Most Americans may not have heard of the Department of the Interior, but this powerful administrative agency oversees more than one-fifth of America’s land area and much of its mineral and ocean resources. The Left’s dark money network has wielded influence at this massive agency to undermine oil and gas production and advance less reliable wind energy.
Radical environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have sought to force Interior to restrict the approval process for oil and gas projects and to mark certain areas of the Gulf of Mexico off-limits for oil and gas leases.
Interior under President Joe Biden has used a process called “sue-and-settle” to foist such regulations on the American people without the approval of Congress.
Blocking Oil, Boosting Wind
In 2020, the Sierra Club and other groups, represented by the environmentalist law firm Earthjustice, sued two agencies of the Department of Commerce (yes, not Interior) under the Endangered Species Act, seeking to force restrictions on oil and gas in the name of protecting wildlife. In 2023, the Sierra Club and its allies reached a settlement with the agencies. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), an Interior Department agency that had not been a party to the lawsuit, released new rules restricting oil and gas leases in the Gulf, ostensibly to protect endangered Rice’s whales.
I say “ostensibly” because, as the American Enterprise Institute’s Benjamin Zycher explained in The Hill, those restrictions do not apply to the thousands of vessels engaged in fishing, construction of offshore wind energy facilities, or other activities in the area. As Zycher wrote, it seems BOEM considers it “unacceptable for an oil tanker to cause the death of a Rice’s whale, but if another vessel kills it, then it’s just the cost of doing business.”
Earthjustice celebrated the BOEM rules alongside the settlement.
In another case, the Sierra Club and other groups petitioned BOEM to “end a routine practice of fast-tracking approval for offshore oil and gas projects” in the Gulf of Mexico. Two months later, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced a new five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Haaland bragged that Interior had planned for “the smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in history”—a maximum of three.
America’s largest fossil fuel industry association, the American Petroleum Institute, sued Interior to block the plan, warning that it puts American consumers at risk and threatens U.S. energy security.
On April 24, the Sierra Club praised new rules from Interior laying out the five-year schedule for offshore wind leasing. While Interior restricts oil and gas to three lease sales in the Gulf, it plans for 12 offshore wind auctions in federal waters between 2024 and 2028. In praising the plan, Sierra Club Legislative Director Xavier Boatright pledged to continue “collaborating with the Biden administration” on these issues.
Oil is cheaper and more reliable than wind energy. In 2022, petroleum accounted for 31% of U.S. energy production, while wind energy accounted for only 3.8% of it. Wind energy also involves harvesting rare earth minerals through strip mining, an intensive process with toxic byproducts. Yet Interior is investing in wind and turning away from oil, largely for ideological reasons.
Of course, the Left’s dark money network may also have something to do with those priorities.
The Left’s Dark Money Network
While Democrats have been obsessed with the Republican-leaning Koch brothers, a New York Times analysis shows that the Left’s dark money network spent more than comparable conservative groups. The left-wing Arabella Advisors and the Tides Foundation set up nonprofits to allow donors to pour money into specific projects, without disclosing what the money does.
The Arabella network group Sixteen Thirty Fund poured $3.6 million into the Sierra Club from 2014 to 2022, according to IRS records. Tides Advocacy, the 501(c)4 lobbying arm of the left-wing dark money Tides Foundation, gave the group nearly $1 million between 2018 and 2021.
The National Wildlife Federation
Meanwhile, the National Wildlife Federation, an environmentalist group that promoted Al Gore’s 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth,” received nearly $1 million via Arabella nonprofits. The federation’s former employees now hold positions of power at Interior.
Four-year federation staffer Tracy Stone-Manning is now the director at the Bureau of Land Management. She notoriously sent a threatening letter to the National Forest Service in 1989 on behalf of eco-terrorists who spiked trees to cause physical harm to loggers. She later said she does “not condone tree-spiking or terrorism of any kind.”
Laura Daniel-Davis, who worked at Interior under President Barack Obama before joining the federation for three years, is now the second in command at Interior. She’s only in an acting role, however, because the Senate would not confirm her. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., opposed her for valuing the Left’s “radical climate agenda” ahead of Alaska’s energy production.
The National Wildlife Federation also takes credit for “climate-smart conservation,” a project it claims it developed with its “federal agency partners,” such as the National Park Service.
The federation’s close ties to Interior shouldn’t come as a surprise. A 2009 inspector general’s report found that staff at the Bureau of Land Management had worked so closely with the group that they may have violated the law. NWF staff wrote and edited official BLM materials. Much of this activity took place under President George W. Bush.
Pueblo Action Alliance
Haaland’s own daughter, 29-year-old Somah Haaland, has been heavily involved with the Pueblo Action Alliance, a radical left-wing group with ties to the Cuban government. In October 2021, the alliance helped lead a coalition of organizations known as “Build Back Fossil Free,” which rioted at the Interior Department, injuring Interior staffers.
As House Republicans wrote in a letter to Haaland, the alliance advocates “for the dismantling of America’s economic and political system and believe America is irredeemable because there is no ‘opportunity to reform a system that isn’t founded on good morals or values.’”
The alliance’s website states that it aims to “build international solidarity with the indigenous global struggle,” which “includes standing in solidarity with our Palestinian relatives by upholding their demands for ‘a permanent ceasefire, an end to the siege and illegal occupation in Gaza, and no more US/CANADIAN/UK military aid to Israel.”
Secretary Haaland appears in a video the alliance released. The video, narrated by her daughter, demands a moratorium on oil leases around New Mexico’s Chaco Cultural National Historical Park. In June 2023, Haaland shut down oil and gas opportunities in that area. The moratorium will cost the Navajo Nation, a rival tribe in the region that lobbied in favor of oil and gas development, $194 million over the next two decades, according to the Western Energy Alliance.
Ties between Haaland and the alliance, whose parent organization (the Southwest Organizing Project) received more than $1.3 million from Arabella network nonprofits, have raised ethics concerns. Haaland responded to those concerns by stating, “I believe that a reasonable person with knowledge of those facts would not question my impartiality.”
‘Derogatory Terms’
Finally, Interior recently convened a committee to reevaluate place names to remove “derogatory terms.” That seems noble, but Secretary Haaland named a divisive figure to the committee.
Kimberly A. Probolus had previously worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center to help with its project shaming officials into removing all public symbols of the Confederacy. The Tides Foundation sent the SPLC more than $1 million between 2018 and 2022. In a meeting of the Interior committee, she noted this previous work, expressing her gratitude for the chance to “continue to work toward racial and social justice” with Interior.
The SPLC, which has lobbied Interior on “historic designations,” praised Haaland for including Probolus, suggesting the committee use SPLC resources on symbols of hate.
“No one should have to visit a national park whose name is rooted in legacies of hate and white supremacy,” the SPLC’s Lecia Brooks said.
Yet the SPLC is far from a reliable arbiter of hate. As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the center is notorious for putting mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” alongside KKK chapters, scaring donors into ponying up cash.
If Interior wants to avoid being “derogatory,” it shouldn’t rely on the SPLC.
Left-wing groups, spurred on by the Left’s dark money network, have made broad inroads at Interior under Biden, steering land policy away from oil and gas. Since America’s methods of oil and gas extraction require the fewest carbon emissions of any country, restricting U.S. oil production will lead other countries to invest in it more heavily to meet demand, leading to more emissions globally, while also increasing gas prices here at home.
Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
An accurate, high-level overview of some of the strategies and tactics employed by the administrative state to promote the various goals of leftist organizations pretending to be concerned about “the environment”. If you look at the various individuals and far left foundations who have both bankrolled and set the agenda for these groups mentioned, you will find that it consistently boils down to the same names over and over again. All designed to further enrich the same individuals, while also undermining the long-term prosperity of the United States. A so-called twofer win for the leftists behind all this.
Sadly, the individuals and foundations behind all this cannot be held accountable for their actions, as their wealth and power insulate them from any such accountability. At least not within the framework of either law or politics. If that were not the case, these individuals and foundations would have been arrested and duly punished many, many years ago. So, the above article serves merely as a small view into how the left leverages the system to help them achieve their desired goals and objectives.
Like I continue to say. The only thing that has changed in my 80 years is the far greater number of intelligent people with NO COMMON SENSE!! My Representative actually buys into the “Global Warming” “Climate Change” GARBAGE!!!
From Michelle Browning Feb. 16 2021:
Right now the average wind farm is about 150 turbines. Each wind turbine needs 80 gallons of oil as lubricant and we’re not talking about vegetable oil, this is a PAO synthetic oil based on crude… 12,000 gallons of it. That oil needs to be replaced once a year. It is estimated that a little over 3,800 turbines would be needed to power a city the size of New York… That’s 304,000 gallons of refined oil for just one city. Now you have to calculate every city across the nation, large and small, to find the grand total of yearly oil consumption from “clean” energy. Where do you think all that oil is going to come from, the oil fairies?
That’s not even half her article. Everyone needs to read it then contact the people in the DC SWAMP who never listen — At least my Rep and Senators NEVER answer any of my questions or explain their irrational votes.
Follow the money. Martha’s Vineyard wind farm developer Vineyard Wind has not announced publicly that it has taken on Chinese partners. For 20 years, Quebec Hydro has offered to sell power to all 6 New England States from its string of hydro dams located at the south end of Hudson’s Bay in Canada. Follow the money. Meanwhile, hydrographers have sound recordings off Martha’s Vineyard of the pile driving for the wind turbine towers. The noise is more than deafening; it is crippling. What is more, underwater sound waves travel at 6 times the speed as in the air and if the sound waves get locked into a SOFAR current, they may travel for thousands of miles. Why the sea mammals and other sea life are going nuts. Follow the money. I am a former Navy Aviator, an ASW pilot, so know a thing or two about under water sound transmission.
We know how they are doing it, the question is why do we allow it? They are just an arm of the Marxist Liberal Party with one overarching goal the destruction of this country. And we’re letting them do it. Why?
Yes by bribery, and Corrupt Public Officials.
Something needs to be done about the corruption and the lies in the government and the power that the”green wienies have.Both are on a path to destroy AMERICA.
If all these groups were to survive on merit they all would be dead It’s the mega funding that keeps they in business and good business it is
This sets out EXACTLY how the Deep State gets people into government and they stay there, indoctrinating more and more people. No wonder almost 20% of US citizens are now employed at government agencies. Double up all the left hands and the right hand will never be able to root out all the rot.
YET None, own, drive EVs PHEVs etc
“Idiots rule the world” and that’s always been. Hopefully, if Trump can be reelected, some of these ridiculously crazy policies can be reversed… At least, for now
How come this kind of “real news” never sees the light of day in our MSM?????
They must be after Elon Musk now because Teslas Giga-factory in Reno is laying off about 12,000 workers… and I see Teslas all over the place?