Marcellus Drilling News published an article, “Heinz, William Penn the Money Behind PA’s RGGI Carbon Tax Push,” covering the recent findings of massive, tax-exempt organizations, Heinz Endowments & William Penn Foundation, engaging in overt politicking. Through funding political green groups, these nonprofit organizations are in violation of federal and state law.
Both Heinz and William Penn are Pennsylvania-based foundations that actively seek to end the use of fossil fuels. As this recent article outlines, they have been outed as the catalysts financing the push for a Marcellus-killing carbon tax through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a pact of largely northeastern states created to replace fossil fuels with untested and more costly sources of energy. There is a complicated web of political-funding behind the scenes of this agenda, but Heinz and William Penn were found to be at the center of it.
As the article states, “Pennsylvania is the main battlefield in the environmental Left’s effort to ‘green’ the country with radical policies that promise to raise the cost of electricity, household appliances, and grocery bills—all in servitude of a far-left ideology.” Heinz and William Penn are spending big sums to bend the commonwealth to their fringe, ideological views.
Fringe environmental activism might look like grassroots activism, but when you trace the money, many of these organizations depend on these deep-pocketed groups. Food and Water Watch, the Clean Air Council, the Heinz Endowments, the William Penn Foundation, and the Rockefeller Family Fund, are all very active in Pennsylvania and funding a variety of groups to oppose a variety of interests that benefit Pennsylvanians.
The next time you come across a “wild-eyed environmental activist,” ask them which of these groups they are getting paid by. More than likely, they get paid by a few of these deep pocketed “Sugar Daddys.”