Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), an ethics watchdog, is asking for an investigation into a Democrat senator.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, is being accused of violating ethics rules after reportedly backing legislation that helped enrich his own wife. FACT is asking the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to look into whether Sandra Whitehouse’s environmental organization financially benefitted from her husband’s political positions, and “whether he violated the Senate ethics rules on conflicts of interest.”
Mrs. Whitehouse has worked for consulting firm Ocean Wonks LLC as the president since 2017, prior to which she was a Senior Policy Adviser at Ocean Conservancy starting in 2008. According to USASpending.gov, Ocean Conservancy has been the recipient of $14.2 million in grant money since 2008. “During 2024 alone, it was given two sizable grants, one for $5.2 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for marine debris cleanup in September and another for $1.7 million from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), again to assist with marine debris cleanup,” Fox News reported.
The $5.2 million grant was funded by the Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Law which Whitehouse voted for. The $1.7 million grant was similarly funded by the EPA’s appropriations bill, which the senator also voted for.
FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold explained exactly why such apparent conflicts of interest are an ethical problem for Whitehouse.
“While these two grants alone appear to be a conflict of interest, it is even more egregious in the context of Senator Whitehouse’s long history of working on legislation being lobbied for by organizations tied to his wife,” she wrote. “Altogether, Ocean Conservancy has spent millions on federal lobbying expenses over the years on issues relating to oceans, climate change, and environmental cleanup—issues directly championed by Senator Whitehouse, a longtime member (and current Ranking Member) of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee and the co-founder of the Senate’s so-called ‘Oceans Caucus.”
It’s also worth noting that Ocean Conservancy has also given Whitehouse “a total of $2,686,800 either directly or through her firm, per tax documents,” Fox wrote.
“Dr. Sandra Whitehouse, a well-respected marine ecologist and ocean policy consultant, has not received compensation from these federal grants allocated to Ocean Conservancy,” said the organization’s Vice President of External Affairs Jeff Watters in a statement to Fox News Digital. “For 40 years, Ocean Conservancy has been a global leader in marine debris cleanup through our signature initiative, the International Coastal Cleanup. The marine debris cleanup grants Ocean Conservancy received from NOAA came from laws passed with broad bipartisan support that then went through a competitive, independent selection process which designated Ocean Conservancy to be one among hundreds of NGOs to receive funding. Ocean Conservancy’s selection was based on our decades of expertise in addressing marine debris and protecting the ocean.”
“With the support of these bipartisan federal funds, Ocean Conservancy plans to remove hundreds of thousands of pounds of trash from beaches and waterways around the U.S., which will not only protect these places for generations of Americans to enjoy but improve the health of our fishing and tourism industries,” he added.
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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