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FIRST ON FOX: A nationwide security-focused nonprofit group has launched a complete report detailing the workings of a well-funded nominally U.S.-based group that it says is undermining American vitality, pushing left-wing inexperienced initiatives, and in the end advancing Chinese language pursuits.
The report, revealed by State Armor, outlines the cash path of Vitality Basis China, registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that’s technically headquartered in San Francisco however with staff principally based mostly in Beijing.
“Vitality Basis China was once referred to as the Vitality Basis earlier than it spun off most of its U.S.-based operations in 2019 right into a separate group known as the U.S. Vitality Basis,” the report explains. “Whereas nonetheless formally organized because the Vitality Basis, since 2019, the group has used the alias ‘Vitality Basis China’ or ‘EF China’ to distinguish from the now-separate U.S. Vitality Basis. The group was based by Hal Harvey, a local weather activist and entrepreneur with deep ties to quite a few left-wing organizations and to China.”
State Armor discovered that EFC has “spent thousands and thousands every year to bankroll local weather advocates who promote phasing out fossil fuels and implementing inexperienced vitality options just like the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and Pure Sources Protection Council (NRDC), the latter of which was the goal of a 2018 Congressional inquiry into whether or not it ought to register as a international agent based mostly on its Chinese language funding.”
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The nationwide flags of america and China flutter on the Fairmont Peace Lodge on April 25, 2024 in Shanghai, China. (Photograph by Wang Gang/VCG by way of Getty Photographs)
The Rocky Mountain Institute produced probably the most outstanding research utilized by many Democrats to justify chopping down on gasoline stoves and was cited by President Biden’s Division of Vitality.
Earlier this 12 months, a number of committees joined to start an investigation into EFC, and requested recordsdata from EFC President Zi Chou about monetary assets given to American organizations after Fox Information Digital reporting on the group funneling thousands and thousands of {dollars} to fund local weather initiatives and environmental teams within the U.S.
The report particulars how EFC “led a U.S. state-level legislative drive” in opposition to Bayer, the main Western fertilizer firm, that pushed for lawsuits in opposition to the corporate over a doubtlessly carcinogenic pesticide with the goal of driving the corporate out of the U.S. and in flip forcing reliance on Chinese language suppliers.
The report goes on to stipulate how the group has “offered thousands and thousands” to the Worldwide Council on Clear Transportation (ICCT) to assist “a clear vitality future” and the way ICCT was an “lively supporter” of local weather initiatives within the Inflation Discount Act focusing on elevated battery electrical trucking infrastructure.
Fox Information Digital reported in 2023 that The Vitality Basis despatched $480,000 to the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwide Council on Clear Transportation, which advocates for widespread EV adoption and insurance policies decarbonizing the transportation sector broadly. It additionally wired grants — one to the College of Maryland and one other to the Jackson Gap Heart for World Affairs — value a complete of $450,000 and earmarked for tasks to part out coal energy reliance.
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Josh Hodges, Commissioner on the U.S.-China Financial and Safety Evaluation Fee and former Nationwide Safety Advisor to Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson and NSC Senior Director within the first Trump Administration, instructed Fox Information Digital that EFC is a “textbook instance of the CCP’s uneven warfare technique and drive to deepen its dominance over American firms.”
“Communist China is manipulating a supposed philanthropic community to steer the U.S. away from dependable home vitality sources and into dependence on Chinese language provide chains,” Hodges stated. “Whether or not it is photo voltaic panels, cellphones, electrical automobile batteries, or agricultural chemical compounds, Beijing’s fingerprints are everywhere in the ‘inexperienced transition’ being pushed on America.”
The report quotes Chinese language local weather envoy Liu Zhenmin who instructed that Biden’s inexperienced vitality insurance policies will stay even below a extra skeptical Trump administration and stated, “even when the brand new Trump administration reverses local weather change insurance policies, it’s unlikely to fully change the inexperienced transition actions which have already begun in numerous components of the U.S.”
“In different phrases, the CCP’s penetration of the U.S.’ political and industrial methods runs so deep that CCP officers imagine that not even a skeptical White Home may halt America’s rising dependence upon Chinese language applied sciences,” the report states.
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Chinese language President Xi Jinping (Saudi Press Company/Handout by way of REUTERS)
Will Hild, Govt Director of Customers’ Analysis instructed Fox Information Digital that the report “exposes a disturbing fact” that EFC is a part of a broader push to undermine American vitality independence and “stifle” the Trump vitality agenda to learn the CCP.
“EFC is weaponizing woke ideology to drag off this scheme and pressure American shoppers to depend on the Chinese language Communist Get together for vitality sources,” Hild stated. “Individuals should know the reality about our international adversary’s marketing campaign that’s poisoning our economic system and reshaping our vitality future. We applaud organizations like State Armor which are working to reveal these grifts in opposition to shoppers.”
Along with the EFC’s local weather activism, the report focuses on how, by “co-opting local weather activism and dominating new so-called inexperienced provide chains, Beijing converts a home weak spot into a world energy” whereas additionally detailing the ties between EFC and the CCP.
For instance, EFC’s CEO Zou Ji has served in earlier roles at prime management positions in China’s official Nationwide Heart for Local weather Change Technique inside the Nationwide Improvement and Reform Fee of the State Council.
“He was so deeply tied into CCP management that he was included as part of China’s delegation to the 2015 Paris Local weather Talks,” the report says. “Zou’s different affiliations embrace a place at Tsinghua College at a middle the place his colleagues embrace a retired senior PLA officer and a former deputy director of an MSS suppose tank.”
Zou will not be the one EFC determine with ties to the CCP, the report says, pointing to EFC Board Member and Washington, D.C. based mostly lawyer Hongjun Zhang, who serves as a member of China’s Council for Worldwide Cooperation on Setting and Improvement and was beforehand a legislative director for the China Nationwide Folks’s Congress.
Zhang, in keeping with his legislation agency’s bio web page, spent “a few years within the Chinese language authorities” that included work on the “Ministry of Trade and Info Expertise (MIIT), Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), State Meals and Drug Administration (CFDA), Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), and Nationwide Improvement and Reform Fee.”
The report states that EFC’s operations in China are overseen by the CCP’s Nationwide Improvement and Reform Fee (NDRC) and that the group’s Beijing headquarters are situated in a constructing owned by a state-owned funding company tied to Chinese language state media propaganda.
China’s nationwide flag flutters on Pingtan island, the closest level in China to Taiwan’s fundamental island (Adek Berry)
Rep. John Moolenar, R-Mich., who’s the chairman of the Home Choose Committee on the Strategic Competitors Between america and the Chinese language Communist Get together, sounded the alarm over the report, telling Fox Information Digital “This report confirms what we’ve lengthy warned: the Chinese language Communist Get together is utilizing seemingly innocuous nonprofits to affect American coverage and undermine U.S. pursuits — on this case, our vitality independence.”
“Vitality Basis China operates on the path of the CCP and is exploiting our charitable system to push insurance policies that profit Beijing, not the American folks,” Moolenar continued. “The Choose Committee continues to analyze how CCP-linked organizations infiltrate U.S. establishments, shift important provide chains towards China, and form environmental agendas that goal to make America weaker whereas China will get stronger. We’ll proceed to reveal these affect operations and work with Congress and the Administration to safeguard U.S. vitality safety and nationwide sovereignty.”
The report additionally factors to examples of EFC collaborating with U.S. entities and officers together with in 2023 when it “offered assist” for an occasion that featured California Gov. Gavin Newsom throughout a go to to China after which hosted a discussion board a month later for a dialogue selling “low-carbon cooperation between the 2 nations.”
Vance Wagner, the vp for strategic partnerships at Vitality Basis China, pushed again on the report, telling Fox Information Digital that “Vitality Basis China (EFC) is an unbiased grantmaking charitable group that gives funding for analysis and capability constructing associated to local weather change and China.”
“Local weather change is among the biggest threats dealing with our world. Our work is presently targeted on China given the size of its vitality sector and its function in international emissions. Regardless of geopolitical tensions, significant engagement with China on local weather change and emissions reductions is in everybody’s pursuits,” Vance continued. “All grants we make assist tasks associated to local weather change and China, and are by no means associated to influencing U.S. vitality coverage. EFC doesn’t settle for funding from any authorities or political celebration.”
“Neither the Chinese language authorities nor the CCP fund, direct, or management EFC or our grant-making choices,” he added. “We’re compliant with all U.S. and Chinese language legal guidelines and rules and don’t foyer or assist electoral actions in any nation.”
The report states that between 2020 and 2021, EFC gave over $1 million to the Division of Vitality’s Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory for funding “inexperienced vitality analysis” and laboratory coaching growing the effectivity of China’s industrial sectors.
The Biden administration, in keeping with the report, gave $60 million in grants to the Institute for Sustainable Communities, which is a bunch “regularly in collaboration with Vitality Basis China.”
“America’s vitality safety is nationwide safety,” Jason Isaac, CEO of American Vitality Institute, instructed Fox Information Digital.
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Chinese language President Xi Jinping speaks throughout his joint press convention with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban following their talks on the PM’s workplace, the previous Carmelite Monastery, in Budapest, Hungary, Thursday, Could 9, 2024. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI by way of AP)
“The State Armor report lays naked how the Chinese language Communist Get together has co-opted local weather activism to shift the U.S. onto so-called ‘inexperienced’ applied sciences which are manufactured, mined, and managed by China. From photo voltaic panels to EV batteries and uncommon earth minerals, our provide chains are more and more entangled with a international adversary that makes use of pressured labor, ignores environmental safeguards, and brazenly goals to dominate the worldwide vitality future. This isn’t progress—it’s dependence. Actual vitality dominance means leveraging America’s huge home vitality assets, not outsourcing our future to Beijing.”
Together with the report, State Armor has despatched letters to Republican committee chairs in Congress, together with Chairmen Grassley, Lee, Moolenaar, Comer, and Guthrie, that decision for immediate oversight on the matter.
“Congress should act,” the letter, authored by Lucci, implores. “Oversight is urgently wanted to reveal the complete extent of this operation, starting with Vitality Basis China. The EFC will not be a passive observer; it’s an lively participant in a geopolitical contest the place America’s vitality safety and international management hold within the stability.”
Fox Information Digital’s Thomas Catenacci and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report
