The Biden administration has proposed a new regulation to curtail carbon emissions, controversially offering authority over significant U.S. defense contracts to a recently formed British environmental advocacy group.
This new rule proposed by the White House could enable the Science Based Targets Initiative, a London-based organization funded by the primary network of anonymous donations supporting the Democratic Party, to approve the carbon reduction strategies of substantial federal contractors.
The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), a paid service assisting companies to establish emissions reduction targets aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement and validating their progress, is criticized due to its foreign status and opaque financial connections. Critics question the administration’s choice to delegate its vetting process to this entity, suggesting that this could grant SBTi considerable veto authority over American defense contracts and potentially give them access to sensitive data about U.S. military suppliers.
“The Biden administration’s move to let a group of unelected officials and a London-based climate activist organization take over the strategic planning for our national defense contractors is bound to upset many Americans,” commented Travis Fisher, a Senior Energy Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
This regulation alteration is anticipated to affect 671 large contractors across numerous federal agencies, and it would redirect around $1.2 million in mandatory annual fees to SBTi, according to the proposed regulation, which is yet to receive final approval from government administrators.
Although SBTi was launched publicly in 2015, it did not officially incorporate until June 26, when it registered in London, as per the U.K. business records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The organization is not officially registered in the United States and did not respond to a request for comment.
Before its official incorporation, SBTi functioned as a partnership managed by five activist groups, including the “We Mean Business Coalition,” which operates as a proxy for a $900 million left-leaning anonymous donation organization called the New Venture Fund. This informal agreement allowed SBTi to function without declaring its financial status for almost ten years.
The New Venture Fund, an entity that advocates for Democratic policies via myriad unincorporated shell organizations, facilitated the launch and funding of SBTi in 2015 through the We Mean Business Coalition.
The service offered by SBTi, which levies a fee from companies to endorse their emissions reduction goals and strategies, could potentially lead to a conflict of interest. This is because SBTi may have a financial motivation to relax its standards, thereby attracting a more significant number of fee-paying clients.
