Thread: U.S. Senate Report: Left-Wing 'Billionaire's Club' Using Environmentalism to Control

Shock U.S. Senate Report: Left-Wing 'Billionaire's Club' Using Environmentalism to Control the US Economy and Subvert Democracy



by James Delingpole 30 Jul 2014, 5:16 AM PDT 498 post a comment
Toomey Amendment Skipping Environmental Review...

Video at the page link:

Scribed text at the page link: {Report at the bottom of the page}

"There aren’t a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way where you can basically have millionaires and billionaires bankrolling whoever they want, however they want, in some cases undisclosed. What it means is ordinary Americans are shut out of the process." Barack Obama, White House press conference, Oct 2013.

Yes, indeed. But the millionaires and billionaires doing the damage are Obama's allies on the liberal-left, not his enemies on the right. So says a devastating report published today by the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works.
The report details how an elite group of rich liberal donors such as Tom Steyer and Hank Paulson - "the Billionaire's Club" - is directing and controlling the far-left environmental movement, "which in turn lobbies and controls major policy decisions and lobbies on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)."

"Even more unsettling, a dominant organization in this movement is Sea Change Foundation, a private California foundation, which relies on funding from a foreign company with undisclosed donors. In turn, Sea Change funnels tens of millions of dollars to other large but discreet foundations and prominent environmental activists who strive to control both policy and politics."

The scale of the conspiracy "by a small group of powerful and active millionaires and billionaires who exert tremendous sway over a colossal effort" is so vast, the report admits, that it has barely been able to scratch the surface.

"It would be virtually impossible to examine this system completely given the enormity of this carefully coordinated effort and the lack of transparency surrounding it."

It says:

"The scheme to keep their efforts hidden and far removed from the political stage is deliberate, meticulous, and intended to mislead the public. While it is uncertain why they operate in the shadows and what they are hiding, what is clear is that these individuals and foundations go to tremendous lengths to avoid public association with the far-left environmental movement they so generously fund."

There are financial benefits to this elite power-grab too.

In advancing their cause, these wealthy liberals fully exploit the benefits of a generous tax code meant to promote genuine philanthropy and charitable acts, amazingly with little apparent Internal Revenue Service scrutiny. Instead of furthering a noble purpose, their tax deductible contributions secretly flow to a select group of left wing activists who are complicit and eager to participate in the fee-for-service arrangement to promote shared political goals. Moreover, the financial arrangement provides significant insulation to these wealthy elite from the incidental damage they do to the U.S. economy and average Americans.

Through these arrangements, the Billionaire’s Club gains access to a close knit network of likeminded funders, environmental activists, and government bureaucrats who specialize in manufacturing phony “grassroots” movements and in promoting bogus propaganda disguised as science and news to spread an anti-fossil energy message to the unknowing public. Not only is the system incredibly sophisticated, but the Club’s attorneys and accountants have mastered the loopholes and gray areas in the tax code, which enable them to obtain a full tax benefit, even when the recipient of the grant is not recognized as a public charity, and even if the money indirectly and impermissibly funds political activities.

These labyrinthine arrangements serve at least three functions. First, they enable left-wing donors to give large sums of money to aggressively political causes in the guise of disinterested, non-partisan, and tax-deductible charitable donations; second, they mask the vast scale of the sums being pumped into hard-left environmental activist causes; third, they help maintain the illusion that the numerous and secretly well co-ordinated NGOs which use green issues to agitate for more state intervention and regulation are in fact innocent, mom-and-pop grass roots organisations with widespread popular support.

The ultimate recipients of donations from the Billionaire’s Club work in tandem with wealthy donors to maximize the value of their tax deductible donations and leverage their combined resources to influence elections and policy outcomes. Often, they lobby on behalf of the EPA and advance policy positions important to the agency, which is statutorily prohibited from lobbying on its own behalf. But most importantly, they serve as the face of the environmental movement and present themselves as non-partisan benevolent charities to a public not aware of the secretive backroom deals and transfers.

What the report also suggests is that this scheme has the full blessing of the Obama administration, which is using the Environmental Protection Agency - heavily in league with these left-wing donors and hard-left green NGOs - to bypass the democratic process and railroad through unpopular legislation.

This report proves that the Obama EPA has been deliberately staffed at the highest levels with far-left environmental activists who have worked hand-in-glove with their former colleagues. The green-revolving door at EPA has become a valuable asset for the far-left and their wealthy donors. In addition to providing insider access to important policy decisions, it appears activists now at EPA also funnel government money through grants to their former employers and colleagues. The report tracks the amount of government aid doled out to activist groups and details a troubling disregard for ethics by certain high powered officials.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-L...inority-Report

The Sea Change Foundation (SCF) was established in 2005 for the purpose of “achieving meaningful social impact through leveraged philanthropy that addresses the most pressing problems facing the world today.” Focused primarily on combating “the serious threats posed by global climate change,” which SCF attributes in large measure to the greenhouse-gas emissions produced by human industrial activity, the Foundation is a major funder of some of the largest left-wing environmentalist groups in the United States. Among these are the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club Foundation. Sea Change also contributes heavily to the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In recent years, SCF has had a close financial relationship with a Bermuda-based corporation named Klein Ltd., whose donations to Sea Change in 2010-11 totaled approximately $23 million, or more than 40% of the Foundation's receipts during that period. Klein Ltd.'s articles of incorporation indicate that the company's sole purpose is to give money to nonprofit groups and foundations “with object[ives] similar to its own.” According to Washington Free Beacon journalist Lachlan Markay, “Documents filed with the Bermudan government suggest that [Klein Ltd.] exists only on paper.”

Ron Arnold, author of Undue Influence: Wealthy Foundations, Grant-Driven Green Groups, and Zealous Bureaucrats That Control Your Future, notes that a number of left-wing foundations like SCF have chosen Bermuda and other offshore destinations to mask the origins of contributions they receive. “Several countries have become favorites in the no-disclosure-required industry,” says Arnold, “notably Bermuda, Panama, and Liechtenstein.... Bermuda boasts an entire building devoted to plagues of lawyers handling secret trusts that funnel personal wealth into foundations which fund non-profit operations in the United States.”

Apart from Klein Ltd., only three other donors gave any money at all to SCF during 2010-11. These were hedge-fund principal Nathaniel Simons and his wife Laura Baxter-Simons, both of whom were foundation managers at Sea Change, and a trust bearing Mr. Simons's name.[1]

While the connections between the Simonses and Klein Ltd. are not entirely clear, both individuals have noteworthy ties to a Bermuda-based corporate law firm named Wakefield Quin, which is deeply enmeshed with Klein Ltd. and thus, by extension, with SCF:

Klein Ltd.'s two registered business agents—Nicholas Hoskins and Marlies Smith—are both employed by Wakefield Quin.
Klein Ltd. itself is a client of Wakefield Quin.
The address that the registrar of companies has on file for Klein Ltd. is that of Wakefield Quin’s Hamilton, Bermuda offices.

Wakefield Quin senior counsel Rod Forrest is a director of Medallion International Ltd. and Meritage Holdings Ltd., two Bermuda-based hedge funds with ties to the Simons family and SCF:

Medallion International is run by Renaissance Technologies, which was founded by Nathaniel Simons’s father. Nathaniel Simons was once (in 2009) a principal at Renaissance, and Laura Baxter-Simons was an associate counsel there until 2011.
Nathaniel Simons is currently the chief executive of Meritage Holdings. Laura Baxter-Simons is the general counsel and chief compliance officer at Meritage Group L.P., which owns Meritage Holdings.

As of 2011, SCF had $63.9 million invested in Medallion and $16.3 million invested in Meritage. The Foundation sold stakes in both funds sometime prior to July 2012, earning, in the process, more than $67 million in net capital gains.


NOTE:

[1] Nathaniel Simons spoke at a 2009 event held by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, where he emphasized the important role that foundation cash could play in building a “low-carbon economy.” “There does need to be more capital to move in from philanthropy,” Simons asserted. “There need to be more funders, and I think that foundations are starting to understand that.”

(Information on grantees and monetary amounts courtesy of The Foundation Center, GuideStar, ActivistCash, the Capital Research Center and Undue Influence)

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/f...asp?fndid=5424

http://www.americanprogress.org/about/mission/