operations are “conducted in China with a staff that boasts extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

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Killing Democracy, the Green Way

Regardless of how indirect the funding trail between Communist China and environmental activist groups in the U.S. might be, the anti-democratic impulses of groups pushing for carbon taxes, and new restrictions on American industry, deserve heightened scrutiny, energy policy analysts argued in a series of interviews with Restoration News. A 2014 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works described the Energy Foundation as the “quintessential example of a pass through” organization; meaning the Energy Foundation has the ability to conceal the origins of donations that are redirected to groups targeting America’s domestic energy production.

Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a Washington-based nonprofit that supports free market policies, is particularly concerned with how groups that receive grant donations from the Energy Foundation are making a concerted effort to bypass state legislatures with their carbon tax schemes.

In Pennsylvania, for example, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a group that has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the Energy Foundation in just the past few years, is a major proponent of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multistate climate change agreement built around the imposition of carbon taxes. Former Gov. Tom Wolf (D) attempted to coerce the state into joining RGGI without legislative approval. But the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled in Fall 2023 that since RGGI involves new taxes on carbon, the governor cannot act unilaterally without a vote in the General Assembly. The NRDC is among the Energy Foundation grant recipients leading the charge to circumvent the democratic process in the name of climate change.

“When you look at foundations that have ties to Chinese officials who by definition do not support democracy, and then you see that they are driving policies aimed at short circuiting the democratic process in the U.S., this should invalidate any efforts to pass something like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,” Pyle told Restoration News. “It’s certainly alarming to think that Chinese companies, and the Chinese government, have a level of influence to help determine where and how grants are being steered to U.S. environmental groups.”

The Institute for Energy Research runs a project known as Big Green Inc. that tracks the donations from left leaning foundations to left-wing environmental groups across the country. Although the NRDC is among the top recipients of grants from the Energy Foundation in Pennsylvania, and other states, the environmental group has consistently denied receiving any funding from China.

Even so, the NRDC maintains an active presence in Beijing and has close ties with Chinese officials.

Influence Watch, a project of the Capital Research Center, a Washington-based group that tracks expenditures from foundations, charities, and nonprofits, has keep careful tabs on the NRDC’s relationships in China.

“In addition to work within the country, several members of staff within the NRDC’s Beijing office have either previously worked within the CCP or left the NRDC for a government position. For example, the director of NRDC’s China program, Jieqing Zhang, previously served as the deputy director-general of China’s International Cooperation Department under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. Another example is the NRDC’s strategic advisor for its Beijing office, JingJing Qian, whom previously served in a position within China’s Ministry of Science and Technology. In addition, local project manager for the NRDC’s climate and energy project in Beijing, Hui Huang, previously worked for state-owned electric company the China Datang Corporation,” according to Influence Watch.

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The Paris Agreement

The environmental movement’s penchant for bypassing elected officials who might object to their climate initiatives is not limited to state-level actions, warns Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research. He points to the example of the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty, that was adopted during U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015. Participating countries are required to curb their carbon emissions. President Obama took executive action to have the U.S. became part of the international agreement in 2016.

President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement a few weeks before leaving office in 2020, but President Joe Biden had the U.S. re-enter the Obama-era agreement. Cohen and other critics of the U.N. agreement argue that because it is technically a treaty—and one that would likely trigger new energy taxes in the U.S.—the Paris Agreement should be labeled as such and submitted the U.S. Senate in a straight up and down vote.

“In its bid to displace the United States as the world’s leading superpower, China has the luxury of a fifth column in the U.S. that is eager to work hand-in-glove with its partners in Beijing to promote policies that undermine America’s global position,” Cohen told Restoration News.  “The unratified treaty that is the Paris Agreement was negotiated by the Obama administration, resurrected in the U.S. by the Biden administration, and enthusiastically supported by the NRDC and other green groups.  By seeking to curtail American production and use of fossil fuels, the Paris Agreement served the interests of the CCP by making the U.S. increasingly dependent on wind turbines and solar panels, the raw materials for which are largely found in Chinese supply chains. The reach of the fifth column cannot be understated.  It includes well-funded environmental groups, with some of the money originating with CCP-controlled entities, broad swaths of the media, academia, and corporate boardrooms, as well as – most tellingly – U.S. government officials in two administrations who have gone to extraordinary lengths to cripple America’s energy-dependent industrial base to the benefit of the CCP.”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian, free-market think tank in Washington, has long argued that the Paris Agreement is a “signed but non-ratified treaty that must win the consent of “two-thirds of the Senators present” (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2) before the United States may become a party to it.”

By resisting a straight up and down vote on carbon tax plans, Pyle, the IER president, suggests that supporters of such schemes show their hand.

“They know if these policies were put on the floor of the House or Senate in Washington or in state legislatures, they would likely go down in flames because they are not popular with voters,” he said.  “It’s disturbing that the mechanics of this agenda are to circumvent the democratic process and it’s even more alarming when you realize the influence China’s leaders have on the environmental movement in the U.S.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has been much more equivocal in his position on RGGI than his predecessor. Yet, he has seen fit to appeal the court decision blocking the executive from unilaterally implementing carbon taxes. Shapiro, a potential presidential and vice presidential candidate, also received $5,000 from the NRDC Action Fund, the political arm of the NRDC, in 2022. With RGGI tied up on court, Shapiro proposed his own alternative energy plan that Republican critics view as merely another method for imposing new energy taxes.

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