House Republicans investigate influence of ‘extreme environmental’ groups on Interior Department

[Geee]

Just the News

President Joe Biden has been courting the support of environmentalists throughout his time in the White House, and federal agencies have been engaged in rulemaking favorable to left-wing causes. This includes the pause on liquefied natural gas export permits, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency's EV mandates, power plant rules and methane regulations.

 

Some Republican lawmakers are now asking how much environmental groups have been consulted when developing these rules, where these groups get their funding, and if their relationships with federal agencies breached ethical or legal lines.

Influential groups

Republicans on a House Natural Resources subcommittee held a hearing Tuesday that examined the degree to which “extreme environmental activist groups” are influencing policy at the Department of the Interior.

The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations had invited representatives from two environmental groups who were accused of being engaged in “improper relationships” with the DOI — the Wilderness Society and Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA) — but both declined to testify.

 

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., explained that the issue of these groups’ influence is the “dark money” influence they receive from unfriendly foreign sources like China.

“We now know that China provides funding for many radical environmental groups, such as Code Pink, for the purpose of stopping America's natural resources development and weakening our energy sector security,” Gosar explained.

He recounted two DOI policies that he said were crafted in consultation with environmental organizations under what he called ethically questionable circumstances — the cancelation of mineral leases in northeastern Minnesota and the withdrawal of 330,000 acres around Chaco Canyon National Historic Park.