Kansas AG Asks DOJ to Probe China-Linked Entity Over Climate-Related Lawsuits

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Jul 30, 2025 - 09:55 Updated: Jul 30, 2025 - 09:50
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Kansas AG Asks DOJ to Probe China-Linked Entity Over Climate-Related Lawsuits
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Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is asking the Department of Justice to open an investigation into a San Francisco-based organization with links to China.

In a July 28 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Kobach accused Energy Foundation China (EFC) of being part of an “environmental lawfare campaign” that puts the United States at a “strategic disadvantage.”

“When you handicap or hobble American fossil fuel production, that improves China’s strategic interest in boosting American dependence on alternative energy systems where China controls the supply chains for necessary minerals, batteries, solar panels, and other technology,” Kobach told The Epoch Times.

China has used this chokehold as leverage during the recent trade negotiations and linked rare earths exports to Washington cutting tariff rates.

EFC, despite being a U.S.-registered nonprofit, appears to support actions that align with the Chinese regime’s interests, he said.

EFC’s top management has significant connections with Beijing.

Zou Ji, EFC’s president and CEO, was once a deputy director general of the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation within China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which is the Chinese regime’s top economic planner, according to the organization’s website.
Zhang Huiyong, EFC’s executive director of international cooperation, had worked at the Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, according to EFC’s website.

EFC also maintains one of its two offices in Beijing, in the same building as the Chinese state-owned investment firm CITIC Group.

EFC was a focus during a hearing in June held by the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, where Kobach testified.

At that hearing, an aide for subcommittee chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) held up a board that showed a red arrow with the words “climate lawfare.”

“On paper, Energy Foundation China’s goals may sound benign—support for clean coal, electric vehicles, and global decarbonization,” Cruz said. “But that raises the obvious question: If this is truly about reducing emissions, why isn’t China investing that money in reducing its own pollution? China is the No. 1 polluter on planet Earth. Communist China emits more carbon than the United States and Europe combined.

“The answer is simple: because this is not about climate. It is about global energy dominance.”

Meanwhile, Democratic witness David Arkush of Public Citizen suggested at the hearing that the idea of China undermining U.S. energy is a conspiracy theory “straight out of the 1950s.”

Part of the challenge in tracking China’s involvement is the lack of disclosure requirements around third-party litigation funding from foreign sources, said Kobach.
A June report by State Armor, an advocacy organization focused on China-related security threats, analyzed EFC’s spending and found that it has given millions of dollars to U.S.-based groups that push for a transition away from fossil fuels, including through lawsuits.

“China wins in multiple respects if these lawsuits succeed, because you would have a weakening of the American ability to produce energy, plus you would have greater dependence upon China for the production of energy in the future,” Kobach said.

He said the Senate hearing had shown how “China’s ongoing asymmetric campaign against the United States extends to our nation’s courtrooms and state legislatures.”

EFC has “left its fingerprints,” he said, but there could be other entities working on behalf of the CCP without China in their names, and the Department of Justice has the resources to look into the matter.

“Multiple federal laws are designed to stop inappropriate foreign influence, misdirection, and economic sabotage like this,” Kobach stated in the letter.

Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of State Armor, applauded Kobach for calling for an investigation into EFC.

“Every day communist China is waging a war on American energy to make us more reliant [on] technology that is built and controlled by the CCP,” Lucci said in a statement. “While environmentalists call this ‘green energy,’ in reality it’s largely ’red tech' controlled by Communist China and chock full of kill switches to disable our energy grid.”

He said EFC “should be permanently shut down.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to EFC for comment and received no reply by publication time.

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