Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Crowley has picked up the backing of one of the nation’s most powerful environmental political groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) — an organization with decades-long ties to Chinese government agencies and a sprawling operation in Beijing.
The NRDC Action Fund is now listed among the organizations endorsing Crowley’s campaign for governor. The group previously backed former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes during Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary.
The endorsement comes as Crowley has increasingly made aggressive climate and renewable-energy policies a centerpiece of his record and campaign — from committing Milwaukee County government to net-zero carbon emissions to demanding that Wisconsin’s massive new data centers be powered by 100% clean energy.
But NRDC’s extensive work in China has attracted scrutiny in Washington over the years, including questions from congressional Republicans about whether its relationship with the Chinese government could leave the organization vulnerable to foreign influence.
NRDC’s Beijing Operation
NRDC has worked in China since the mid-1990s and continues to maintain an active Beijing office with more than 40 staff members, according to the organization’s own website. Fox News reported back in 2022 that a majority of the NRDC staff worked out of the Beijing office, with an annual budget of $4.2 million per year.
More notably, NRDC states that its Beijing representative office is registered with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau and is supervised by China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration, a Chinese government agency.
The organization describes its work in China as promoting the country’s “green,” “circular” and “low-carbon” development through policy research, technical support and the promotion of environmental practices.
NRDC has also worked directly with Chinese institutions on efforts to reduce the country’s use of fossil fuels. Its China program currently highlights joint research with the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning aimed at peaking coal consumption and carbon emissions in China’s power, steel, cement and coal-chemical industries.
A 2022 Fox News review found that several current and former members of NRDC’s China operation had previously worked for Chinese government agencies or state-owned enterprises.
Among them was Jieqing Zhang, director of NRDC’s China program, who previously served as deputy director-general of the Department of International Cooperation within China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
Kai Duan, an NRDC senior project manager, previously worked for a subagency of that same Chinese government ministry, while JingJing Qian, a senior strategic adviser to NRDC’s China program, previously worked at China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.
Hui Huang, who worked as a project manager for NRDC’s climate and energy program in China, previously worked for China Datang Corporation, a state-owned electricity generation company. Zhiming Pan, director of NRDC’s city project, previously served as an official within China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
The personnel overlap has added to questions raised by critics about just how closely the American environmental organization has worked with the Chinese government while simultaneously advocating sweeping changes to U.S. energy policy.
In 2018, then-House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Bruce Westerman launched an inquiry into NRDC’s relationship with China. The Republican lawmakers argued that the group’s relationship had characteristics that could put it at risk of foreign influence or coercion and questioned whether its activities could trigger requirements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The Committee is concerned about the NRDC’s role in aiding China’s perception management efforts with respect to pollution control and its international standing on environmental issues in ways that may be detrimental to the United States.
The committee followed up after receiving NRDC’s initial response, arguing that the group’s ability to operate in China depended on maintaining the goodwill of Chinese officials and pointing to meetings between NRDC leadership and senior Chinese government and Communist Party officials.
NRDC disputed the implication that Beijing controls its work. The organization said its environmental positions are based on science, U.S. law and the public interest. More recently, an NRDC spokesman said the organization receives no funding from the Chinese government and “does the bidding of no government anywhere.”
Crowley’s Green Energy Push
Whatever the debate surrounding NRDC’s work overseas, its support for Crowley comes as the Milwaukee County executive has compiled an extensive record of pushing for extremely liberal climate policies on his own. Under Crowley, Milwaukee County developed and adopted its Climate Action 2050 plan, committing county operations to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
In reaffirming our commitment to the Paris Agreement and Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, we are standing with science and facts to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
David Crowley
The plan calls for reducing fossil-fuel use through energy-efficiency projects, lower-carbon fuel sources, fleet changes, solar projects and other measures. Crowley formally signed the plan into law in April 2025. Crowley has called climate change a “real, pressing threat” and said his administration intends to use the plan to promote clean energy and “combat the climate crisis in Wisconsin.”
In 2019, Governor Tony Evers signed an executive order calling for the State of Wisconsin to go carbon-free by 2050, a proposal that experts warned could potentially lead to California-style blackouts while raising costs on Wisconsin families and businesses by $248 billion. Crowley has expressed support for this costly statewide plan on the campaign trail.
Earlier this year, Crowley went even further by backing Milwaukee County’s continued commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement despite changes in federal climate policy.
“In reaffirming our commitment to the Paris Agreement and Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, we are standing with science and facts to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050,” Crowley said. The United Nations Climate Conference called the Paris Agreement the “beginning of the end” of the fossil-fuel era, aiming to push consumers towards more costly and unreliable renewable forms of energy.
The NRDC has called the burning of fossil fuels “an existential threat” to the planet.
Beyond this, in a candidate forum during the Democrat primary, Crowley called for a “Green New Deal for public schools,” which includes retrofitting buildings and installing solar panels on school rooftops. This despite the fact that schools are closed during the summer months, when the panels would receive the most sunlight.
Crowley hasalso called for “carbon scoring” for every state project, despite fears that this could drive up costs for taxpayers on state building projects.
100% Clean Energy for Data Centers
Crowley has carried the same approach into one of Wisconsin’s biggest emerging energy fights: data centers.
Rather than supporting a statewide moratorium, Crowley has said new data centers should be required to bring enough new clean energy onto the grid to cover their enormous electricity demand. Crowley has described it as his “Beyoncé approach” — requiring data centers to bring their own clean power — and has called for getting the facilities to 100% clean-energy use.
His proposal has included renewable generation–including wind, solar, and battery storage–with Crowley arguing that the approach would prevent ordinary ratepayers from absorbing the costs of the massive new power demand.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany has attacked the plan from the opposite direction, arguing that generating enough renewable power for hyperscale data centers could consume huge amounts of Wisconsin land.
Tiffany’s campaign calculated that generating the annual electricity required by just the Microsoft project in Mount Pleasant and Vantage project in Port Washington using solar power alone could require roughly 93,000 to 130,000 acres.
Based on that calculation, Tiffany has argued Crowley’s energy policy could put more than 100,000 acres of Wisconsin land at risk for just two data-center projects, the equivalent of nearly two-thirds of the land in Wisconsin’s state park system.
An Endorsement That Fits Crowley’s Record
The NRDC endorsement comes as Crowley pushes an increasingly aggressive climate agenda whose costs and land-use consequences have become points of political dispute. He has championed net-zero mandates, reaffirmed the Paris climate framework, and called for Wisconsin data centers to run on 100% clean energy. His record fits well within the NRDC’s mission of climate activism and “environmental justice.”
But the organization now backing Crowley has also spent decades building relationships with Chinese government institutions. NRDC maintains a Beijing office supervised by a Chinese government agency, has collaborated with government-linked entities on energy policy, and has employed multiple people who previously worked for Chinese government agencies or state-owned enterprises.
For Crowley, this endorsement puts an uncomfortable spotlight on who is lining up behind his climate agenda: an organization that has spent decades working alongside Chinese government institutions, operates a Beijing office under Chinese government supervision, and has faced congressional scrutiny over whether those relationships create a risk of foreign influence over American energy policy.
