A new proposal by the Biden Administration would give greater authority to a foreign environmental group by allowing it to shut down U.S. defense contracts in the name of combating “global warming.”
As the Washington Free Beacon reports, the White House’s proposal would give veto power to the British environmental group Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI). The group, which is heavily funded by Democratic dark money networks, would be allowed to have the final say on any proposals by federal contractors for reducing carbon emissions.
The SBTI largely follows the demands made by the Paris Climate Accord, a controversial global plan which dictates how nations are to reduce their carbon emissions. By giving veto power to this group, SBTI would be able to shut down military defense contracts, and in the process could even gain access to sensitive military information.
“I think Americans will be upset when they realize the Biden administration is trying to put a bunch of unelected bureaucrats and a climate activist group—headquartered in London—in charge of long-term planning for our national defense contractors,” said Travis Fisher, senior energy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
If the proposal goes into effect, at least 671 contractors throughout the federal government would fall under its jurisdiction. As a result, upwards of $1.2 million in mandatory fees would be funneled to SBTI every year. The rule change is still pending approval from administrators.
SBTI first launched in 2015, and since it filed its incorporation papers in London, the group is not registered in the United States. SBTI was previously a partnership that was co-managed by five different activist groups. One of these groups is the “We Mean Business Coalition,” a front group for the dark money organization New Venture Fund, which is worth at least $900 million. This arrangement has allowed SBTI to operate for nearly a decade without filing any financial disclosures.
“Since its inception, [the We Mean Business Coalition] has been funding SBTi and mobilizing business towards science-based targets,” says the official website for We Mean Business. “One of our earliest milestones was reaching 150 corporate commitments to SBTi in 2016.” The same website also openly describes We Mean Business as a “project of the New Venture Fund.”
Bill Baue, a former member of SBTI’s technical advisory board, has since come forward to describe the group’s operations as “ad hoc and haphazard.” He added that the group does not have any measures in place to address financial conflicts or ethics issues; his previous attempts to raise these concerns with the group’s leadership led to him simply being brushed off.
If the rule change is approved, Baue says it would allow SBTI to begin “operating in a quasi-regulatory stance” with very little oversight.
“And yet it doesn’t have the kind of checks and balances or transparency for such an organization,” he added. “Certainly there’s reason to be concerned.”
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