Once again, the Russians are being accused of funding anti fracking activism in North America.

Republican Reps. Lamar Smith and Randy Weber wrote a letter to the Department of the Treasury alleging that Russia is using a Bermuda-based “shell company”, Klein Ltd., to move millions of dollars through Klein “in the form of anonymous donations” to a U.S.-based non-profit called the Sea Change Foundation. That Russian money is then is given in the form of smaller grants to U.S. environmental organizations for anti-fracking activism.

It’s not just Republicans saying these things. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary general of NATO and former premier of Denmark raised the alarm bells about Russian interference with North American politics via the environmental movement in 2014.

I know we are all experiencing a bit of Russian fatigue but there are very good reasons the Russians would fund these ignorant dirtniks to take down the American economy: economic self-interest.

The United States just surpassed Russia to become the world's leader in natural gas production.

According to Jude Clement in Forbes Magazine:

“Fracking is why Pennsylvania is now producing more gas than Canada, and fracking is why North Dakota has been producing as much oil as Argentina and Ecuador combined.”

With all the accusations that the Russians hacked the elections in support of Trump, it was Hillary Clinton who took the clandestine Russian position against fracking - not Trump. In fact, President Trump is the most pro-fracking president in history. A key platform of his campaign was energy independence, with fracking at the forefront of that plan.

It was Trump, the man accused of being a Russia stooge, with the plan to repeal the Obama era regulations that are stifling fracking in America. Fighting Trump’s repeal of those regulations is exactly what Russia is accused of funding environmental groups to do.

But on the flip side, it was Hillary Clinton’s position that changed during the 2016 campaign to the Russian one.

In Edmonton in 2014, Clinton gave a speech that was supportive of fracking- even admitting that she knew Russians were funding environmentalist groups to block and fight fracking in North America. But by the time her presidential campaign kicked off, Clinton was singing a different tune, taking a radical position against clean burning natural gas.

During the Democratic presidential debate Clinton said that if she were in charge, her onerous regulations would result in just a few “places in America where fracking will be able to take place.

The Russians are hacking something, that’s for sure. But it’s not elections. It’s the Democrat party’s stance on American Energy independence.