Energy Foundation

The Energy Foundation was involved in a funding scandal in 2015 that led to the resignation of then-Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D). ³ The Energy Foundation’s spin-off group, Energy Foundation China, has been accused of having ties to the Chinese Communist Party and being used to influence American energy policy toward pro-Chinese ends. ⁴

Origins

Adele Simmons, the former president of the MacArthur Foundation, has said that the Energy Foundation was conceptualized as early as 1989. It was established to be a “pass through” nonprofit, emphasizing strategic grants to groups able to influence energy regulatory policy. According to the group’s “strategic assumptions,” “intelligent philanthropy can influence energy policy with multi-billion dollar payoffs.” ⁵

The Energy Foundation was founded by Hal Harvey in 1991, who worked as the organization’s president until 2002. Harvey has a history of left-wing environmental activism. In his announcement of the creation of the Energy Foundation, he referenced the recent First Gulf War: “At a time of grave danger and volatility in the Middle East, it is worrisome that the United States is increasing its dependence on foreign oil, especially so because there are other proven alternatives.” ⁶

Harvey also worked as founder and CEO of ClimateWorks Foundation from 2008 to 2011 and as environment program director at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Both organizations were significant financial supporters of the Energy Foundation. ⁷

In 1999, the Packard Foundation helped to establish Energy Foundation China, with offices in Beijing. ⁸ In 2020, the Energy Foundation China separated from the United States Energy Foundation. ⁹

Leadership

The Energy Foundation’s board of directors and staff are well-connected in left-wing philanthropy and activism, illustrating the interlocking interests of environmentalist and left-of-center movements. ^{10 11}

Chief Executive Officer

As of 2026, Jason Mark was the chief executive officer of the Energy Foundation, a position he had held since January 2019. Mark previously worked as the organization’s senior vice president of US programs; prior, he was the organization’s transportation program director and deputy director of US programs beginning in 2007. ¹² Mark worked for over a decade for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a left-wing climate change advocacy group that was involved with the push for the Kyoto Protocol in the 1990s and touts its role in creating the anti-science narrative around President George W. Bush. ^{10 11} In 2024, Mark earned a salary of $489,003 from the Energy Foundation. ¹³

Eric Heitz, an Energy Foundation co-founder, was the chief executive officer (prior to that president) of the Energy Foundation from 2002 to 2019, when he left to become CEO of Tapeats Partners LLC, a strategic consulting firm. ¹⁴ Heitz began his career in the field installing solar systems, moving on to work as a consultant on related technologies for government agencies. ¹⁵ Heitz’s total compensation in 2018 was $520,519. ¹⁶

Board of Directors

Rose McKinney-James was, as of 2018, Energy Foundation’s board chair. She was, as of 2018, a managing principal for McKinney-James and Associates and Energy Works LLC, strategic consulting and lobbying firms. McKinney-James was a former commissioner for the Nevada Public Service Commission. ¹⁷

August William “Bill” Ritter, Jr. is a former Energy Foundation board chair and served as the Governor of Colorado from 2007 to 2011 as a Democrat. Ritter was, as of 2026, director of the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. ¹⁸

Mark Burget was, as of 2018, the executive vice president and North American regional director of The Nature Conservancy, a left-of-center land-conservation and climate change advocacy group. From 2008 to 2011, he was ClimateWorks Foundation chief operating officer and president, alongside Energy Foundation co-founder Hal Harvey. ¹⁹

William “Bill” Ruckelshaus is the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Reagan administration, a position he held from 1983 to 1985. ²⁰ Ruckelshaus died in November 2019. ²¹

Gina McCarthy was, as of 2018, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a major left-of-center environmental advocacy organization. Prior to that, she was the EPA administrator for the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017 and commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. ²²

Robert Crane was, as of 2018, a consultant to left-of-center nonprofits and the former president of the JEHT Foundation from 2001 until it closed in 2009. Prior to that, he was vice president of programs for the Mertz Gilmore Foundation from 1987 to 1995 and its president from 1996 to 2001. ²³

Kelly Sims Gallagher was, as of 2018, a professor of energy and environmental policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Prior to that, she was a senior policy advisor in the Obama administration’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and was a senior China advisor at the U.S. State Department. ²⁴

Stephen Harper was, as of 2018, the global director of environment and energy policy for the Intel Corporation. He previously worked in “senior positions” for Amoco Oil Company, the EPA, and the California State Coastal Conservancy. ²⁵

Sue Tierney was, as of 2018, a senior advisor to the economic and policy consultancy Analysis Group and was assistant secretary for policy in the U.S. Department of Energy during the Clinton administration. ²⁶

Kris Mayes was, as of 2018,  a co-director of the Energy Policy Innovation Council and a professor at Arizona State University. She was previously communications director for former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D). ²⁷

Nicole Systrom was, as of 2018, the founder of Sutro Energy Group, a climate change consulting firm. ²⁸

Hongjun Zhang was, as of 2018, a board member for the Energy Foundation’s China arm and a partner at Holland and Knight LLP, a law firm in Washington, D.C. ²⁹

Former board members include Noa Staryk, a past McKnight Foundation board member, and Khee Poh Lam, a former board member of the Energy Foundation China and ClimateWorks Foundation Network. ³⁰

Key Staff, Former Staff, and Other Officers

Jane Breyer was, as of 2018, senior vice president of strategic partnerships for the Energy Foundation, a position she has held since 2016. Her total compensation in 2018 was $423,621. Prior, she was vice president for partnerships and  at HopeLab, one of the groups in the orbit of eBay founder and left-wing mega-donor Pierre Omidyar. ³¹

Susan Frank was, as of 2018, vice president of strategic partnerships for the Energy Foundation. Her total compensation in 2018 was $256,563. Prior to that, she was the president and COO of Better World Group, a California consultancy that supports left-of-center environmentalist causes. ³²

Amy Fuerstenau was, as of 2018, vice president of campaigns; prior, she was an Energy Foundation program director. Her total compensation in 2018 was $258,566. Prior to joining the Energy Foundation in 2008, Fuerstenau was energy policy advisor to U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and contributed to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. She also worked as legislative director for former U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and was an advisor to former U.S. Rep. David Bonior (D-MI). ³³

Barbara Wagner was senior vice president and chief operations officer for the Energy Foundation from 2011 to 2018, when she left to become an independent organizational development consultant. Her total compensation in 2018 was $118,943. ³⁴

Carrie Doyle was a vice president for public engagement for the Energy Foundation from 2013 to 2020, when she left to become a principal at the left-of-center consultancy Big Canyon Strategies. Her total compensation in 2018 was $271,023. ³⁵

Dan Adler was a vice president for policy for the Energy Foundation from 2015 to 2020, when he left to become senior adviser for climate finance in the office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). His total compensation in 2018 was $281,302. ³⁶

Won Ha was vice president of strategic communications and an Energy Foundation program director until 2019, when he was appointed vice chancellor for communications for the University of California, San Francisco. His total compensation in 2018 was $263,198. ³⁷

Financials

In 2024, the Energy Foundation earned $261,370,036 in revenues, spent $238,692,726, and ended the year with $203,582,227 in assets. Nearly all the group’s revenue came from charitable contributions, while grants amounted to $166,309,465, or almost 70 percent of expenditures. ¹³

Between 2001 and 2018, the Energy Foundation reported $1.45 billion in total revenues and $1.4 billion in total expenditures, including $1.02 billion in grants paid to other organizations. The following is a historical overview of the Energy Foundation’s finances: ³⁸

Since its inception, the Foundation has attempted to influence public energy policy through ostensibly philanthropic grants to environmentalist groups. To this end, the Energy Foundation conducts a sizable amount of direct activity, such as organizing workshops and research projects to support its agenda. ³⁹

As a bundler nonprofit, the Energy Foundation benefits from provisions in the IRS charitable organization status enabling it to mask the flow of donations from private interest groups that wish to hide their support for partisan causes. Funding to the Energy Foundation can then “pass through” to social welfare organizations, which are permitted to engage in overtly political activity. ⁴⁰

Funding

A significant part of the Energy Foundation’s funding comes from wealthy nonprofits, including the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the ClimateWorks Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. ⁴¹ These groups remain deeply connected, and many share a number of board members and officers in common. The Sea Change Foundation, a private environmentalist group largely funded by hedge fund companies, venture capital firms, and offshore private holdings, is a top donor to the Energy Foundation. Sea Change has donated tens of millions of dollars to the Foundation since its creation. ⁴² The TomKat Charitable Trust, the personal philanthropy of left-of-center mega-donor hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer and his wife, was a donor to the Energy Foundation from 2009 to 2013. It contributed $200,000 to the Foundation in 2012. ⁴³ On its website, the Energy Foundation downplays TomKat’s contributions; however, documents show the Foundation received $3 million from Steyer’s group during that period. ⁴⁴

The Energy Foundation claims that it does not accept funding from foreign sources. ⁴⁵

In 2026, the Energy Foundation’s website reported that the group had received funding from the Barr Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Caerus Foundation, the Climate Imperative Foundation, the ClimateWorks Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, the George Gund Fund, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Herbert Simon Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the McKinney Family Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, Oceankind, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Rainier Climate, and the Sea Change Foundation. ⁴⁶

Grantmaking

In 2025, the Energy Foundation donated $150,000 to the California State Protocol Foundation, a private foundation that funds international travel for Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and is run by a board appointed by the California Governor. According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, the Foundation is primarily funded by corporate donations, and since 2019, Newsom has received $72,000 in travel support from the Foundation. ⁴⁷

According to a 2026 report from the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, the Energy Foundation is one of many large left-wing grantmaking foundations that have funneled over $115 million into anti-oil and gas advocacy in the State of Louisiana. The Pelican Institute calculates that the Energy Foundation has contributed at least $4,892,850 to this cause. ⁴

The Pelican Institute report also questioned the close relationship between the Energy Foundation and Earthjustice, a public interest law firm that litigates cases related to climate and energy policy, often on behalf of left-of-center environmental policy organizations. The report noted that Stuart Clarke, a director at the William Penn Foundation, is both the chair of the board of trustees at Earthjustice and the board chair at the Energy Foundation: “This close relationship, along with Earthjustice’s historical track record of taking money from [the Energy Foundation] and its affiliated entity Energy Foundation China (EFC) raises eyebrows.” From 2006 to 2026, Earthjustice received $8.5 million from the Energy Foundation and the Energy Foundation China. ⁴

Related Organizations

Energy Action Fund (Green Tech Action Fund)

Also see Energy Action Fund (Nonprofit)

From 2008 to 2017, the Energy Foundation funneled $17.3 million to the Energy Action Fund (which was known as the Green Tech Action Fund until 2017), the foundation’s politically active 501(c)(4) arm. The Energy Action Fund has, in turn, provided substantial funding to various environmentalist and left-of-center activist organizations, including the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, and the BlueGreen Alliance. These organizations then financially support the campaigns of Democratic candidates for public office. ^{48 49}

While the Energy Foundation and Energy Action Fund are listed as separate organizations, as of 2017 they shared the same office address in San Francisco, CA, and in annual reports list many of the same staff. ^{50 51}

Energy Foundation China

Also see Energy Foundation China (Nonprofit)

The Energy Foundation China was a branch of the Energy Foundation established in 1999 with help from the Packard Foundation, with offices in Beijing. ⁸ In 2020, the Energy Foundation China separated from the United States Energy Foundation. ⁹

The Energy Foundation has been criticized for operating in tandem with the Energy Foundation China despite legally separating. The two groups maintained shared office space until 2022 and personnel until 2024. ⁴

The Energy Foundation China has also faced “intense scrutiny” for its connection to the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its CEO, Zou Ji, has been characterized as being “deeply tied” to the CCP, and board member Hongjiun Zhang formerly worked for the Chinese National People’s Congress. The Energy Foundation China has been accused of funneling Chinese money into American nonprofits to advocate for pro-Chinese energy policies, including by opposing against domestic oil and gas production. ⁴

In June 2025, national security advocacy group State Armor published a report detailing a money trail between the Chinese government and Energy Foundation China, which State Armor claims “spent millions each year to bankroll climate advocates who promote phasing out fossil fuels and implementing green energy alternatives like the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).” The report claimed that “Communist China is manipulating a supposed philanthropic network to steer the U.S. away from reliable domestic energy sources and into dependence on Chinese supply chains.” ⁵²

In December 2025, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird (R) and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) called for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the Energy Foundation China and the Center for Climate Integrity for financial connections to the CCP. ⁵³

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has described the Energy Foundation China as being part of an alliance between “leftist billionaires, radical environmental organizations and the Chinese Communist Party.” ⁵⁴

Policy Goals

The Energy Foundation supports broadly left-of-center energy policies, including government promotion of weather-dependent energy sources, the replacement of fossil-fuel based vehicles with electric cars, the remodeling of buildings and infrastructure to increase energy efficiency, and the adoption of energy-efficient technologies in industrial processes to reduce pollution. ⁵⁵

The Energy Foundation states that its goal is to reduce energy-related carbon emissions by over one-third from 2005 to 2030. To this end, the group seeks to “transform every sector of America’s energy economy and in every region of the country.” ⁵⁶

The Energy Foundation claims that one of its primary goals is to educate the public and lawmakers about energy policy. ⁵⁶

The Energy Foundation claims that its favored energy policies strengthen American foreign policy by ensuring “energy security.” ⁵⁵

The Energy Foundation describes its goal with the left-wing language of attaining an “equitable energy future.” ⁵⁷

Controversy

On February 13, 2015, then-Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D) announced his resignation from public office following revelations that his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, collected over $250,000 in fellowship and consulting fees from environmentalist groups to promote favorable policies, including low-carbon fuel standard legislation. ³

Hayes received $50,000 from the Energy Foundation in 2013 for “communications work.” She failed to disclose pertinent ethics filings to the governor’s office, and filed significantly lower sums on her 2011-2012 tax returns. ⁵⁸

The Energy Foundation, which collected donations from Tom Steyer’s TomKat Charitable Trust from 2009 to 2013, was accused of funneling TomKat’s funds to Hayes, which Steyer’s attorney denied, claiming the funds were “explicitly restricted so they could not be used for lobbying, legislative or electoral purposes.” ⁴³ The Energy Foundation denies that Steyer indirectly funded Hayes, yet notes that while the “TomKat Charitable Trust did not earmark its donations to any specific Energy Foundation Project” the “Trust had no input on the Energy Foundation’s grant decisions.” ⁵⁹

The Energy Foundation admitted granting the Clean Economy Development Center (CEDC) $50,000 in 2011 and $25,000 in 2012 for a fellowship program in which Hayes was the only participant. This was during the period in which TomKat was a donor to the Energy Foundation. The CEDC had its nonprofit status revoked by the Internal Revenue Service, and has since ceased to function. ⁴³