Biden-Harris Admin Gives $55 Million to Green Energy Company Linked to Pro-Kamala Ad Campaign
- September 30, 2024
Thomas Catenacci, Free Beacon
The Biden-Harris administration last week announced a $55.2 million grant for Blue Whale Materials, a little-known electric vehicle battery recycling company advised by a prominent climate activist whose organization is spending tens of millions of dollars to keep Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House.
Carol M. Browner, one of the few officials that Blue Whale Materials identifies on the “team” page of its website, also serves as the chairwoman of the League of Conservation Voters, a powerful environmental nonprofit that regularly advises federal lawmakers. The activist group launched a $55 million advertising campaign last month to support Harris’s campaign shortly after endorsing her.
Blue Whale Materials publicly lists Browner as an adviser but doesn’t explain what that role entails. Browner’s biography on the Blue Whale Materials website mentions a variety of positions she has held in the past—such as EPA administrator and director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy—but doesn’t include her role with the League of Conservation Voters.
The revelation sheds light on the deep financial entanglements between the green energy industry and climate activists. Browner was advising Blue Whale Materials as it sought federal funding while simultaneously leading the League of Conservation Voters as it pushed legislation that made such funding possible.
“Few people are as plugged into D.C.’s climate industrial complex as Ms. Browner, except perhaps Energy Secretary Granholm, who pioneered the policy for-profit model early in the Biden-Harris Administration,” Michael Chamberlain, the director of the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Free Beacon. “We see it all through the administration’s greendoggle Inflation Reduction Act.”
“When government gets to pick winners and losers, don’t be surprised if government officials and political allies just happen to be among the winners,” he continued.