In late June, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith, and Congressman Randy Weber, chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin requesting a full and complete investigation into a serious allegation regarding Russia’s influence against the U.S. shale industry.
The letter said that his committee was “conducting oversight of what appears to be a concerted effort by foreign entities to funnel millions of dollars through various non-profit entities to influence the U.S. energy market.”
Russia’s propaganda war against fossil fuels
Calling it “Russia’s propaganda war against fossil fuels,” the committee chairmen said in their letter: “Gazprom and the Russian government have infiltrated U.S. organizations at home and attempted to sway public opinion and thereby government opinion.”
The letter says that the Russian government and complicity parties have “executed a political agenda with little or no paper trail.”
“The scheme allows money originating from foreign countries like Russia to funnel through Bermuda-based shell companies to environmental groups in the United States with the aim of disrupting the U.S. energy industry.
“According to the reports, entities connected to the Russian government are using a shell company registered in Bermuda, Klein Ltd., to funnel tens of missions of dollars to a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) private foundation, the Sea Change Foundation. This money appears to move in the form of anonymous donations. Sea Change then passes the money originating in Russia to various U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations such as the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, and others. These funds are dispersed as grants that will be used to execute a political agenda driven by Russian entities. The purpose of this circuitous exchange of foreign funds is to shield the source of the money,” the letter from the U.S. congressmen said.
Read the original letter in PDF format with footnotes here.
