Are Enviros Letting Russia Set US Energy Policy?
We’re not exactly sure who’s running U.S. foreign policy, but we have a pretty good idea that Vladimir Putin has an outsized influence on European and U.S. energy policy.
The story has been looked into, and what's been found is disturbing.
"You're not really an independent nation if you depend on foreign countries so heavily for your energy supplies," Michael Shellenberger, the best-selling author of "Apocalypse Never," said earlier this month.
Shellenberger said that 15 years ago, "Europe produced more natural gas than Russia," but that all changed as "Russia increased its natural gas production and Europe reduced it."
"Europe decided not to frack in large part in response to climate activists," Shellenberger also said, adding: "We now think there is strong evidence suggesting [the climate activists] were supported directly through financing from Russia."
Sound familiar?
The Brandon (or Biden) administration has also attacked fracking on federal land, killed pipelines, ended offshore drilling and stopped issuing new federal drilling leases.
The result in both instances is lowered to non-existent production and a dependence on imports from other, often unfriendly, nations.
Keep in mind the United States was entirely energy independent at the end of Trump’s term and Joe Biden, who is controlled by "environmental" groups, single-handedly killed that.
"The Russians actually fund some of the most rabid environmental groups in Europe because they sic them on the energy projects that aren’t Russian," James Carafano, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation, said in a recent phone interview.
Even Hillary Clinton, of all people, believes Russian financing of U.S. green groups is a problem. "We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, 'Oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you,' and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia," Clinton said, according to excerpts leaked by WikiLeaks in 2016.
Sleepy Republicans in the House have finally noticed the problem and "are demanding that the League of Conservation Voters, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Sierra Club disclose their ties to a San Francisco- based nongovernmental organization that Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly uses to wield power over American energy production."
The group is called Sea Change and it’s based in San Francisco home to much anti–American sentiment.
In a letter sent to each of the three groups, Republicans inquired about the funding the groups have received from Sea Change since 2006 and called for disclosure of whether the groups "are aware of concerns that Sea Change may be a conduit for Russian funding."
"Provided the public reporting of Putin's dark money influence in Europe and the concerns surrounding similar efforts in the United States, we write today to explore your connections with Sea Change," the Republicans stated in the letter. "Any action by President Putin, the Russian government, or Putin's allies to undermine American energy security must be addressed."
Additionally, the Republicans asked the groups if they have received funds or took a particular action after a request "from the Russian government or anyone connected with the Russian government."
That last sentence in the quote was just stupid. Even foaming-at-the-mouth enviro fanatics know better than to meet with the gray men of the FSB and it just gives the groups an easy denial, which they took.
In a response, Bob Deans, the director of strategic engagement for the NRDC, suggested the "allegations are false" and are "rooted in a smear campaign."
"We receive no funding from the governments of Russia or China,” Deans said. “We answer to our independent leadership, and we don’t do the bidding of any government – foreign or otherwise – in our work to advocate for commonsense environmental protections in the public interest. These allegations are rooted in a smear campaign orchestrated nearly a decade ago by fossil fuel interests and a right-wing think tank. They only serve then, as now, as a distraction."
The question wasn’t direct government funding, it was funding washed through the Sea Change foundation, which the House bumblers managed to obscure.
Let’s hope after this misstep the GOP stays on this investigation.
The Biden administration purportedly taking energy policy direction from groups funded by laundered Russian money sounds a lot like real, dangerous collusion to us.
https://www.newsmax.com/reagan/europe-gas-nrdc-putin/2022/03/18/id/1061899/
