A shadowy network identified as the “Billionaires
Club” is showering funds on the environmentalist so-called “green movement.” In
addition, this network may be violating federal laws in its controversial
efforts to elect its operatives, seize control of the federal regulatory
regime, and push its radical agenda on America, according to a new report by
Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Now that the
Billionaires Club has purchased so much power, it is using its agents in the
bureaucracy to further fleece taxpayers to advance its own goals by granting
its front groups even more money, the Senate investigators found. Top insiders
such as David Rockefeller and Bill Gates are deeply involved.
Operating under the bogus guise of
“philanthropy” with little scrutiny from the IRS, the network also goes to
great lengths to conceal its activities and insulate itself from the damage it
is doing to the U.S. economy and average Americans. The hard-hitting study also
found that the tiny cabal of mega-wealthy establishment figures, operating
lawlessly and in secret but in coordination with the media, has erected a swarm
of AstroTurf groups that literally dominates “environmental” policymaking in
the United States through its control of the out-of-control EPA. Together, they
are undermining free enterprise and resource security, the report
found.
The explosive 92-page study released
last week, entitled “The Chain of Environmental Command: How a Club of Billionaires and Their
Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA,” has been virtually ignored by the
increasingly discredited establishment press — much of which willingly serves
as a propaganda mouthpiece for the very same outfits exposed in the Senate
report. However, the investigation has caused a stir in the alternative media,
and critics are now calling for formal investigations and accountability.
Lawmakers are upset, too.
“There is an unbelievable amount of
money behind the environmental movement and far too much collusion between
far-left environmental groups and the Obama EPA,” said Sen. David Vitter
(R-La.), the senior Republican on the Senate committee who oversaw the
investigation. “This report really gets to the core of tracking the money and
exposing the collusion.” While he stopped short of saying a criminal conspiracy
was afoot, Vitter said the operations of the Billionaires Club were clearly
designed to remain in the shadows.
Among other tactics, the network
relies on an “incredibly sophisticated” system of front groups and the
exploitation of loopholes in the tax code. The Billionaires Club’s machinations
also involve “a close knit network of like-minded funders, environmental
activists, and government bureaucrats who specialize in manufacturing phony
‘grassroots’ movements and in promoting bogus propaganda disguised as science
and news to spread an anti-fossil energy message to the unknowing public,” the
report said.
In some cases, the network funds
pseudo-scientific research, too. The findings are then disseminated by far-left
“media” outlets such as the Huffington Post and Mother Jones that are
also receiving Billionaires Club funds. “In one example, a story reporting on a
Park Foundation-supported anti-fracking study was reproduced by a Park-funded
news organization through a Park-funded media collaboration where it was then
further disseminated on Twitter by the maker of Park-backed anti-fracking movies,”
the report found.
Three radical outfits in particular
were identified as serving key roles in the scheming of the network: the
Environmental Grantmakers Association, the Democracy Alliance, and the
Divest/Invest movement. Other crucial components of the phony grassroots
network involved in financing the deception and extremism include the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Schmidt Family Foundation created by Google boss
Eric Schmidt, and the infamous Heinz Family Foundation largely controlled by
Secretary of State John Kerry’s wife.
Another one of the “dominant”
outfits in the pseudo-environmentalist movement exposed in the report is the
California-based “Sea Change Foundation.” According to the Senate report and
other investigations, the group relies heavily on funding from a shady
Bermuda-based “company” that the Washington Free Beacon reported
“appears only to exist on paper.” Sea Change, in turn, “funnels tens of
millions of dollars to other large but discreet foundations and prominent
environmental activists who strive to control both policy and politics,” the
report says. Other funding sources for Sea Change include billionaire
population control zealot Bill Gates of Common Core infamy, top establishment
insider and anti-sovereignty extremist David Rockefeller, and retail giant
Walmart.
The uber-wealthy financiers of the
AstroTurf network are also experts at turning phony tax-deductible “charitable”
contributions into political outcomes, the report found. Among other dubious
tactics, the Billionaires Club often gives funds to tax-exempt 501c3 non-profit
groups, which are prohibited from lobbying or meddling in elections. They, in
turn, funnel that money to 501c4 outfits that can and do lobby and campaign for
draconian policies against Americans. The extremely well-funded far-left
outfits are even accused of potentially running afoul of U.S. law by laundering
“dark money” through front companies and non-profit “educational” groups to
influence elections.
The report also blasted Obama’s
“blatant hypocrisy” for attacking the Supreme Court after it struck down
unconstitutional infringements on free speech — even as his mega-wealthy
establishment allies were engaged in the tactics he was furiously condemning.
“These entities propagate the false notion that they are independent,
citizen-funded groups working altruistically,” the report said. “In reality,
they work in tandem with wealthy donors to maximize the value of the donors’
tax deductible donations and leverage their combined resources to influence elections
and policy outcomes, with a focus on the EPA.”
The report mostly focused on an
“elite group of left wing millionaires and billionaires,” referred to
throughout the report as the “Billionaires Club,” that actually “directs and
controls the far-left environmental movement, which in turn controls major
policy decisions and lobbies on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).” The “scheme” to keep their efforts hidden and far removed from
the political stage “is deliberate, meticulous, and intended to mislead the
public,” the study found. In all, the probe documented over $250 million in
fundraising from just 15 organizations.
According to the investigators,
though, the rabbit hole goes so deep that it would be almost impossible to
expose it all. “Although startling in its findings, the report covers only a
small fraction of the amount of money that is being secreted and moved around,”
the Senate Republican staff on the committee said in the executive summary of
the inquiry. “It would be virtually impossible to examine this system
completely given the enormity of this carefully coordinated effort and the lack
of transparency surrounding it.”
Of course, now that the network has
seized control of such much influence in government, much of the money spent to
promote its goals is actually being extracted from taxpayers. The worldwide
global-warming-alarmism industry, for example, brings in more than $360 billion
in tax money each year. Meanwhile, the EPA and other bureaucracies fund legions
of AstroTurf “green” activists with public monies to lobby for more power and
taxpayer money for the agencies themselves.
“This report proves that the Obama
EPA has been deliberately staffed at the highest levels with far-left
environmental activists who have worked hand-in-glove with their former
colleagues,” the report continues. “The green-revolving door at EPA has become
a valuable asset for the far-left and their wealthy donors. In addition to
providing insider access to important policy decisions, it appears activists
now at EPA also funnel government money through grants to their former
employers and colleagues.”
Incredibly, climate alarmists tried
to expose similar machinations, claiming huge sums of “dark money” was
nefariously being pumped into what they call “climate denial.” Right around New
Year, a paper in the journal Climatic Change by Drexel University
"sociologist" Robert Brulle purported to unmask a vast web of
special-interest “dark money” funding climate realists who object to the
alarmist narrative. The headlines that accompanied it in the establishment
press were certainly attention grabbing. The radical alarmist U.K. Guardian,
for example, ran its article under the title: “Conservative groups have spent
$1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change.”
Other outlets had similar bogus headlines.
The plan, however, backfired in
spectacular fashion. Within a week, the supposed “study” had been so thoroughly
discredited by the Heartland Institute and Forbes that it became a
global laughing stock. Among other problems, two of the top three organizations
identified as “denier” groups were actually shilling for carbon taxes. From the
$1 billion (the organizations raised some $900 million in total, according to
the study), Heartland senior fellow for environmental policy James Taylor did
the math and exposed the real numbers. “At most, only $6.4 million of the ‘dark
money’ addresses global warming topics, with a net of only $3.2 million
opposing global warming activism,” he wrote.
Critics are up in arms about the
latest findings in the Senate report, with many demanding proper
investigations. “Foundations appear to be colluding with almost every
department of the Obama administration,” said Ron Arnold, executive vice president
of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. “And it’s not just the Big
Green donors. It’s time for Congress to hear testimony from a sampling of
manipulative foundation program directors and investment managers explaining
themselves to those whose lives they influence.”
Separately, the conservative-leaning
Cause of Action, which has long been seeking closer government scrutiny of the
pseudo-environmentalist network, said it was time for serious probes. “While
the IRS seems to be over-inclusive in auditing legitimate non-profits that
differ politically from the administration, they have been under-inclusive in
their oversight of politically favored groups who are actually abusing the
law,” said Director Dan Epstein. “What EPW’s report shows is the environmental
movement is following the very model President Obama criticized, manipulating
the tax code in the process, with no repercussion from the IRS.”
The simplest way to deal with
Billionaires Club’s efforts to impose tyranny on America under the bogus guise
of environmentalism would be for the government to respect the Constitution.
The federal government has no constitutional authority to impose such policies
in the first place. If Republicans are truly interested in slamming the brakes
on the radical “green” machine that is undermining America, simply refusing to
fund the EPA and its lawless machinations would do the trick quickly and
easily.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering
economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at
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Comments
We need to remove taxpayer money from
supporting this scam and we need to do it quickly. It will take a different Congress and
Whitehouse, but if we are to survive economically, we will need to quit the UN
and send these global Marxist criminals to jail for treason.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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