George Soros gave $36M to groups behind People’s Climate March

The People’s Climate March scheduled for Saturday has a powerful billionaire behind it: Democratic Party donor George Soros.

Mr. Soros, who heads the Open Society Foundations, contributed over $36 million between 2000 and 2014 to 18 of the 55 organizations on the march’s steering committee, according to an analysis released Friday by the conservative Media Research Center.

Six of the groups received during that time more than $1 million each: the Center for Community Change, the NAACP, the Natural Resources Defense Council, People’s Action, Public Citizen and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The People’s Climate March, which comes a week after another climate-themed anti-Trump event, the March for Science, is scheduled to run along Pennsylvania Avenue and end by surrounding the White House in order to “drown out all of the climate-denying nonsense that has been coming out of this Administration.”

While some of its partners are climate-change organizations like NextGen Climate, founded by top Democratic donor Tom Steyer, the march is also heavily backed by labor unions and social-justice groups such as Color of Change, which is also backed by Mr. Soros.

Only three of the six organizations on the steering committee — NRDC, Public Citizen and UCS — “actually have anything climate-related in their individual missions,” the MRC reported.

“The presence of many non-climate related organizations leading the march indicated that this climate march (just like the March for Science and the Women’s March) is not about a single issue, but about attacking the new administration,” MRC’s Aly Nielsen said.

She pointed to the march’s “usual checklist of liberal policy priorities,” such as labor-union rights, a minimum-wage increase, and a halt to “attacks on immigrants.”

People’s Climate March organizers have made no secret of their antipathy for President Trump, calling for “climate, jobs and justice” as an alternative to “Trump’s disastrous agenda.”

“Trump’s game plan has been to relentlessly attack our communities and shock us into despair,” said the march in a post. “It hasn’t worked because our people-powered movement is stronger than he is — together, the resistance stopped his attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act and stymied his despicable Muslim ban.”

Mr. Soros, a longtime top donor to Democrats and left-wing causes, contributed nearly $10 million to Priorities USA Action, the primary super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 election cycle, according to Open Secrets.

The march is scheduled for the 100th day of the Trump administration.