Colorado is no stranger to out of state monied groups playing in our politics. I wonder, however, if our state has also been a toy for foreign groups, specifically for money and influence coming all the way from across the Pacific in China.
Meet the Energy Foundation
The Energy Foundation has lots of money, $109 million in revenue according to their 2024 IRS Form 990, and they spend a lot too, including in Colorado. If you go to try and research this 501(c)(3) nonprofit, you will encounter a couple of snags.
The first is confusion about their name. Energy Foundation was the original name, dating back to 1991, which had US and Chinese branches. In 2020, the Chinese part ceased their affiliation, keeping the name “Energy Foundation” but sometimes adding China to the end to be called “Energy Foundation China” The US part of the affiliate took the name “United States Energy Foundation” to distinguish itself. From here forward, I will refer to them as Energy Foundation China, more commonly known as EFC.
The second snag you may come across is confusion about their location. They don’t list their address as being in China, rather on their tax forms they show their physical location as being in San Francisco, CA. While there may be an office there, EFC appears more Chinese than American. The group boasts funding from some big American groups, but it’s led by a former Chinese government official, most of its employees are in Beijing, and it’s not a stretch to say EFC’s leadership has strong ties to the Chinese government.
We don’t have any real sense of how much the Chinese government fits into the funding picture.
Thanks to tax laws, we do know where EFC’s money goes here in the United States. They funnel money to environmentalists and other progressive groups, to climate lawsuits, to universities, and to various other initiatives, including legislation.
Such activity has raised concerns here. Much of the policy EFC support seems to have a direct benefit to Chinese interests, whether that be the “green conversion”, or meddling in agriculture. EFC’s moves, in fact, seem to show a connection to China deep enough to warrant a 2024 letter from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce pressing EFC to reveal details about their activities and funding, while the House Committee on Ways and Means sent the IRS a letter (also in 2024) asking that agency for information, including information about how to refer EFC for an investigation.
EFC in Colorado
All of this naturally leads to the question of what, if any, activity EFC has here in Colorado. Turns out it’s plenty. It’s not just grants to small groups either. It’s big grants to big players in Colorado policy.
When looking into EFC’s giving, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. Groups like EFC often give to nonprofit A, which in turn gives to nonprofits B, C, and D. For example, EFC has given money to Tides Center, which is an incubator giving support to smaller nonprofits in Colorado (as well as campaign contributions to support wolf reintroduction). Going through the available IRS data to find each and every nonprofit EFC gave to and then tracing all that to individual Colorado entities is untenable.
It is just as illuminating to stick to what’s feasible, tracking the groups with a Colorado address that EFC gave money to. I went back to 2018 in EFC’s IRS Form 990s (the tax return for non-profits) and pulled all the organizations with Colorado footprints, and then put them in this spreadsheet. It lists the year, group, amount, and purpose of the grants EFC gave.
In it you’ll find a few patterns. EFC, clearly sensing the Democrats’ takeover of Colorado around 2018/19, saw fertile ground for funding environmental activism and policy change. They gave a total of $4.1 million in 2018 and $5.4 million in 2019 to groups as varied as Bicycle Colorado, Dine Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, ProgressNow, and heavier government players like Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, Rocky Mountain Institute, and Western Resource Associates.
Compare this to the $2.4 million total given from 2020 to 2024. Clearly, their work was (mostly) done in Colorado by this point.
The most common stated reason for their grants across all these years was “to support education and outreach to build a clean energy future,” though reasons such as supporting electrification of transportation were often given, as well as phasing out coal and advancing low carbon cities.
Heavy hitters
EFC has also been active in funding university groups and big name activists here in Colorado for a while now.
Former Governor Bill Ritter’s Center for the New Energy Economy is one of them, getting about $800,000 over the course of 2018/19 to help with their technical and strategic assistance to governments. It’s a group hosted at Colorado State University billing itself as working “… directly with governors, legislators, regulators, utilities, and communities to provide technical and strategic assistance on energy and environmental policy.”
Western Resource Advocates (WRA) got about $1.8 million from EFC between 2018 and 2019 for, among other things, promoting “…education and analysis for clean, affordable energy that protects public health.” A quick look over WRA’s own Form 990s shows that they’re active in lobbying, having spoken out on bills before the legislature. They’ve also given money to nonprofit media outlets. Interestingly, while all this was going on, WRA also cashed in on taxpayer dollars, getting a fair bit of money from the state as grants, for doing studies, and for services rendered.
Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) is another big recipient of EFC grant money, getting about $2.1 million total in the same period of time as WRA.
SWEEP too are active lobbyists, but, unlike WRA, appear more a media maven than media funder, being the Colorado Sun’s preferred expert on energy. They also occupy a unique role in helping to facilitate federal grants to Colorado, having helped bring things like Inflation Reduction Act dollars here.
Clocking in at the biggest and most frequent Colorado recipient of EFC’s money is Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), another big player in state politics, and a favorite of Gov. Polis. RMI is the the only Colorado recipient to get money past 2019, and have gathered up a massive $3.5 million from EFC between 2018 and 2024. Besides the usual boilerplate for grants, EFC lists their giving to RMI as helping to phase out coal, advance clean electricity, advance low carbon cities, and to support low-carbon alternative transportation. They also list lobbying as one of their other activities (though I couldn’t find a dollar amount for 2024).
Colorado also seems to like throwing money and work RMI’s way, having given them about $718K of tax money, $706K of which went to them since Polis took office in 2019.
Money went to RMI to help convince EV charger companies to build here, to help with electrical grid modeling and analysis for building efficiency, and to help determine the impact of various possible state policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. .
Searching the PUC’s electronic case filings reveals one last piece of spider web connection. All of these Colorado groups have something in common with a national EFC big money-taker, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Since NRDC has no Colorado address, they do not appear in my spreadsheet, but this doesn’t mean they haven’t been notably active in Colorado. NRDC joins all the other heavy hitters in regularly advocating in front of Colorado energy regulators. They’ve been active in pushing for electrification as well as the elimination of fossil fuel use from our grid.
Getting their money’s worth
Is the Chinese Communist Party or the Chinese government dictating to these nonprofits? I don’t see any evidence that they are directing policy, at least not in the sense that the nonprofits have a desk reserved for EFC to show up and direct their efforts.
But EFC doesn’t have to. Like someone tossing money to a street musician without any specific request, EFC is giving their money to groups who are already doing things they like, and will likely continue.
To their credit, these Colorado nonprofits have been good stewards of their windfall, having embedded themselves in Colorado government as advisors, contractors, and grantees. But for those of us living here, who actually have to live with the policies they have helped shape, it’s understandable that many are not so pleased.
Cory Gaines teaches college physics and is a regular contributor to Complete Colorado. He lives in Sterling on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. He also writes at the Colorado Accountability Project substack.
