In a detailed post in The Republican Standard, Shaun Kenney explores the connections between Russians, the anti-natural gas movement nationally and in Virginia, groups he refers to colorfully as the “Red Orchestra” and “Green Antifa,” the anti-Dominion Clean Virginia organization, the Virginia Public Access Project, and The Virginia Mercury. I’m not willing to connect all the dots that he connects. Indeed, there are some dots that I would not connect. But he digs into subjects that need digging — and that Virginia’s mainstream media have studiously ignored.
Given the Washington Post’s proclivity for exploring every conceivable connection linking President Trump to the Russians, it is mind blowing to see how the Post downplays the body of evidence that Russians are meddling in U.S. national energy policy.
Ultimately, proof that the Russians have moved the needle on U.S. energy policy may be as elusive as proof that their interference altered the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. But you don’t find something unless you look for it, and the Post has no interest in looking for anything that might distract from the Trump-Russian collusion narrative or that might discredit environmentalists who whose climate-change agenda it supports. And neither does any other mainstream media outlet in Virginia.
Kenney draws attention to several irrefutable facts: It is in Russia’s national interest to shut down the U.S. natural gas industry; Russians have shipped liquefied natural gas to New England where opposition to new gas pipelines has throttled the gas supply from domestic sources; Russian Internet trolls have tried to stir up opposition to U.S. gas pipelines; and on at least one occasion Russians have funneled a large sum to a California environmental foundation, which might have distributed the money to grassroots groups around the country (although no one can say for sure where the money went).
Does that mean Virginians advancing the de-carbonization agenda in Virginia are Russia’s “useful idiots”? I don’t think so. Pipeline foes have their own reasons for opposing gas plants and gas pipelines that are entirely independent of anything Vladimir Putin is doing or saying. And they are supported by good ol’ American foundations and billionaires who contribute far more than anything the Kremlin could dream of adding to the effort.
On the other hand, does the war against natural gas align with Russia’s energy policy? Well, yes, it does. The Russians don’t want to see Americans exporting natural gas in competition with their own gas — if they can pry open a few U.S. markets like New England, then so much the better — and they would like nothing better than to hobble the U.S. gas industry. And that’s a story worth telling.
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