Alec Schemmel writes for the Washington Free Beacon about one of President Biden’s billionaire supporters.
Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, who provided his Lake Tahoe mansion for a Biden family vacation this week, manages a green energy investment fund that’s working to “take advantage” of federal climate change spending provided through President Joe Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act.
Just two months before the Biden family arrived at Steyer’s $18 million property, the liberal billionaire’s green energy fund touted its work to “take advantage of the financial incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act” through a real estate project that helps developers obtain taxpayer funds. Steyer’s firm, Galvanize Climate Solutions, also invests in a slew of green energy companies that stand to benefit from the hundreds of billions of dollars in uncapped tax incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act, a Washington Free Beacon review found.
Steyer’s open pursuit to leverage Inflation Reduction Act funding to advance his green portfolio did not stop Biden from taking his family to Steyer’s luxurious lakefront property for a week-long vacation. Included on the trip is scandal-plagued first son Hunter Biden, who has used his father’s name to profit handsomely in energy-related business dealings. Steyer in 2020 met with eventual White House chief of staff Ron Klain to discuss a potential energy policy role in the Biden administration, and the billionaire launched his green energy investment firm just one year later.
For Michael Chamberlain, director of ethics watchdog group Protect the Public Trust, Steyer’s status as Biden’s vacation host reflects the president’s open embrace of green energy insiders. In one case, Biden heaped praise on an electric bus company that counted his energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, as a top investor. That company, Proterra, declared bankruptcy earlier this month—but only after Granholm sold her stake for a sizable profit.
