Google co-founder Sergey Brin, a billionaire and prolific contributor of left-wing causes, wired millions of dollars to Rewiring America, a climate group pushing electrification policies with close ties to the Biden administration.
According to recently disclosed tax filings, Brin’s nonprofit, the Sergey Brin Family Foundation — which raked in a staggering $464 million in contributions in 2021, the most recent year with information — sent $4.5 million to the Windward Fund earmarked for “general operating support” for Rewiring America in 2021. The grant represents the largest known contribution to Rewiring America since the group was founded in 2020.
Rewiring America was established to “to help mobilize America to address climate change and jump-start the economy by electrifying everything,” Rewiring America co-founder Saul Griffith wrote in a September 2020 blog post. The group broadly argues in favor of electrifying homes and has pushed electric stoves as a replacement of gas stove alternatives.
The group was at the center of a recent move to restrict gas stove usage. Rewiring America research associate Talor Gruenwald was listed as the lead author on a study published in December linking childhood asthma to gas stoves. The study was promoted by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and used to justify greater restrictions on the appliances earlier this year.
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“Neither induction nor electric resistance stoves burn fossil fuels,” Rewiring America states on its website. “They also don’t require gas hookups, which often leak methane — a potent greenhouse gas. In fact, recent studies have shown that methane leaking from gas-burning stoves installed in U.S. homes, even when they are turned off, has the same negative impact on the environment as the carbon dioxide emitted from around 500,000 gasoline-powered vehicles.”
“Induction and electric stoves provide substantial health benefits over gas stoves,” it adds, noting the December study’s findings on childhood health outcomes. “Gas stoves burn fossil fuels in an enclosed space, releasing carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and other pollutants and carcinogens directly into our homes.”
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Because Rewiring America isn’t an independent organization — it is a project of the Windward Fund, a nonprofit that is part of the billion-dollar dark money network managed by the Washington, D.C.-based Arabella Advisors — its funding is hidden from public view, meaning its donors remain unknown.
The group is not required to file tax documents to the IRS due to this arrangement.
Excluding the Sergey Brin Family Foundation’s $4.5 million-dollar contribution, other known contributions to Rewiring America include a 2020 grant worth $300,000 from the left-wing nonprofit Rockefeller Brothers Fund and a $400,000 grant from the Climate Imperative Foundation in 2021.
And Rewiring America maintains close ties to the Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers.
Rewiring America co-founders Ari Matusiak and Alex Laskey attended a White House event on Sept. 13 to celebrate the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Laskey also spoke at a Dec. 14 electrification summit hosted by the White House and attended by top administration officials.
“Just to talk quickly about the benefits of electrification – from our count, 42% of all emissions come from decisions that are made at kitchen tables. That is the cars we drive as well as how we heat our homes, heat the water in our homes, cook our food and dry our clothing,” Laskey remarked during the event.
Since then, Matusiak has visited the White House at least two more times, with appearances occurring in January and March, according to a Fox News Digital review of visitor logs.
The Biden administration has also repeatedly referenced Rewiring America in press releases. Last November, it announced “new actions to lower energy costs for families” that touted an initiative involving the group.
“The private sector is stepping up to this huge opportunity,” the White House wrote in the press release. “Today, a group of companies led by Airbnb, Redfin, Lyft, Duquesne Light Company, Mosaic, Arcadia, and Propel are partnering with Rewiring America the launch an educational campaign for their customers and users to educate at least 10 million American households about opportunities to save money with heat pumps and other building electrification opportunities, using Rewiring America’s Inflation Reduction Act Calculator and other tools.”
In an April 17 statement on the administration’s new private- and public-sector investments for electric vehicles, the White House wrote that Rewiring America is “committing to launch an online personal electrification planner in 2023 with the initial goal of helping 100,000 homeowners and renters create roadmaps to electrify their homes and to choose electric vehicles and home chargers.”
Sergey Brin’s financial support to Rewiring America likely places him among its most generous donors in 2021. In addition to Rewiring America, his family foundation doled out millions to other far-left environmental groups like CarbonPlan, the ClimateWorks Foundation and the Rocky Mountain Institute.
GMMB, a Democratic firm that received payments from Brin’s foundation for communications consulting, did not respond to a request for comment. Brin also did not respond to an inquiry by the time of publication.
