Senate Republicans’ top environmental watchdog is determined to intensify oversight of leading environmentalist groups, which he says are orchestrating a massive, coordinated political effort financed by a handful of billionaire activists.
Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview on Thursday that he is pleased with the investigative work to date by Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee (EPW), which Vitter chairs.
If Republicans retake the Senate in November, as numerous forecasting models and political analysts have predicted, Vitter said his committee would dramatically increase its scrutiny on environmentalist organizations such as the Natural Resource Defense Council and the Sierra Club.
"We go into the majority and we are able to ramp that up even more and in an even more effective way because we have significantly more powers in terms of calling hearings, calling witnesses, and subpoenaing documents when necessary," Vitter said. "So that’s the logical extension of our work to date."
That work has included intense scrutiny on a network of environmentalist groups that a recent EPW report dubbed the "billionaire’s club."
The report detailed ties between large umbrella groups such as the Democracy Alliance and the Environmental Grantmakers Association, major political financiers such as Tom Steyer, and environmental policymakers in the Obama administration.
Vitter announced on Thursday the next phase of that investigation, which he said would examine how the policies advanced by that billionaire’s club have impacted Americans.
"The large-moneyed interests leverage their dollars to purchase and direct services from select environmental groups who then advance a specific anti-industrial, anti-capitalist agenda," an EPW statement said.
"Over the coming weeks, EPW Republicans will be detailing exactly how these coordinated efforts are destroying jobs and punishing industries and families across America."
A central objective of that effort is to "deindustrialize" the United States, Vitter said, pointing to statements made by John Holdren, a senior scientific adviser to President Barack Obama.
EPW’s Thursday statement linked to excerpts from a 1973 book in which Holdren called for "a massive campaign … to de-develop the United States."
"Political pressure must be applied immediately to induce the United States government to assume its responsibility to halt the growth of the American population," Holdren and his coauthors wrote.
"Once growth is halted, the government should undertake to influence the birth rate so that the population is reduced to an optimum size and maintained there."
Those sorts of radical objectives are woven into the fabric of the American environmentalist movement, Vitter said. He sees his committee’s role as exposing and countering its influence.
"I think the EPW Republican staff has done really a masterful job at oversight with the limited tools we have in the minority," he told the Free Beacon. "They’ve been very inventive about creating leverage through holding nominations and partnering with [Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa] in the House to do that."
He cited the GOP’s success in blocking the confirmation of assistant Interior secretary Rhea Suh to a top post in that agency. Suh will leave the agency to lead the NRDC, the group announced on Wednesday.
"I was happy to see that, not that she’s not going to cause mischief there, but it’s better than inside the government," Vitter said.
He and a number of other Senate Republicans had voiced concerns that Suh would work to block oil and gas extraction on federal lands in the west if confirmed to lead Interior’s fish, wildlife, and parks division.
Vitter said her withdrawal "was the result of a lot of questions we brought up.
Prior to joining DOI, Suh worked for a number of wealthy environmentalist foundations that steered hundreds of millions of dollars to prominent activist groups. Her role at those foundations and subsequent administration appointment are precisely the types of issues that EPW is hoping to address, Vitter said.
Suh’s move to NRDC, he said, "underscores the really ultra, ultra cozy relationship between these agencies and the Obama administration and left environmental groups."
Those relationships have been central to EPW investigations under Vitter, and he expects those investigations to continue.
"If we’re in the majority, I think we can really take it to the next level."