Russian funding of U.S. environmental groups shows how collusion is done

Last week, a congressional committee released a jarring and persuasive report on Russian meddling in American politics. Despite a media feeding frenzy over anything tangentially connected to questions of Russian interference, this report went largely unnoticed. The U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s “Russia’s Social Media Meddling in U.S. Energy Markets” details Russian funding of U.S. environmental groups, which used resources to protest the process of fracking and the existence of the Keystone pipeline. Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, figures to watch the U.S. surpass it within five years. Killing fracking and the pipeline stand as two ways for Russia to avert this fate. Rep. Lamar Smith, the chairman of the committee, describes the “mechanics of Russia’s scheme to use nonprofit entities to influence U.S. public policy and public opinion” with regard to oil and gas and the fracking process. Smith points out that “publicly available reports connect the dots” between U.S. environmental groups and a Bermuda-based shell company known as Klein Ltd. that operates as a “pass through” organization for foreign funds. The Washington D.C.-based Environmental Policy Alliance has published a report titled “From Russia with Love” that goes into further details about the Russian connection with the Bermuda shell company and the law firm. The findings of the Environmental Policy Alliance builds on a July 2014 report from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that identifies the San Francisco-based Sea Change Foundation as the major conduit for Russian funding of U.S. environmental groups. IRS 990 forms show that Klein Ltd contributed $23 million to Sea Change in 2010 and again in 2011, which is about half of all contributions Sea Change received during that same time period. These same 990 forms show that Sea Change then distributed more than $20 million in grants in 2010 and 2011 to environmental organizations “to promote awareness of climate change,” “reduce reliance on high carbon energy,” “educate the public about climate and clean energy,” and “promote climate and clean energy communications.” Recipients of these Sea Change grants during this two-year period include the Energy Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club Foundation, the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the Tides Foundation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Virginia Organizing Project...more