Cruz and Comer demand Merrick Garland pin down environmental radical groups' links to China

In a line of query that should have been taken up by Congress a long time ago, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rep. James Comer of Kentucky have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to clarify just what the Justice Department knows about the China links of various environmental organizations busy lobbying the U.S. to initiate laws that will hurt the U.S. economy in the name of "going green." 

Among these, according to their letter, which can be read at The Daily Caller, are the foreign ties and Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) papers of the environmental groups that have successfully lobbied members of Congress and regulatory agencies to ban gas stoves, despite the absence of evidence that there is anything environmentally harmful about them. 

At the beginning of this year, we sent a series of letters to the U.S. Consumer ProductSafety Commission and several energy nonprofits to better understand these groups' advocacy andengagement with government officials to ban gas stoves in the U.S.

Cruz and Comer called for information about the FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) status of groups such as the National Resources Defense Council (NDRC), which was named in bid to ban gas stoves, as well as groups with names like RMI, Climate Imperative Foundation, Rewiring America, and/or Windward Fund.

Indeed, NRDC has substantial ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Both NRDCChina Program Directors are former CCP officials.

On NRDC's Chinese-language site (which provides information different from the English-language site), NRDC explains it "has beencarrying out environmental protection work in China since the 1990s" and "actively cooperates andcommunicates" with several Chinese government agencies.

Moreover, NRDC acts as amouthpiece for Chinese propaganda, signaling that it either takes direction from the CCP or that it iswilling to self-censor to maintain a positive relationship with the Communist regime. While pushingoutrageous claims in the United States — for example, that gas stoves emit pollution even when not in us — the organization promotes China as a world leader in "clean power development," never raising that the Communist country is responsible for emitting over one-fourth of global carbondioxide and a third of the world's greenhouse gases.

Despite these obvious ties to China, NRDC has successfully established ties with the U.S.government and key government officials. For example, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry — who has claimed "working together" on climate issues is more important than demanding justice for the enslaved Uyghur population or accountability for China's theft ofAmerican intellectual property or overt spying behavior  — has worked hand-in-glove with NRDC and other radical environmental groups since SPEC's inception.

In emails provided to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee between the SPEC and climate groups, NRDC appears to lead on multiple initiatives, including working to "accelerat[e] ambition" and promote"clean tech exports."

We have also highlighted the ties between China and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI),another radical environmental group attempting to ban gas stoves in American homes.

RMI CEO Jon Creyts has met directly with multiple Cabinet members and high-level White House officials,including Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and White House climate czar Ali Zaidi.

These organizations' advocacy, ties to China, and direct communications with White Houseofficials raise concerns that these groups are acting as unregistered agents of the Communist regime.

They cited the recent case of Russians getting caught in the act of funding radical environmental groups and noted that it was verified by a House committee in 2019 (leaving off that it was led by Democrats at the time), so the activity is nothing new.

"Russian agents created and spread propaganda on U.S. social media platforms in an obvious attempt to influence the U.S. energy market," in part through "covertly funding radical environmental groups opposed to fossil fuels."

If they wanted to go further, they also might have named Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire with a Rousseauvian-Romantic outlook about the New World (ironically, Rousseau was also from his part of Switzerland) who certainly has no loyalty to the U.S., yet who donates to causes that find their way into Democrat coffers, getting Democrats on the money hook through environmentalism.

As RealClearPolitics's Philip Wegmann wrote here:

Wyss is the Swiss billionaire behind what the New York Times described last year as "a daisy chain of opaque organizations" that supported a number of left-leaning environmental groups and progressive causes. According to the Times, the recipients of those funds later backed progressive causes almost exclusively and helped Democrats as they regained control of the White House. As RealClearPolitics first reported, Wyss is not a U.S. citizen, a fact that had remained a public mystery despite the hundreds of billions of dollars he has spent to influence American politics. Wyss is also a longtime associate of Podesta.

I wrote commentary on that report here.

Why does this focus on foreign agent registration matter?

Because the Chicoms have sent their agents all over to gather information about and influence U.S. policy, too.  From s0traight-out espionage recently seen in the U.S. Navy to the infiltration of corporations to steal corporate secrets to the seeding of academia with their supporters and money to that balloon maneuver to gather intelligence about interior U.S. military bases to the honey pot spies sleeping with U.S. politicians such as once–House Intelligence Committee member Eric Swalwell, the Chinese are very interested in quietly controlling what the U.S. does.  They'd like nothing better than to bring the great U.S. economy low, and see great tools for themselves, within wokesterism, open borders, Washington swamp consultancies and contractors, university science programs, and certainly the green movement.

It is probably significant to this green maneuver that the ChiComs have sought to acquire U.S. energy assets, too, through the offices of Hunter Biden.  They seem to have financed green energy actors to weaken U.S. energy security and self-sufficiency, and moved to swoop in on actual U.S. energy assets that are worth something.  That's quite a power game.

The fact that the greenie lobby is so strong and influential within the easily purchased, corruption-laden Biden administration, is particularly worth examination from Congress because polls repeatedly show that Americans consider green issues coming in at rock bottom of their priorities.  Why would such unimportant issues have such priority power and sway in Washington if the public doesn't even care about them?  Might that be an indicator of potential foreign agent influence?  The fact that China has shown itself to be very, very aggressive on these matters is added fuel. 

Cruz and Comer are two of the sharpest legal minds in Congress and may well be on to something important.  Are these powerful environmental groups with Chinese funding acting on behalf of the Chicoms and their agenda, and if so, have they properly registered as foreign agents?  If not, why not?  And if they should register, why has the Justice Department been so indifferent to this problem if what Cruz and Comer are charging is true?

Image: Screen shot from ABC News video via YouTube.

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