Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin does not make the news as often as some of his colleagues in the Trump administration, but that could change if a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit forces open new revelations about Russian collusion with U.S. environmental activists.
The Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit free-market group based in Washington, D.C., filed suit on Wednesday against the Treasury Department after the agency failed to respond to a FOIA request filed in October asking for records that involve allegations of Russian financial support for U.S. environmental groups. This is part of a one-two punch that began Monday with a FOIA lawsuit IER filed against the State Department that also inquired into Russian financial support for U.S. green groups. The FOIA request to the State Department was filed in October.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the outgoing chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, never did get a firm answer to a letter he sent to Mnuchin dated June 29, 2017, calling on Treasury to “conduct a full and complete investigation” into allegations that Russia has been funneling money into the coffers of U.S. environmental groups for the purpose of spreading propaganda against the process of hydraulic fracturing, widely known as fracking.
In a previous post, I reported how the U.S. is now the top producer of natural gas in the world with its exports of liquified natural gas now outpacing imports. As Smith explains in his letter, the Russian motivation to suppress U.S. natural gas development is not difficult to understand. If environmental activists succeed in constraining U.S. drilling and fracking activities that make it possible to extract natural gas, Russia’s Gazprom oil company stands to benefit.
“The Russia meddling that no one is talking about involves Russian attempts to promote an environmental agenda in the U.S. by masking its interests and using U.S. green groups to do its bidding,” Tom Pyle, the IER president, said in a press release. “It is imperative that we learn the extent of their ideological campaign and what the federal government may know. Treasury has a public obligation to inform the public on this matter, and we file this lawsuit in the hopes that the information will come out as soon as possible.”
Right now, it is not clear what special counsel Robert Mueller has discovered as a result of his investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
But there is substantial evidence of Russian meddling in the U.S. energy sector. Since Trump has made deregulation and natural gas development top priorities of his administration, it’s fair to ask why isn’t he tweeting about the alleged collusion between Vladimir Putin’s government and environmental activists. He could also order his officers at Treasury and State to comply with IER’s FOIA requests so the public can be more fully informed of the relationship between green activists and foreign interests.
Chris Horner, who filed the suit for IER on behalf of the nonprofit public interest law firm Government Accountability & Oversight, said in a press release that Treasury has an obligation to serve the public interest and to comply with the open records request. The FOIAs to Treasury and State both ask for “correspondence and related records discussing Russian funding of environmental pressure groups’ advocacy in the United States.” The FOIAs also ask for information pertinent to Smith’s letter and the congressman’s request for an investigation.
I asked both Treasury and State if they had any response to the FOIA lawsuits. Treasury has not yet responded, but a State Department official told me on background in an email that “we decline to comment on pending litigation.”
IER also filed a FOIA suit against Treasury this past summer seeking information about government officials working with environmental activists to advance climate change policies.
With attention mostly focused on Russia’s efforts to advance propaganda campaigns through compliant green groups, it’s easy to lose sight of China’s increasingly aggressive espionage efforts against the U.S. IER filed a FOIA lawsuit against the State Department in August that asks for information pertaining to a “green lobbyist” working with an organization called the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C. Public records that have been made available suggest the Obama State Department worked with WRI to advance the policy goals of the Chinese government, according to IER.
By making smart use of the FOIA law to disclose the foreign ties of environmental activists, IER has performed a valuable public service. But it’s also time for Congress to act. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., has joined with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to propose a tougher version of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. If passed, their legislation would close off existing loopholes so that organizations and individuals operating on behalf of a foreign government would have to disclose these relationships.
It’s a start. A few tweets from Trump wouldn’t hurt either.
Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., who writes for several national publications.
