League of Conservation Voters Chair Carol Browner on advisory board of federal grant selectee

The Biden-Harris administration last week announced a $55.2 million grant for Blue Whale Materials, a little-known electric vehicle battery recycling company advised by a prominent climate activist whose organization is spending tens of millions of dollars to keep Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House.

Carol M. Browner, one of the few officials that Blue Whale Materials identifies on the “team” page of its website, also serves as the chairwoman of the League of Conservation Voters, a powerful environmental nonprofit that regularly advises federal lawmakers. The activist group launched a $55 million advertising campaign last month to support Harris’s campaign shortly after endorsing her.

Blue Whale Materials publicly lists Browner as an adviser but doesn’t explain what that role entails. Browner’s biography on the Blue Whale Materials website mentions a variety of positions she has held in the past—such as EPA administrator and director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy—but doesn’t include her role with the League of Conservation Voters.

The revelation sheds light on the deep financial entanglements between the green energy industry and climate activists. Browner was advising Blue Whale Materials as it sought federal funding while simultaneously leading the League of Conservation Voters as it pushed legislation that made such funding possible.

According to disclosures reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the League of Conservation Voters lobbied federal officials and lawmakers in 2021 to push the INVEST in America Act, which was the legislative precursor to President Joe Biden’s signature Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and included provisions to boost transit vehicle battery recycling and reuse.

The $55.2 million grant for Blue Whale Materials—announced on Sept. 20 by the Department of Energy, which noted the funding has yet to be disbursed—is earmarked under the $16 billion battery processing and manufacturing programs established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The grant would support the expansion of Blue Whale Materials’s Oklahoma plant, where it extracts critical minerals from old batteries for use in new EV batteries.

In a statement to the Free Beacon, Blue Whale Materials said Browner was hired in 2019 to serve as a member of its advisory board. The company said she is not an employee and is not involved in its federal grant application process but didn’t elaborate on the specifics of her advisory role.

“We appreciate her insight as we are building a company to produce a domestic source of critical materials at our plant in Oklahoma,” the company said.

“Few people are as plugged into D.C.’s climate industrial complex as Ms. Browner, except perhaps Energy Secretary Granholm, who pioneered the policy for-profit model early in the Biden-Harris Administration,” Michael Chamberlain, the director of the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Free Beacon. “We see it all through the administration’s greendoggle Inflation Reduction Act.”

“When government gets to pick winners and losers, don’t be surprised if government officials and political allies just happen to be among the winners,” he continued.

Since the Biden-Harris administration entered office, Browner has visited the White House five times, including twice for private meetings with Biden’s clean energy czar John Podesta, visitor logs show. She and Podesta previously worked together at the Center for American Progress, the progressive think tank Podesta founded. They also both worked in the Obama White House, though they didn’t overlap.

In April, Browner conducted a one-on-one interview with Podesta during a climate policy forum that discussed federal efforts to rapidly fund green energy projects.

Podesta was quoted in the Department of Energy’s press release announcing the grants for Blue Whale Materials and other selectees last week, stating that the funding “will boost America’s manufacturing base, create good-paying union jobs all over the country, and help tackle the climate crisis.”

Meanwhile, since Browner was first selected to chair the League of Conservation Voters in 2015, the group has raked in more than $450 million in contributions, according to tax filings. Much of that funding has then been funneled to other green groups to fund various efforts to push a rapid green transition in the United States.

“LCV is a force throughout the country for enlightened principles and policies,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said previously. “Because of their work, America is closer to achieving clean water, clean air, and a safe climate for all communities.”

After Vice President Harris launched her presidential campaign in July, the League of Conservation Voters’s 501(c)(4) affiliate immediately endorsed her, characterizing her as a “climate champion.” As the Democratic National Convention opened in August, the group unveiled its $55 million advertising campaign to support Harris, touting her administration’s work funding green energy projects.

Overall, in recent years, the League of Conservation Voters has raised millions of dollars for Democratic campaigns up and down the ballot, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets.

The Department of Energy and Browner didn’t respond to requests for comment.