A climate nonprofit run by former Chinese Communist Party officials funneled millions of dollars to U.S. universities and left-wing groups to promote replacing fossil fuels with green energy, tax forms reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
The climate nonprofit, formally known as the Energy Foundation but which dubs itself "Energy Foundation China," wired grants to Harvard College, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Maryland to support research and education on building a "clean energy future" and advancing "low carbon cities." The Energy Foundation gave a total of $630,000 to the four universities in 2023. All four of those universities promote far-left climate policies.
The Energy Foundation also funneled another $1.5 million to the following left-wing climate nonprofits: the Rocky Mountain Institute, International Council on Clean Transportation, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, and Natural Resources Defense Council. Those groups all are dedicated to promoting the phase-out of fossil fuels and mass expansion of costly green energy alternatives.
The Chinese-tied organization's involvement in the American climate movement is indicative of how China seeks to influence the United States economy and weaken the billion-dollar fossil fuel sector. China stands to benefit from a global green transition—Chinese businesses dominate solar, wind, and electric vehicle supply chains while America dominates oil and gas production.
The Energy Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
"The Energy Foundation’s direct ties to the CCP are incredibly alarming, as they’ve spent millions to push for radical climate initiatives that favor China and harm American energy production," Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of ethics watchdog Americans for Public Trust, told the Free Beacon.
"Their dark money has been funneled to groups that want to ban gas stoves and phase out fossil fuels," she continued. "Next year, Congress should continue their investigation to determine the extent to which China is undermining American energy dominance through this group."
The Energy Foundation was founded in the 1990s in San Francisco as a pass-through organization taking contributions it received from anonymous donors and funneling that cash to environmental programs nationwide. In 2020, the group split into two groups, the Energy Foundation China and the United States Energy Foundation. The Energy Foundation has given nearly $12 million for climate initiatives in the United States since 2020, according to a Free Beacon analysis.
The Energy Foundation China retained the group's original tax identification information, meaning it is still known as the Energy Foundation. Because its headquarters are still located in San Francisco—at the same office space listed as the United States Energy Foundation's headquarters—it must continue to file tax forms with the IRS. But a Free Beacon review determined that its main operations and grant-making activity are conducted from its Beijing office.
The group leased two offices located in China last year, audited financial statements obtained by the Free Beacon show. Its staff is also rife with Chinese nationals who have ties to the Chinese Communist Party apparatus.
Energy Foundation CEO and president Ji Zou, for example, previously served as the deputy director general of China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy, an agency within the Chinese government’s National Development and Reform Commission. Ping He, a senior policy adviser at the group, worked for eight years at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a leading state-run research institution.
Other top Energy Foundation officials include Liu Xin, who previously served as a high-ranking official at the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau; Wei Han, who worked for China’s National Institute of Standardization, a government economic agency; and Sha Fu, a former professor at the Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, a think tank under the auspices of China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
And the group's top international cooperation officer Yunfei Xing previously managed energy development projects in developing countries for the China Machinery Engineering Corporation. That company is a subsidiary of the state-run conglomerate China National Machinery Industry Corporation, which seeks to spread Chinese influence across the world by developing infrastructure projects in poor regions.
"The entanglement of this foundation with former Chinese Communist Party government officials, and its active engagement of U.S. academic institutions and other NGOs, is gravely troubling when it comes to our national security, foreign policy and energy policy, and how they may be compromised or undermined," said former United States ambassador Joseph Cella, a cofounder of the Michigan-China Economic and Security Review Group.
"This seems to be a quasi-subnational incursion and influence operation by the CCP as they use our open system and existing tax law for leverage to gain an advantage economically, politically or in the realm of societal debates and public opinion," he continued.
Cella added that both Congress and the incoming Trump administration through its Department of Government Efficiency should conduct a "top to bottom review" of the Energy Foundation, which he said appears to be a "poster child for how certain tax exempt non-governmental organizations exploit wrong-headed and permissive IRS law."
Overall, the Energy Foundation reported revenue of $84.5 million in 2023, which was almost entirely made up of anonymous donations and which marked a nearly 46 percent increase year over year. It wrote grants worth $55.9 million, the vast majority of which were given to organizations in Asia. Those organizations were not named in the group's tax filings.
The Rocky Mountain Institute received $350,000 from the Energy Foundation in 2023, the same year that the Colorado-based think tank emerged as a leader of the movement to ban gas stoves in America. The Energy Foundation sent its largest check—$770,000—to the International Council on Clean Transportation, a Washington, D.C., group that pushes for aggressive electric vehicle mandates.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, the recipient of a $200,000 Energy Foundation grant, was founded to spearhead lawsuits promoting climate policy and has led litigation opposing fossil fuel production, coal, and projects like the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which received $255,000 from the Energy Foundation last year, promotes the electrification of public transportation and advocates for policies discouraging car usage.
"Energy Foundation China’s grant-making, overseen by the Chinese Communist Party, is a clear example of how foreign influence infiltrates U.S. energy policy under the guise of environmental stewardship," Jason Isaac, the CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Free Beacon.
"Just as Wall Street’s ESG agenda subverts free markets to the benefit of China, EFC funds advocacy groups like the NRDC and Rocky Mountain Institute to promote policies that weaken U.S. energy independence," Isaac said.