Representative Lance Gooden, a Republican congressman from Texas, introduced legislation this week that would require nonprofits and think tanks to make public all their donations from foreign sources.
Titled the Think Tank and Nonprofit Foreign Influence Disclosure Act, the proposal would make it mandatory for tax-exempt organizations to disclose in their annual reports all gifts and contributions over $50,000 and which were received from foreign governments or foreign political parties.
Additionally, the bill would require the disclosure of the names of the governments and political parties that made the contributions, along with the aggregate amounts of contributions and gifts from foreign adversarial nations.
“It is time to investigate the Russian-funded environmental groups who have convinced President Biden not to unleash America’s full energy potential,” Gooden told Fox News Digital. “Russia will use every tool at their disposal to undermine our national security, and by listening to these radical groups, the Biden Administration has allowed them to succeed.”
Fox News notes:
Gooden’s measure would also require the Treasury Department to release a report on foreign funding and the influence of tax-exempt organizations onthe U.S. energy sector, which includes the funding of environmental groups in America that have made it a goal to disrupt the U.S. energy industry and influence public opinion of the oil and gas industry.
In addition, the Treasury Department would be required to provide a report on foreign funding and influence of tax-exempt organizations that, according to Gooden’s office, “directly or indirectly route to terrorist groups, and where a charitable organization knowingly or intentionally provided logistical services, recruitment, or otherwise facilitated support to a terrorist group in a conflict zone.”
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week, Gooden called for an investigation into Russian interference through climate and environmental groups in America.
“President Biden is beholden to a cabal of radical environmental groups who are preventing his administration from unleashing America’s full energy potential,” the Republican said in a statement. “We must investigate whether these groups are undermining our national security because they are funded or supported by the Russian government or Russian controlled entities.”
This isn’t the first time Gooden has focused on the issue. In 2020, he addressed a letter to then-Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler requesting a probe into whether Russia and the Chinese Communist Party were interfering in U.S. politics through certain environmental activist groups.
Similarly, that same year, the Trump administration demanded that think tanks and nonprofits disclose funding from foreign governments in order to “protect the integrity of civil society institutions.”
Although Gooden’s focus is on Russia, amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, China has more thoroughly come to dominate American civil and political life.
According to federal records, Princeton received $4.6 million from CCP-controlled Peking University to finance research hubs related to drug development and computer science. Tung Chee-hwa, the founder of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, has given at least $1 million to fund Princeton’s Center on Contemporary China.
Both Tung and the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) are key components of the CCP’s foreign influence campaign.
Princeton isn’t the only Ivy League School with close ties to China. A federal jury found Charles Lieber, a Harvard University professor who formerly chaired the school’s chemistry and chemical biology department, guilty of two counts of making false statements to federal authorities in relation to a Chinese government recruitment program he was involved with.
The New American has also reported on a program under which current and former American elected officials participated in trips to China paid for the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), which is linked to the CCP and sponsors trips to China for lawmakers in order to obtain “favorable coverage” and policy for China from U.S. institutions.
China is even getting a foothold in American policing. Individuals who play key roles in New York’s police department or have done so in the past have major ties to China’s communist regime, and are using their positions to further policy favorable to Beijing.
Notably, James O’Neill, whom New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tapped as NYPD Commissioner from 2016 to 2019 and who served as de Blasio’ COVID-19 senior advisor, has repeatedly spoken at the America China Public Affairs Institute (ACPAI).
According to ACPAI’s website, the organization “strongly supports a Security Partnership between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China” on areas including “law enforcement cooperation,” “military consultation,” and “pandemic disease control.”
