Green Energy: Whitehouse Pushes Legislation that Helps Wife’s Climate Change Firm
Chuck Ross
August 22, 2023
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) has introduced several bills that could provide a windfall for a firm that employs his wife, raising potential conflict of interest concerns for the liberal Democrat.
Whitehouse’s wife, Sandra Whitehouse, has since 2022 served as ocean policy adviser for Running Tide Technology, a startup that works to remove carbon dioxide from the ocean. Whitehouse, who serves on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and chairs the Senate Budget Committee, has introduced legislation that would steer taxpayer funds to companies in the carbon dioxide removal industry.
Sandra Whitehouse’s work for Running Tide could open her husband to the same kinds of criticisms he has levied against Republicans. The senator has proposed a bill to beef up transparency for Supreme Court justices and attacked Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, over her consulting work. Whitehouse cited Ginni Thomas’s text messages regarding the 2020 election in calling for "significant ethics reform at the Supreme Court."
The Sustaining Healthy Ecosystems, Livelihoods, and Local Seafood Act, which Whitehouse introduced in June, would form an office for "aquaculture" in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in order to bolster seaweed farmers and "promote blue carbon ecosystems." Running Tide uses kelp, a type of seaweed, to capture carbon dioxide in the ocean.
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/senator-sheldon-whitehouse-wife/
