Democrats accused Republicans of pushing conspiracy theories about China in a clash on Wednesday over Beijing’s role in the US energy sector – days ahead of a potential Senate vote on a tax bill that would penalise American companies for having financial relationships with Chinese energy businesses.
The fiery exchanges began at the outset of a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas alleging that China’s Communist Party was “funnelling millions of dollars” into environmental lawsuits against US fossil fuel companies.
Cruz highlighted the non-profit Energy Foundation China, a non-profit headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Beijing, citing its members’ ties with the Chinese government and ruling party.
“This is not remotely a grass-roots non-profit. It is a foreign policy weapon disguised as philanthropy run by Communist Party operatives,” he said.
Democrats were quick to push back on his claims, with Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse, ranking member of the subcommittee on federal courts and oversight, lodging his own accusations.
“This hearing is a perfect display of projection: blaming your adversary for what you are doing. Dark money? Judicial capture? Propaganda? Oh my! The fossil fuel industry would have nothing to do with those things,” he said pointedly.
Dick Durbin, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, specifically challenged Cruz’s portrayal of China’s role and questioned the premise of the hearing, titled “Enter the Dragon – China and the Left’s Lawfare Against American Energy Dominance”.
“ You’re screwing up this planet, and we have to live with it. So give us something that’s more hopeful and positive, and it isn’t by finding conspiracy theories involving China,” Durbin said.
Republican witnesses supported Cruz’s claims, with one – Scott Walter of conservative watchdog Capital Research Centre – noting that Energy Foundation China had IRS filings showing disbursements to US organisations.
Walter also argued that US government subsidies for “green technology in which China is leading” inevitably benefited Chinese interests at the expense of the US, in reference to the Joe Biden administration’s tax credits for clean energy technology.
But Democrats swiftly countered both points, with Whitehouse of Rhode Island arguing that it was important to distinguish between funds used for litigation and those used for other environmental efforts.
“I think it is good that, let’s say, NRDC [the Natural Resources Defence Council, a US-based NGO] is on the ground in China, fighting Chinese pollution,” Whitehouse said.
Senator Peter Welsh of Vermont, meanwhile, challenged the logic linking the purchase or use of Chinese technology to political or problematic alignment with Beijing, asking Walter: “Senator Durbin here has solar panels. Does that make him a communist sympathiser?”
In recent months, US environmental groups have filed several lawsuits against the Trump administration over its efforts to expand offshore drilling.
Congressional Republicans in the second Trump administration have also increased their scrutiny of the ties between US climate and environmental groups and Chinese organisations.
Wednesday’s hearing comes as Congress is weighing a massive tax bill that would penalise US companies that have financial and material relationships with clean energy businesses “owned by, controlled by or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of” China.
A version of that bill – President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” – has already passed the House of Representatives. It is awaiting a full vote in the Senate, with Trump setting a July 4 deadline for a merged version to reach his desk for signature.
But fundamental divisions between the two parties on the future of the United States’ energy industry appeared unresolved on Wednesday.
“I would just observe that saying it more loudly doesn’t make it more true,” Whitehouse said, after Cruz claimed that Senate Democrats were aligned with China’s Communist Party in hurting the US.
“Actually in Washington sometimes it does,” Cruz responded.