By Tom Joyce | The Center Square contributor
(The Center Square) – The Chinese Communist Party is exploiting the left’s green energy movement to hurt American energy independence, according to a new report from State Armor.
Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of State Armor, says the report shows how Energy Foundation China funds green energy initiatives that make America more reliant on China, especially on technology with known vulnerabilities.
“Our report exposes how Energy Foundation China functions not as an independent nonprofit, but as a vehicle advancing the strategic interests of the Chinese Communist Party by funding U.S. green energy initiatives to shift American supply chains toward Beijing and undermine our energy security,” Lucci said in a statement before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee’s hearing on Wednesday titled “Enter the Dragon – China and the Left’s Lawfare Against American Energy Dominance.”
Lucci said the group’s operations represent a textbook example of Chinese influence in America.
“This is a very good example of how the Chinese Communist Party operates influence operations within the United States. I would actually describe it as a perfect case study from their perspective,” he told The Center Square in a phone interview. “They’re using American money to leverage American policy changes that make the American energy grid dependent upon China.”
Lucci said one of the most concerning findings is that China-backed technology entering the U.S. power grid includes components with “undisclosed back doors” – posing a direct threat to the power grid.
“These are not actually green tech technologies. They’re red technologies,” he said. “We are finding – and this is open-source news reporting – they have undisclosed back doors in them. They’re described in a Reuters article as rogue communication devices… another way to describe that is kill switches.”
Lucci said China exploits American political divisions on energy policy to insert these technologies under the guise of environmental progress.
“Yes, and it’s very crafty,” he said. “We are not addressing the fact that these green technologies are red. Technologies controlled by the Communist Party of China should be out of the question.”
Although Lucci sees a future for carbon-free energy sources in the United States – particularly nuclear and solar energy – he doesn’t think the country should use technology from a foreign adversary to do it.
“It cannot be Chinese solar inverters that are reported in Reuters six weeks ago as having undisclosed back doors,” he said. “It cannot be Chinese batteries going into the grid … that allow them to sabotage our grid.”
Lucci said energy is a national security issue, and the United States is in a far better position to achieve energy independence than China.
“We are luckily endowed with energy independence if we choose to have it. China is not endowed with that luxury,” he said. “They’re poor in natural resources. We’re very well endowed – one of the best – with natural resources for energy production.”
He said that’s why China continues to build coal plants – and some of that coal comes from Australia – while pushing the United States to use solar energy.
“It’s very foolish of us to just make ourselves dependent on their technologies that we don’t need, and which are coming with embedded back doors that give them actual control over our energy grid,” he said.
Lucci says lawmakers at both the state and federal levels need to respond to this threat quickly.
“The executive branch should look at whether Energy Foundation China is operating as an unregistered foreign agent,” he said. “State attorneys general should be looking at these back doors that are going into our power grid – undisclosed back doors. That’s consumer fraud. That’s a deceptive trade practice.”
