From Watts Up With That?

By Charles Rotter

Well, well, well.

For years, climate skeptics have been told they are nothing more than the paid mouthpieces of “Big Oil.” The accusation has been repeated so often that it has hardened into something resembling doctrine. Any challenge to prevailing climate narratives is brushed aside with a knowing smirk and the word “funded.” The implication is clear: dissent is artificial. Manufactured. Astroturf.

And yet, the latest development out of Montana suggests that the truly industrial-scale astroturf operation may be sitting on the other side of the political aisle.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, joined by 18 other state attorneys general, has formally urged the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate more than 150 U.S.-based climate organizations for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The request follows a report detailing nearly $2 billion in funding from five foreign climate foundations flowing into American activist networks over roughly the past decade.

The foundations named include the Oak Foundation (Switzerland), the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (United Kingdom), the Quadrature Climate Foundation (United Kingdom), the KR Foundation (Denmark), and the Laudes Foundation (Switzerland). According to the report cited by the attorneys general, these entities have collectively poured extraordinary sums into U.S. groups engaged in litigation, regulatory advocacy, public relations campaigns, and organized pressure efforts aimed at reshaping American energy policy.

FARA exists for a reason. It requires individuals or entities acting “for or in the interest of” foreign principals in a political capacity to disclose that relationship. Transparency is not optional under the statute. If organizations are advancing policy goals aligned with foreign funders, the public has a right to know.

The letter from the AGs does not assert guilt. It requests investigation. That distinction matters. Skepticism demands suspension of judgment pending evidence. But the scale of the funding alone raises legitimate questions.

Nearly $2 billion.

If a comparable sum had flowed from domestic oil companies into policy think tanks questioning renewable mandates, it would dominate headlines for months. Congressional hearings would be scheduled before the ink dried. Editorial pages would thunder about corruption and capture.

Instead, much of this foreign-sourced funding has operated under the halo of philanthropy.

That halo deserves examination.

Climate activism is frequently portrayed as spontaneous, grassroots energy — citizens rising organically in defense of the planet. The term “grassroots” is invoked almost reflexively. But when movements depend on coordinated, cross-border financial pipelines worth billions, the word begins to look misplaced.

Astroturf, by definition, is artificial grassroots — a synthetic surface designed to resemble the real thing. When funding networks spanning London, Zurich, and Copenhagen supply massive financial backing to U.S. advocacy groups working to constrain domestic fossil fuel production, shut down pipelines, and litigate energy infrastructure into paralysis, observers are entitled to ask whether what appears organic is, in fact, carefully cultivated.

This is not a claim that every activist is aware of funding sources. Nor does foreign funding automatically invalidate a policy position. Ideas stand or fall on their merits. But financial influence does shape priorities, messaging, and strategy. It is how political ecosystems function.

One particularly notable element in the reporting concerns the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, which has reportedly directed hundreds of millions of dollars into U.S. climate advocacy. CIFF has connections to Energy Foundation China, an organization operating within the strategic environment of the Chinese Communist Party. Even if all transactions are technically legal, it is reasonable to question whether foreign strategic interests benefit when U.S. domestic energy production is constrained.

Energy is not merely an environmental matter. It is an economic foundation and a national security pillar. When American production declines while geopolitical competitors expand theirs, the balance shifts.

The irony here is difficult to ignore. Climate activists have long argued that fossil fuel companies distort democracy with money. Yet if foreign-based foundations are channeling vast sums into American policy fights — including litigation designed to halt specific projects — the concern about distortion does not evaporate simply because the cause is labeled “climate action.”

It becomes a bipartisan issue of transparency.

There is also a broader pattern worth noting. Climate policy debates increasingly operate within a framework of moral urgency. Opponents are framed not as participants in a complex policy disagreement, but as obstacles to planetary survival. That rhetorical posture is used to suppress scrutiny. If the cause is existential, the funding questions become secondary.

That is precisely when scrutiny is most necessary.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act was enacted in 1938 to address covert foreign influence operations. Its purpose is disclosure, not prohibition. The public can decide for itself how much weight to assign to advocacy that originates abroad. But that decision requires information.

If the DOJ investigation proceeds, it will need to establish whether these organizations meet FARA’s threshold for registration. That analysis will hinge on legal definitions of agency, direction, and political activity. It may conclude that no violations occurred. Or it may reveal structural arrangements that warrant registration.

Either way, sunlight is appropriate.

Climate policy involves extraordinary economic stakes. Net-zero frameworks, emissions mandates, restrictions on leasing and permitting, and electrification initiatives carry trillions of dollars in implications. The cost-benefit calculations behind them rest on climate models that project decades into the future, models that themselves contain acknowledged uncertainties. In such an environment, foreign financial leverage layered atop domestic activism adds another variable to an already complex equation.

This episode should also prompt a reassessment of rhetorical habits. Accusations of “Big Oil money” have functioned as a conversation-ending device for years. If foreign capital has been underwriting substantial segments of climate advocacy, perhaps the funding conversation should expand in scope and tone.

The public deserves to know who funds whom. It deserves to know whether coordinated international funding networks are influencing domestic regulatory fights. And it deserves to weigh those facts without being told that asking questions constitutes disloyalty to the planet.

Transparency should apply evenly.

Astroturf accusations lose their force when they are deployed selectively. If artificial amplification is objectionable when it supports skepticism, it remains objectionable when it supports aggressive decarbonization policies.

Skepticism does not assume guilt. It suspends judgment and demands evidence. An investigation into foreign funding of climate activism is a straightforward application of disclosure law to a policy domain that has become economically and strategically central.

The irony lingers, though.

After years of hearing that skepticism was purchased, it now appears that large segments of climate politics may have been financed from abroad — by foundations whose strategic interests do not necessarily align with American energy security, or American interests in general.

Well, well, well.