Heavy US Gov’t influencers anti-fossil fuel group in Chinese pocket
Fox News reports that a major influencer of US energy policy, the Natural Resources Defense Council, is an anti-fossil fuel group with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. They sued the Trump administration multiple times, excoriate fossil-fuel use, the Keystone XL pipeline – basically if it is fossil related, they’re agin’ it. Unless, of course, China’s energy policies are in question.
The NRDC, a non-profit organization based in New York City with total assets exceeding $450 million, has worked on climate issues extensively in China since the mid-1990s and several of its top officials have worked for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or government-sponsored institutions.
The organization, which was founded in the 1970s as “America’s first litigation-focused nonprofit dedicated to making dirty industries clean up their pollution” has filed dozens of legal challenges pushing far-left green measures.
Through its legal efforts, the NRDC has opposed domestic oil and gas drilling programs, coal plants, the Keystone XL pipeline and critical mineral mining projects.
The group bragged in December 2019 after it had filed its 100th lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Think I see a pattern. The US gets condemned quite regularly. The current administration, however, is apparently working with them.
The NRDC also maintains a close working relationship with President Biden’s administration. The NRDC’s former president, Gina McCarthy, served as Biden’s climate czar up from January 2021 until earlier this month. Current president, Manish Bapna, has attended at least two White House meetings, visitor logs reviewed by Fox News Digital show.
The NRDC regularly communicates with Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s office on policy issues, according to internal State Department emails obtained by the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust and shared with Fox News Digital.
China, however, comes in for a lot of lovin’ as they garner praise for all the steps they have taken: despite being the single largest emitter on the planet, with a whopping 27% of global emissions.
It is unclear whether the NRDC accepts direct or indirect funding from individuals or organizations affiliated with the Chinese government. The Internal Revenue Service generally does not require nonprofit organizations to publicly disclose donor information.
In addition, numerous key members of its Beijing office have previously worked for China’s communist government or left the group for a government position. The NRDC also regularly has published blog posts commending China for its climate actions.
“China’s leaders are sending a clear signal that China’s shift from fossil fuels to clean energy is accelerating and that ‘new energy’ should be the basis for China’s future energy system, rather than fossil fuels,” NRDC senior adviser Alvin Lin wrote in 2021.
Another 2021 blog post, from other NRDC experts, claimed China’s agreement to a United Nations treaty was “a major global climate win that should also lend a boost of confidence to broader climate talks heating up this year.”
Andrew Wetzler, NRDC’s chief program officer, wrote in 2018 that the “most exciting work in conservation” was taking place in China.
They have drawn unfavorable attention from legislators, too:
“The ties environmental groups, like NRDC, have to China is something we are continuing to keep close tabs on,” a spokesperson for House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital in a statement. “We’ve done a lot of oversight this Congress and it will continue to be a top priority for Ranking Member Westerman if we take back the House.”
In 2018, Westerman and former Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who was the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee at the time, wrote to NRDC leadership, requesting more information on its ties to China. The pair suggested the group’s apparent affiliation with China could require it to register as a foreign agent.
“The NRDC’s relationship with China has many of the criteria identified by U.S. intelligence agencies and law enforcement as putting an entity at risk of being influenced or coerced by foreign interests,” Bishop and Westerman wrote in the June 5, 2018, letter.
It is worth noting where their main staffing is: their Chinese office has three times the personnel as the office that seves the US and Europe.
Nice to know that while Kerry and the folks are flying gas-guzzler limos on jumbo jets around the world so they can tell us we should reduce our carbon footprint, who is driving their bus.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Global Warming, International Affairs, John Kerry, None
Commies are like watermelons, green on the outside, red on the inside. They’re doing their masters’ bidding.
Chicoms know how “influence”– don’t say corruption, comrade– works!
China creates a lot of energy intensive goods that other places no longer make. This requires generating more electricity than the US, India and Russia combined.
China is going Green. They are doing it a lot faster than most other countries. Wind (281GW) and solar (252GW) electricity capacity in China account for more capacity than all of Russia (220GW), #4 producer in the world, from all sources combined. Combined, the Green sector has more capacity than all of India, #3 producer in the world (403GW) from all sources as well. The numbers make it clear that it isn’t even close. As they modernize their grid every other country in the world is being left behind, with the US and a few other being exceptions.
China is moving away from their historic go to of coal due to the thousands killed in direct deaths from mining as well as all of those suffering from the health effects from burning coal. Coal has been falling as a percentage and in absolute terms since 2014.
How can you say they are moving away from Coal when they continue to build coal fired plants? But I don’t see them trying to make clean Coal plants which would would be telling.
China is just trying to catch up to their demand in any way they can. If China privitized their energy sector instead of keeping it locked down they might be building twice as many plants (“Green”, Nuclear, and Coal). If they had not built so many buildings and housing that could not be used (because the party did not want to lower the value of them to the price workers could afford) they would not be trying to play catch up.
There is no such thing as clean coal. The US tried it’s very best and dumped billions into it but it never worked. It would be amazing and world changing if it were possible.
So far as moving away from coal…. surely you understand that you can reduce your dependence on a thing while still using it? Or do you suggest they do like Germany did when they closed all of their nuclear power plants?
But the raw numbers are clear. As a percentage of total and in absolute numbers coal usage has declined.
They’re also investing in and producing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles far more than the u-charge-it “green” EVs dependent upon Chinese batteries Democrats want to force us into. Might they know something we don’t?
Not sure about that.
Making a SWAG at it, It is likely for naval military applications, particularly submarines. They are quieter than nuclear and can run for weeks. If they leap frog the US in sub tech that could be some nasty business.
Cars and trucks, not submarines…
https://autofintechs.com/china-steps-ahead-with-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-brushing-aside-elon-musk/#:~:text=China%20is%20planning%20to%20have%201%20million%20fuel,trucks%20and%20buses%20presently%20is%20not%20economically%20viable
Oh yeah China totally won’t build a submarine. What was i thinking?
The Chinese Communists are NOT our friends and have bought their way into every aspect of our gorvernment. As long as the Big Guy gets his 10% it is all good. I guess they’ll realize that their usefull idoacy has ended when the ChiComs put the bullet into the back of their heads.
Inaddition to everything else the Communist Chinese control, y’all see the articles discussing all of the farmland the Communist Chinese have bought up lately? Much of it near US Military Bases.
I’m more worried about the Canadians. They are the largest foreign owner of farmland in the US at around 12M acres. Makes the Chinese 320K acres look anemic. At any moment they could bomb Alec Baldwin’s house and then it is game on.
By “game on” you mean a big celebration?! Dancing in the streets?
For many, for certain…
Chicoms, of course.
“G.I., you die!” –Red China since 1950
The meme:
What I found more telling was the fact that the Chinese office has 35 people working there, but the New York office has only 11 yet is responsible for the entire world! What is the Chinese office doing?
This sounds like a chinese plant to keep America depnedent on them, by ensuring we squander our natural resources (i.e. Open the Strategic Oil reserve to sell to China).
Or you can spin it the other way, the US office budget is several times the Chinese office’s. It ain’t always easy to slant what I write, sometimes it takes work.
Ding, ding, ding! You win the kewpie doll!
No surprise since china owns the biden family.
Like Crackhead Hunter said… 10% to the big guy.
Since the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines had a spot of kaboomish bother, I wonder if “someone” might Oops others…
Such as the big one pumping crude in Akaska.
Or that large gasoline pipeline in the eastern US, that had some big problems a few years ago.
Tit for tat might get … messy.
But biden and his handlers don’t live anywhere near them, so they don’t give a tiny rats ass what happens to us peons..