News/Commentary

Biden’s energy sec. met with China-connected ‘dark money group’ pushing ban on gas stoves in U.S., records show

February 10, 2023 | | Print Article

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm had a private meeting with the “green group” with “significant ties to the Chinese government” that funded a recent study used by the Biden administration to call for a ban on gas stoves in the United States.

According to an internal agency calendar that the government watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT) obtained, Granholm met in June 2021 with Jules Korenhorst, who was at that time the CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), the group behind that gas stove study, Fox News Digital (FND) reports.

“Kortenhorst is [a] widely known global climate activist who also founded the Energy Transitions Commission and chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Net Zero Transition,” FND explains.

The calendar didn’t detail the agenda for the one-hour Zoom meeting, and neither the Department of Energy (DOE) nor RMI responded to FND’s requests for comment.

As BizPac Review previously reported, the DOE announced on February 1 a proposal that would set a new “energy conservation standard” for gas stoves and electric cooking equipment.

Citing the December 2022 RMI-funded study, which was authored by RMI researchers Talor Gruenwald and Brady Seals and claimed that gas stoves account for roughly 12.7% of U.S. childhood asthma cases, a commissioner at the Consumer Product Safety Commission told Bloomberg in January that the Biden administration was considering a nationwide ban on the appliances.

APT executive director Caitlin Sutherland was suspicious of the meeting between Granholm and Kortenhorst.

“Despite calling stories about the Biden administration banning gas stoves ‘ridiculous’ and ‘not true,’ Secretary Granholm’s calendar tells a different story,” she told FND. “We’ve now learned that she consulted with the dark money group pushing to ban gas stoves.”

“Suffice it to say, ‘ridiculous’ and ‘not true’ proposals don’t ordinarily involve a meeting with the Secretary of Energy — and where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Sutherland stated. “Americans everywhere must demand Granholm and green energy extremists stay out of their kitchens.”

According to FND, RMI is “a Colorado-based nonprofit that works to accelerate the global green energy transition, particularly through economy-wide electrification.”

It has also collaborated “with the Chinese government to study transitioning away from traditional fossil fuels and the group’s only office outside the U.S. is located in Beijing, China’s capital city.”

The outlet adds, “RMI is a member of the China Clean Transportation Partnership, a green group with significant ties to the Chinese government.”

Reports FND:

In 2013, RMI worked with the National Development and Reform Commission, a Chinese government entity, to create a roadmap for “China’s revolution in energy consumption and production to 2050.” The report largely showed how China’s economy could adopt new clean energy technologies to replace oil and gas infrastructure.

RMI board member Wei Ding previously was the chairman of the China International Capital Corporation, a bank partially owned by the Chinese government.

 

Following the release of the Bloomberg article based on the RMI-funded and authored study, Granholm took to Twitter and proclaimed, “We can and must FIX this. Through [President Biden’s] Inflation Reduction Act, Americans will have greater access to Electric and Induction Cooktops: keeps pollution out of the home, cooks food faster, [and] helps families save money.”

Meanwhile, RMI has reportedly received millions of dollars in DOE funding, including a $4.4 million grant in 2022 to demonstrate “an integrated retrofit package of envelope panels, a heat pump pod, and innovative financing” in a Cambridge, Mass., building.

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Melissa Fine
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