Granholm, U.S. Energy Secretary, consulted Chinese energy official prior to depleting strategic oil reserve.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm testifies before Congress / Getty Images
The Biden administration’s top energy official engaged in multiple talks with China National Energy Administration chairman Zhang Jianhua days before the United States moved to release oil from its strategic reserves in 2021.
According to internal Energy Department calendars obtained by Fox News, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm spoke with Zhang one-on-one multiple times in meetings that had not previously been made known to the public. Granholm and Zhang met on November 19 and November 21, 2021, just days prior to the administration’s announcement that they’d be releasing oil from the strategic reserves on November 23. The timing of Granholm’s meetings have critics questioning China’s level of influence over the Biden administration’s energy policy.
“Secretary Granholm’s multiple closed-door meetings with a CCP-connected energy official raise serious questions about the level of Chinese influence on the Biden administration’s energy agenda,” Americans for Public Trust executive director Caitlin Sutherland told Fox News.
Critics of the Biden administration have argued that the decision to drain U.S. strategic reserves has left the country in a worse geopolitical position. House Republicans have warned that China may now have the largest oil reserves in the world. In 2022, the Biden administration sold nearly one million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Unipec, the trading arm of the Chinese state-controlled gas giant Sinopec, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
First Son Hunter Biden has ties to Sinopec, with a private equity firm he co-founded holding a $1.7 billion stake in Unipec’s parent company.
Since draining American oil reserves, the Biden administration has since boasted about efforts to replenish what was sold, claiming that taxpayers were getting a “good deal.” Recent moves to buy oil, however, have been met with delays due to persistently high global energy prices, leaving the United States with depleted reserves.
“Instead of focusing on creating real energy independence for America, Granholm has been too busy parroting Chinese energy propaganda and insisting ‘we can all learn from what China is doing,’” Sutherland said. “The public deserves to know the extent to which Chinese officials are attempting to infiltrate U.S. energy policy and security.”
Biden administration officials did not share with Fox News the specifics of what took place during Granholm’s meetings with Zhang, saying instead that it had to do broadly with climate change.
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