White House intervened to grant 'quasi-regulatory authority' to foreign green groups

FIRST ON FOX: The White House intervened in the process for selecting which groups would oversee a federal climate reporting initiative, drawing conflict of interest accusations, according to the preliminary findings of a House Republican investigation.

In an internal GOP memo circulated Monday morning and shared with Fox News Digital, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee's oversight subcommittee highlighted how the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) "inappropriately" influenced federal acquisition regulations to unfairly benefit environmental activist groups with significant ties to Democrat donors and CEQ staff.

According to evidence obtained by the committee, CEQ succesfully lobbied the Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council to outsource the Biden administration's climate reporting and disclosure initiative to two U.K. environmental groups: the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

"This preliminary investigation report has turned up disturbing evidence that calls into question the entire rulemaking process for these disclosure requirements," House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. "The White House Council on Environmental Quality clearly exerted inappropriate influence during the development of this rule."

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House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., speaks during a committee hearing on May 12, 2022 (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

"And we’ve turned up evidence of conflicts of interest where CEQ staff were advocating for regulations that would clearly benefit their friends and former employers," Lucas continued. "I have significant concerns about making U.S. contractors disclose their emissions to a private foreign entity that has no accountability to Congress or the American people. The findings in this report make those concerns all the more urgent."

He added that the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee would continue to pursue its investigation until it received "satisfactory answers" from the White House.

The issue dates back to May 2021 when, just months into his term, President Biden ordered the FAR Council — which is led by the White House Office of Management and Budget and includes members from other agencies — to craft regulations for requiring federal contractors to both publicly disclose greenhouse gas emissions and to set "science-based reduction targets" for reducing their carbon footprint.

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Then, in November 2022, the FAR Council published a proposal requiring all federal contractors to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and contractors with contracts valued at over $50 million to set "science-based reduction targets." However, the regulations specifically require all emissions disclosures to be made through CDP and all targets to be validated by SBTi, effectively outsourcing policy to foreign nonprofits.

Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory speaks at the Fight for Our Future: Rally for Climate, Care, Jobs & Justice near the White House on April 23, 2022. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Green New Deal Network)

"The federal government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers," House Science, Space, and Technology Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., said during a hearing on the topic in September. "However, that is exactly the case in this instance."

According to the memo Monday, in December 2021, just months after Biden ordered the FAR Council to develop the regulations, CEQ, OMB and the Office of Climate Policy within the White House crafted a message sent to department heads, imploring the council to "leverage existing third-party standards and systems," specifically naming both CDP and SBTi.

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But, referencing additional documents and communications obtained by the committee, the GOP memo states CEQ went even further despite under-oath testimony from CEQ Chief Sustainability Officer Andrew Mayock stating that his office's role in the selection of CDP and SBTi stopped at its December 2021 message to department heads. 

President Biden speaks about his administration's proposed rule to require federal contractors and suppliers to issue emissions reduction targets, during a speech at the United Nations COP27 summit on Nov. 11, 2022, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

"Documents obtained by the Committee contradict this narrative by showing that CEQ worked closely with CDP to tailor its message to the FAR Council in order to guarantee its inclusion in the proposed rule," the memo states. 

"Emails obtained by the Committee show that a senior CEQ staffer had previously held a senior role at CDP and may have gone to work at CEQ with the intent of funneling money, influence, and regulatory authority to CDP/SBTi," it continues. "The close relationship between CEQ and CDP/SBTi and the Biden Administration was evident from the beginning."

Betty Cremmins, the director for Sustainable Supply Chains at CEQ, ultimately spearheaded the office's work on the FAR Council proposal throughout 2022 and stayed in regular contact with officials at both CDP and SBTi. However, in an apparent conflict of interest, Cremmins previously worked at CDP as the director of its West Coast office.

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Cremmins appears to have even coordinated CDP's messaging while at CEQ to ensure it aligned with FAR Council priorities. In one email, CDP's general counsel even went as far as telling Cremmins, "[w]hen I first met you, you said your goal was to make CDP the law – and you did!" 

SBTi's funding is tied to a massive dark money network which fuels a variety of progressive social and economic causes worldwide. The group states that it was developed as a collaboration of multiple non-governmental organizations including the We Mean Business Coalition, a project of the New Venture Fund, a massive left-wing group that raised nearly $1 billion in 2021, a large portion of which it doled out to a wide array of progressive groups. (Getty Images)

Further evidence shows that, despite its role in crafting the climate disclosure regulations, the FAR Council had little involvement in the process. Instead, according to the memo Monday, CEQ conducted the vast majority of vetting for the rulemaking.

"The Committee’s primary concern is maintaining the integrity of the scientific and rulemaking process," the memo concludes. "The decision to select CDP and SBTi appears to not have been based on either a meritorious process or generally accepted science, but on arbitrary rulemaking."

"After a nine-month investigation, the evidence presented shows that the decision to include CDP and SBTi in the proposed rule was based on a desire to steer power, influence, and regulatory authority to favored special interest environmental activist groups," it states. "The evidence shows that the FAR Council was minimally involved in the vetting of CDP and SBTi."

"The proposed regulation lacks a coherent goal, or a method of achieving it. The evidence suggests that it was never about greenhouse gas disclosures, it was always about making 'CDP the law.'"

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The CEQ, CDP and SBTi didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.