Allegations emerged last summer from Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and former prime minister of Denmark, that Russia was secretly funding the anti-fracking movement.
Speaking at the United Kingdom's Royal Institute for International Affairs, Rasmussen said:
"I have met with allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-government organizations (NGOs) — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas."
He provided no hard evidence at the time, and apparently there's still no smoking gun. But there are several reasons to think Rasmussen is on to something.
Russia has a history of funding covert organizations. Russia has a long and well-documented history of funding foreign mischief-making organizations — beginning at the end of World War I, according to M. Stanton Evan's recent book, "Stalin's Secret Agents."
Those efforts continued through World War II and the Cold War. They may have declined somewhat during the 1990s, but they're back. Columnist Rachel Marsden, writing in the Chicago Tribune, says:
"Records show that from 2008 to 2010, Putin spent considerable cash — approximately $6.8 million in fees to two American firms alone — in an attempt to infiltrate America's media and political agenda."
Stopping fracking is part of the left's "political agenda."
The left may not worry about the source of anti-fracking funds. There are lots of rich liberals and organizations funneling money to left-leaning environmental groups to fight fracking. Can we be sure that Russia isn't behind some of that cash? More to the point, would environmentalists even care?
Last May, conservative investigative journalist James O'Keefe released an undercover video that included actors Ed Begley Jr. and Mariel Hemingway and film director Josh Tickell. They were meeting with two people — O'Keefe's undercover investigators — one calling himself "Mohammed," who wanted to provide $9 million to fund an anti-fracking film.
During the secretly taped interview, Mohammed tells them, "If Washington, D.C. continues fracking, America will be energy-efficient and then they won't need my oil anymore." Putin couldn't have said it better himself.
The filmmakers seemed fine with not disclosing the source of the funds, with Begley apparently saying he had no problem keeping the money source "at the table."
It wasn't the first time. Actor Matt Damon's film "Promised Land" reportedly was funded partially by money from the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich country.
If Russia wants to fund the anti-fracking movement, there's lots of ways to scrub the funds so that they appear to be coming from some benign or unassociated source — like "Mohammed."
Russia has a huge financial interest in killing fracking. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that oil and gas revenues account for 52% of Russia's federal budget and represent 70% of the country's export income.
But Russia's budget projections are based on $100-per-barrel oil, and current prices have fallen to nearly half that figure, putting a real strain on Russian government revenue.
One way to raise the price of oil is to reduce supply. Since nearly all new U.S. wells are fracked, shutting down fracking effectively shuts down U.S. drilling. The U.S. produced about 4 million barrels of oil per day in 2008 — the lowest output in nearly 60 years. Then fracking and horizontal drilling really took off.
Today we're producing about 8.9 million barrels per day. If the U.S. stops fracking, we can expect that current production to drop significantly — which would really please the Russians.
Russia doesn't mind stepping on a few toes. Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer, is a man of few scruples. He has summarily quashed Russia's fledging democracy movement — along with his political enemies.
He sent Russian troops into Ukraine to annex Crimea, denying it all the while — even though everyone knew he was lying. And under Russian oversight, the Ukrainian rebels (or were they Russians?) shot down the Malaysian Flight 17, killing nearly 300 people.
Russia is returning to the old days and its old ways. Those old ways include funding lots of organizations to directly or indirectly serve Putin's ambitions — and stopping U.S. fracking is likely one of his top priorities.