Chellie Pingree Flies Business Class for Billionaire-Funded Luxury Junkets While Preaching Climate Change Doomerism

U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) has been extremely vocal in her climate change alarmism, including a new push on social media encouraging Americans to shop at consignment stores, wear hand-me-downs, and otherwise recycle clothing.

As a longtime member of Maine’s congressional delegation, and one of the most liberal members of the House Democrats, she has pushed for “renewable” energy subsidies, such as for solar panels and wind turbines.

She’s also unleashed a sharp tongue against Republicans for cutting funding to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) budget, and has even demanded that Mainers make sacrifices in their daily lives in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

[RELATED: Chellie Pingree Rails Against Republican Budget Cuts for EPA While Fearmongering About Temperatures…]

“For far too long, scientific warnings of climate change have been ignored. It is increasingly clear that to avoid major catastrophe, the United States must immediately reduce emissions and become carbon neutral by 2050,” says Rep. Pingree on her congressional website.

“The climate crisis is already having devastating effects on the public health of our communities, with communities historically subject to injustice feeling the brunt of them,” she claims.

Despite Pingree’s dire predictions and extreme policy prescriptions, a Maine Wire investigation has uncovered new information about the self-styled environmentalists jet-setting, globe-trotting lifestyle.

According to records obtained by the Maine Wire, Pingree and her staff have flown all across the world to various exotic locations for conferences and meetings, sometimes specifically meant to discuss climate change.

Since 2016, Pingree and her staffers have taken 21 taxpayer-funded trips by air across the globe for various purposes at purportedly related to her duties as a Congresswoman.

The Maine Wire has analyzed the official flight data found in documents filed with the U.S. Committee on Ethics in order to determine the number of flights, the destinations, and the approximate CO2 emissions Pingree was responsible for while she demanded that average Mainers change their lifestyles to prevent climate change.

Because the filings do not include the exact mileage of trips and do not specify the airplanes used for each flight—something which would be necessary to arrive at an exact amount of CO2 emissions—The Maine Wire has come to approximate numbers using the average distance of flights between given airports and the approximate amount of CO2 produced by an average jet over that distance.

Since 2016, Pingree and her staffers have been responsible for generating approximately 15.98 metric tons of CO2 from 132,255 miles worth of flights.

The approximate CO2 emissions number represent Pingree’s or her staffers’ estimated personal shares of the emissions, which would be spread between the passengers on a flight.

The total amount of CO2 emitted by the flights is much higher, and, in any cases in which Pingree flew on a private jet for personal reasons, and other cases where data is not available, her “share” of the emissions would be far higher.

Although Pingree’s public trips were ostensibly for work, she was able to visit multiple popular tourist destinations, including London, Oslo, Tokyo, Munich and Berlin, Iceland, and Bellagio, Italy, often enjoying luxury digs at picturesque hotels.

Pingree has taken two trips in Norway — one in 2017, another in 2023 — at a total cost of $17,707, both paid for by the Aspen Institute.

In 2017, the Aspen Institute paid $6,458 for travel, lodging, and food for Pingree and her daughter, Hannah Pingree, who is currently a staffer in the administration of Gov. Janet Mills (D).

The disclosure form indicates that the Pingree mother-daughter duo both rode the round-trip flight in the luxury of the Business Class.

Explaining the importance of the junket, Pingree wrote on her disclosure form that “this trip will inform Rep. Pingree’s continued work on the Appropriations Committee around policy issues related to energy and the environment.”

“Norway is at the forefront of innovative energy strategies and meeting there facilitates the participation of Norwegian scholars and experts to provide an in-depth analysis of their energy policies,” Pingree wrote.

According to a copy of the agenda for the trip, one of the first keynote speakers was the CEO of Statoil, a major Norwegian oil and energy corporation that had previously cancelled offshore wind development plans due to conflicts with former Gov. Paul LePage (R).

Other speakers included the Board Chairman of Shell Oil and the director of Volkswagen electric vehicle program.

The disclosure form indicates that, while Aspen had organized the trip, some of the funding for the trip had come from the Henry Luce, Democracy Fund, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and MacArthur foundations.

The Democracy Fund is backed primarily by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, a progressive billionaire who has been active in Maine politics via contributions far-left socialists groups, like the Maine People’s Alliance.

In 2023, Pingree flew solo, and justified her trip as necessary for her role as Chair of the Appropriations Interior & Environment Subcommittee.

“Rep. Pingree is especially interested in sustainable, clean-energy innovations a while [sic] ensuring access,” she wrote on the disclosure form.

Pingree once again made the 7,764-mile round trip flight riding business class

Although paid for by Aspen, the form discloses that Aspen had accepted funding from “Breakthrough Energy” and “Climate Imperative”.

Breakthrough Energy is a Bill Gates-founded private company whose backers also include George Soros, Jack Ma, Michael Bloomberg, Reid Hoffman, and Mark Zuckerberg.

In Oslo, Pingree stayed at the city’s $215 per night Grand Hotel, citing “security” as a primary reason for choosing the lux digs. While taking in the sights in Bergen, Pingree stayed at the Hotel Havnekontoret on the coast of the North Sea.

As part of that 2023 junket, Pingree joined a roundtable discussion about how the U.S. Congress could adopt new rules to allow mining of raw materials, like cobalt, lithium, copper, and nickel.

“These minerals are essential building blocks of wind turbines, electric car batteries, and other clean energy infrastructure, and therefore a steady supply to the West is crucial to meet climate goals,” the program said.

In February 2020, just one month before the globe locked down to stop the spread of COVID, Pingree flew business class to spend a week traveling around Japan.

The $13,623 trip was funded by the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC), which paid for Pingree to spend a week traveling across Japan to meet with various officials.

In addition to meetings, the trip’s agenda included time for Pingree to “appreciate” Japanese culture through attending a traditional tea ceremony, multiple trips to historic temples, and a visit to a whiskey distillery.

In 2023, the FMC, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that claims to be non-partisan, awarded its annual “Distinguished Service” award, which historically has gone to current or former U.S. congressmen, to the Ukrainian people.

The organization has also released harsh statements on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, calling the riot “deadly” — even though the only death was that of activist Ashli Babbit — and even comparing it to the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The non-partisan group has issued comments explicitly supporting the Black Lives Matter riots which swept across the nation in 2020 after the death of career criminal George Floyd at the hands of police.

Pingree’s disclosure form for the Japanese vacation seems to admit that it was a personal indulgence, justifying the trip by claiming that “she is interested in Japan and issues related to U.S.-Japan relations, such as energy, trade, security, and social issues.”

While there, she saw the sights in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, and took a chartered bus to various meeting locations.

When in Kyoto, she stayed at the Hyatt Regency “Luxury Hotel” in Kyoto, at a cost of $306 per night.

Her Tokyo accommodations were no less luxurious. She was able to live lavishly at the Hotel New Otani, a five-star luxury hotel which cost $278 per night.

In both cases, Pingree claimed the luxury accommodations were selected because of their proximity to meeting sites, access to public transportation, and their level of comfort.

Jessee Connolly, one of Pingree’s staffers, took a similar FMC-sponsored trip in 2023, although her accommodations were less expensive and were not selected based on comfort.

In a 2023 trip to Bellagio, Italy, Pingree stayed for $299 per night at the Bellagio Center, which is owned by the Rockefeller Foundation, a Democrat mega-donor organization.

Her Italian trip was, like her Oslo adventure, paid for by the Aspen Institute, and also received funding from the Rockefeller Center.

The meeting, which was intended to discuss the global food supply, featured an address by Aspen Institute Vice President Charlie Dent, a former Republican Congressman and vocal critic of former President Donald Trump, who also worked as a CNN commentator.

The event also featured presentations from former Biden White House official and current UNICEF Director Catherine Russell, Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Food Initiative Devon Klatell, and Philippa Purser, an executive at food megacorp Cargill.

Cargill is a left-leaning organization which has given thousands of dollars to far-left political candidates including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and former presidential candidate and current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Pingree’s Italian stay cost, all told, $7,324.

In total, including travel expenses, food, and lodging, Pingrees various trips have cost $106,680 since 2016, with those expenses paid for by organizations which claim not to employ any lobbyists.

The total emissions from her “work trips” do not amount to the total carbon emissions stemming from her cosmopolitan lifestyle, as the records also indicate that Pingree used chartered ground transportation, as opposed to mass transit systems, while exploring some of Europe and Asia’s finest cities.

Even as she adventured the globe on trips paid for by left-wing non-profits, Pingree has worked to portray herself as a congressional leader in combating climate change.

In late June, with the help of her tach-savvy communications staffers, Pingree launched the “Congressional Slow Fashion Caucus,” a PR campaign intended to combat “fast fashion.”

Fast fashion, according to Pingree, is the practice of buying new clothes, then quickly disposing of them once they are no longer fashionable, rather than handing them down or wearing used clothes.

It’s unclear how widespread this behavior is in Maine, where much of the state is more accustomed to shopping at Renys and Marden’s than Louis Vuitton.

“Fast fashion has become hugely popular with consumers. But it comes at a high cost to our planet. Today, nearly two-thirds of all the fibers we wear and use are made from oil. The fashion industry is now responsible for more carbon emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined,” said Pingree.

Pingree’s new caucus has vowed to work to create policy incentives for clothing manufacturers to promote reuse of their products.

Since the start of 2020, Pingree has made roughly 200 posts on X addressing climate change, often calling for a drastic shift in American life, including everything from changes to farming to a complete overhaul of U.S. energy and manufacturing to allow for the goal of a 100 percent carbon-neutral nation by 2050.

It remains unclear why, if Pingree truly believes that the world will become unlivable if CO2 emissions are not drastically reduced, she has continued to engage in unnecessary travel behavior that exacerbates the problem. The purported goal of all of Pingree’s foreign junkets could have been accomplished more easily and with much lower emissions had she utilized video conferencing rather than business class airfare.

Pingree’s use of a private jet belonging to her ex-husband S. Donald Sussman, a billionaire hedge fund manager with lucrative investments in some carbon intensive sectors, has been known ever since the congresswoman was fined by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for failing to report the travel.