by Gabe Kaminsky, Investigative Reporter
House Democrats who voted against two GOP proposals to block President Joe Biden from banning gas stoves accepted campaign donations from the head of a China-linked group pushing to electrify the U.S. economy, records show.
Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), and Adam Schiff (D-CA), among other Democrats, voted “nay” on Tuesday and Wednesday on the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and Save Our Gas Stoves Act. The cohort, and other congressional Democrats prioritizing green programs, have been boosted to the tune of almost $23,000 by Hal Harvey, founder and president of Climate Imperative, a nonprofit group with ties to China that has doled out large grants to activists behind expansive electrification policies, according to campaign finance disclosures.
“What troubles me about this whole gas stoves issue is the level of coordination,” Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a pro-fossil fuels group, told the Washington Examiner. “The public overwhelmingly rejects having to pay more for things they know make their lives easier and allows them freedom, access, and mobility.”
The Biden administration has faced scrutiny from Republicans over government proposals to ban gas stoves in order purportedly to stave off climate change. Rep. Kelly Armstrong’s (R-ND) Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, which the House approved 248 to 180 on Tuesday, would prohibit the Consumer Product Safety Commission from using tax dollars to “regulate gas stoves as a banned hazardous product” or implement any “product safety standard” that would ban the sale of gas stoves or “substantially increases their price.”
Armstrong’s bill taking aim at the commission, which was co-sponsored by four Republicans and Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK), is in response to an October 2022 memo released by the agency’s commissioner, Richard Trumka Jr., that proposed a ban on gas stoves. Separately, Rep. Debbie Lesko’s (R-AZ) Save Our Gas Stoves Act passed 249 to 181 and aims to amend regulations so that kitchen appliance standards “cannot be ‘economically justified’ if it likely will result in the unavailability in the United States of a type (or class) of product based on what type of fuel the product consumes,” a bill summary shows.
Trumka’s highly scrutinized memo cited a Jan. 13 article, “Pros and Cons of Induction Cooktops and Ranges,” which in turn links to a Jan. 12 article, “Induction Cooktops and Ranges Are So Good You May Not Miss Your Gas Appliance.” The piece from Jan. 12 cited an Oct. 4, 2022, study linking gas stoves to childhood asthma, which Climate Imperative helped fund with a $375,000 grant in 2021, according to tax records. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) launched an investigation earlier this year into the award.
Harvey, a veteran climate activist who also launched the policy firm Energy Innovation, founded the San Francisco-based Climate Imperative in 2020. Climate Imperative, which raised over $221 million from eight donors during the 2021 tax period, spent over $100 million that year dishing out grants to environmental groups. The foundation has also funneled grants in the past to Chinese entities and notably sent $8.6 million to an anonymous source during its first operating year to help craft a Chinese energy report released in 2022 by the country’s National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration, Fox News reported.
Climate Imperative has also steered $400,000 to the Asia Foundation, a global nonprofit group, to push Chinese carbon neutrality, and $300,000 to the Institute for Sustainable Communities, another global tax-exempt entity, to help “accelerate” the green energy agenda in China, the outlet reported.
In April, Harvey contributed $2,500 to the Committee for a Livable Future, a PAC affiliated with Blumenauer, after giving the congressman’s campaign $3,500 combined between September 2021 and February 2022, disclosures show. He’s also cut campaign checks totaling $1,000 to Krishnamoorthi, $2,000 to Khanna, $125 to Schiff, and $7,400 combined to Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL), who did not vote on Armstrong’s gas stoves bill but voted against Lesko’s.
“Extreme Democrats remain quick to betray Americans’ freedoms for the benefit of special interests groups with ties to China,” Will Reinert, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “If they’ll try to ban gas stoves, they’ll come for your gas vehicles next.”
Harvey also donated $2,900 in early 2023 to the campaign for Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM).
“Would you let your babysitter smoke in your house?” Heinrich tweeted in March 2022, linking to a New York Times article, “The Case for Induction Cooking, Versus Gas Stoves.” “Having a gas stove in your home may be just as bad.”
The donations, and other lawmaker contributions from Harvey, are a window into how wealthy climate activists have sought to gain influence or boost federal officials who appear sympathetic to the green energy agenda. Climate Imperative is one of several entities linked to the gas stoves crackdown that has faced congressional scrutiny for advancing electrification policies that conservatives say would cripple the fossil fuels industry and the economy.
“The public is becoming aware that their agenda is self-serving and not beneficial,” Pyle added. “There are trade-offs. If you switch from a hydrocarbon-based energy system to a minerals-and-materials-based energy system, which is what they want, there are other environmental challenges to that.”
Cruz and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent a written request to Climate Imperative in April for records on the $375,000 grant in 2021 for the gas stoves research. The Republicans also asked for information on Chinese Academy of Sciences professor Wang Yi, who was listed by Climate Imperative as an advisory council member earlier this year while sitting in China’s legislature, according to reports.
Climate Imperative Foundation pushed $23.3 million recently to the Energy Foundation, a San Francisco-based group with an affiliated Beijing office, tax forms show. The China foundation’s CEO and president is Ji Zou, the former deputy director general for China’s national climate change strategy center, an agency under the government’s reform commission for national development, according to the nonprofit group.
Harvey founded the Energy Foundation, where he was its president until 2002, records show.
Harvey also gave $2,000 combined between April 2021 and September 2021 to the campaign for Rep. Josh Harder (D-CA). The congressman ended up joining Republicans to vote in favor of the Armstrong and Lesko bills after being ridiculed by the GOP in March for vetoing an amendment to block a gas stoves ban.
Climate Imperative and campaigns for House Democrats did not return requests for comment.
Follow the money! Most if not all the climate change groups and the green new deal groups can trace their funding back to China. All the while China is bringing a new coal fired power plant online every week. Think about it.