gao climate litigation watch

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[staff staff]( https://climatelitigationwatch.org/staff/ horner

not the gao/epa

SEE RULE 23

SEE HORNER AG HIT SCALP ANN CARLSON CRUZ COMER

SEE JOE CRAFT ALLAINCE RES PARTNERS COAL

see SAAG

SEE CLW

see entine

see legislative suppression

DESMOG MURRAY COAL

March 31, 2020

Robert Murray was included in a list by Rolling Stone in an article titled “Climate Enemies: The Men Who Sold the World.” According to the magazine, “bad actors are not only failing to address the crisis, they’re actively exacerbating it.” The list includes “America’s worst offenders, from fossil-fuel industry magnates, to investment gurus, to the president himself.”⁶³

“Murray’s influence extends beyond his floundering dirty-energy company,” the article states. “For years, he pumped money into a diverse portfolio of conservative groups that continue to push disinformation about the climate crisis. Murray also had an oversize influence on Trump’s climate policy, donating $300,000 to his inaugural committee before handing the president a literal wish list of rollback requests, many of which were dutifully carried out by the administration.”⁶⁴

December 17, 2019

Murray Energy bankruptcy filings revealed that the energy company, even while undergoing bankruptcy, had continued to fund a wide range of climate change denial groups. That included theInternational Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), a group that has closely guarded its funding sources, which received $60,000. Other groups named included the Heartland Institute ($130,000), the Competitive Enterprise Institute ($200,000), and Government Accountability & Oversight ($300,000). Murray’s company also donated $60,000 to the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, making it one of the group’s largest donors. See related reporting from The Intercept, Energy and Environment News*, and *The New York Times.⁶⁵ ^66 ^67

Other groups funded by Murray Energy include FreedomWorks, the Cato Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and Judicial Watch. As The New York Times noted, Murray continued to fund climate change denial even as his company was going bankrupt.

May 31, 2018

Based on a draft Department of Energy (DOE) memo obtained by Bloomberg,the Trump administration was making plans to bail out coal and nuclear plants. This followed more than a year of lobbying by Murray for President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Rick Perry to bail out struggling coal plants. *Bloomberg*was the first to report:⁶⁸ ^69

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WAPO SAME DAY NO LNX

The oil industry takes its critics to court

The oil and gas industry is ramping up its attacks on climate Superfund laws.

March 27, 2025

Jodi Kelly and her husband, Dan Kelly, use a canoe to remove surgical supplies from a flooded area in Montpelier, Vermont, on July 11, 2023. (Steven Senne/AP)

By Maxine Joselow and Anna Phillips

At the White House last week, the nation’s top oil executives asked President Donald Trump for help fighting state laws that seek billions of dollars from fossil fuel companies.

In Michigan, a group with ties to the fossil fuel industry is suing to obtain the emails of a professor who supports these laws.

And in North Dakota, the oil company that operates the Dakota Access pipeline last week won a $667 million defamation judgment in its lawsuit against an environmental group.

Across the country, fossil fuel firms are ramping up a decades-long fight against policymakers, academics and activists who have sought to make them pay for their role in causing climate change. They are taking particular aim at “climate Superfund laws,” which seek billions of dollars from oil companies to help cover the costs of coping with stronger storms, rising seas and other weather disasters fueled by rising global temperatures.

“I’m seeing a tectonic shift in the way the fossil fuel industry is now going on the offense,” said Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor and senior fellow for climate policy at Vermont Law School.

Follow Trump’s second term

New York and Vermont have each enacted climate Superfund laws modeled after the 1980 federal Superfund law, which requires polluting companies to pay for cleaning up hazardous waste sites. At least seven other Democratic-led states are considering similar bills, according to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

Vermont became the first state to pass a climate Superfund law in June — nearly a year after catastrophic flooding caused millions of dollars in damage to roads, bridges, homes and businesses. Scientists have said global warming increased the likelihood of the extreme rainfall that triggered the flooding, since a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture.

Vermont’s measure, which Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed to become law without his signature, charges fossil fuel firms for the greenhouse gas emissions they produced between 1995 and 2024. It doesn’t specify how much money should be paid. Instead, it tasks the state treasurer with calculating the costs of responding to past climate damage and preparing for future climate disasters. The final tally is expected to be comprehensive, factoring in possible expenses such as lower worker productivity amid extreme heat.

In contrast, the climate Superfund law signed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in December would fine the largest greenhouse gas emitters $3 billion annually for the next 25 years. The charges would be based on the companies’ contributions to overall emissions between 2000 and 2018.

Seeking Trump’s support

As Trump sat with the nation’s top oil and gas executives at the White House last week, he asked what was on their minds.

In response, the executives asked for help battling climate Superfund laws, according to two oil industry representatives who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation. The Wall Street Journal first reported this request.

Executives also complained about dozens of climate lawsuits brought by state and local governments against oil companies, the two industry representatives said. The lawsuits accuse the companies of deceiving the public for decades about the harms they knew their petroleum products would cause — an allegation the industry rejects.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, left, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright deliver remarks outside the White House after meeting with oil executives on March 19. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

After listening to the executives’ concerns, Trump told a White House staffer to look for ways the administration could help, the two industry representatives said. The president did not commit to taking any specific actions, they said.

Some industry executives want the Justice Department to sue New York and Vermont over their climate Superfund laws. The American Petroleum Institute (API), the U.S. oil and gas industry’s top lobbying arm, has already sued over Vermont’s law, alleging that it encroaches on the federal government’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s biggest business lobby, joined the lawsuit filed in December. The two groups argued that Vermont lacked the authority to impose penalties on greenhouse gas emissions beyond its borders — an authority, they said, that the Clean Air Act reserves for the federal government.

“This partisan legislation illegally and retroactively penalizes U.S. oil and natural gas producers for delivering the energy consumers need, and that should be a concern for our leaders in Washington,” Justin Prendergast, an API spokesman, said in an email. “We are exploring all options to correct this overreach by certain states.”

Representatives for several executives who attended last week’s meeting — including the CEOs of Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Phillips 66 — declined to comment or did not return requests for comment. A White House official said the meeting focused on boosting oil production on federal lands in red states.

:Republican-led states are also coming to the industry’s defense. A coalition of 22 red states, led by West Virginia, sued New York over its climate Superfund law in February, arguing that it would put coal and oil producers out of business.

Critics of climate Superfund laws also argue that they unfairly punish oil companies instead of consumers who use fossil fuels, whether to drive their cars or heat their homes.

“It’s actually not the companies’ production of fossil fuels that created the emissions — it’s the use of the fuels,” said Jeff Holmstead, a partner at the law and lobbying firm Bracewell LLP, which represents energy industry clients. “You can’t have one without the other.”

Proponents of these laws counter that they would raise funds desperately needed for withstanding the worsening effects of warming. They argue this money is already coming out of the pockets of taxpayers, who might not be able to afford it — and who have produced far fewer emissions than fossil fuel firms.

“The idea that the companies who bear responsibility are now scheming with the president in order to avoid being held accountable is sickening,” said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy group that supported Vermont’s law. “For those whose homes were washed away, whose farms were destroyed, it’s the worst kind of insult to injury.”

Targeting an academic

The industry’s allies have targeted climate Superfund laws, as well as an academic who has advocated for them.

In May, the nonprofit Government Accountability and Oversight sued the University of Michigan in an effort to obtain emails between Rachel Rothschild, an assistant law professor, and a collection of environmental advocacy groups in 2023. The group accused the university, which is subject to state public records requests, of refusing to search for the emails before ultimately denying its request.

While Government Accountability and Oversight does not disclose its funding sources, bankruptcy filings show that it received $300,000 from Murray Energy, a coal company now operating under the name American Consolidated Natural Resources. When the group was incorporated in D.C. in 2018, business filings also listed its CEO as Chris Horner, a lawyer who previously worked for the coal company Alpha Natural Resources.

The group later followed up with a second public records request, this time for correspondence related to a “Climate Superfund Act Memorandum” that Rothschild had written. Zach Larsen, a lawyer for Government Accountability and Oversight, said the group should be able to view such correspondence because Rothschild is a public employee.

“This suit seeks to enforce the Legislature’s promise of transparency by sorting out whether Professor Rothschild’s work on Climate Superfund Acts, about which she regularly speaks, advocates, and publishes scholarship all using her University title … is related to her official duties as a public employee such that the public has a right to know about it,” Larsen said in an email.

Rothschild has testified in support of climate Superfund legislation in several states, including Vermont. In her work, she has examined potential flaws in the oil industry’s legal arguments against these measures. She has raised doubts about the industry’s claim that, under the Constitution, federal law preempts states from passing statutes that seek to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for damage linked to climate change.

“Part of the reason that I think these companies are going to President Trump with their concerns is because the preemption argument right now is fairly weak,” Rothschild said in an interview.

Rothschild declined to comment on the lawsuit, which is pending in state court. Horner and a lawyer for the University of Michigan did not respond to requests for comment.

Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the UCLA School of Law, said the same group had previously targeted her, her colleagues and law school donors with more than a dozen public records requests seeking emails related to climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. After the university released the records, Carlson said a conservative dark-money group used them to attack her nomination to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In the end, with her Senate confirmation in doubt, President Joe Biden named her acting administrator of the agency.

Carlson said the campaign against her had a chilling effect.

“It absolutely gives people pause about what they’re willing to work on,” she said. “It may chill outside groups, like nonprofits, and their willingness to work with academics at public institutions.”

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NYT

NO LNX

She Inspired Laws to Hold the Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable. Now She’s a Target.

A conservative group is suing for emails of a law professor who helped create legislation to force oil, gas and coal companies to pay for climate damage.

By Coral Davenport

March 27, 2025

Fresh out of law school in 2022, Rachel Rothschild wrote a memo laying out the legal justification for a new strategy to fight climate change: States could force oil and gas companies to pay for the damage caused by extreme floods and wildfires that are made worse by the use of their products.

Ms. Rothschild’s work was foundational. It provided the basis for the nation’s first “climate superfund” laws, which were passed in New York and Vermont last year and could be adopted by as many as six more states as soon as this year. If implemented, they could cost oil companies billions of dollars.

Her work made Ms. Rothschild a target. She is one of a number of lawyers, law professors and judges who have been the focus of a campaign to discredit them led by a conservative group with ties to the fossil fuel industry and the Trump administration.

Shortly after the passage of the Vermont law last June, the group sued the University of Michigan, where Ms. Rothschild now teaches, after the university refused its request for Ms. Rothschild’s emails related to “climate superfunds.” As a public institution, the university is subject to the state’s public records law. The group, called Government Accountability and Oversight, has also sought to have Ms. Rothschild undergo a deposition.

The university, which has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, maintains Ms. Rothschild’s communications are not subject to public records requests because they were written on her private email account. Still, the university told Ms. Rothschild that she must comply with the request for a deposition.

Experts said the actions against Ms. Rothschild seemed designed to discourage her or others from similar work.

“Legal actions and public records requests may be used in a manner that can intimidate or silence scholars, and when that happens, it threatens not only the targeted individuals but also the progress of knowledge and informed debate,” Kyle Logue, the interim dean of the University of Michigan Law School, said in a statement.

The actions regarding Ms. Rothschild appear to be part of a campaign by the fossil fuel industry to quash new legal tools for holding companies accountable for climate pollution. As President Trump moves to end federal efforts to fight climate change, the new state-level “polluter-pays” laws and lawsuits are seen as the next frontier in the battle over global warming.

Image

Protesters unfurl a banner sign outside an office building that shows the Statue of Liberty partially submerged in rising waters. The sign says, "Gov. Hochul: Sign or Sink! Make Polluters Pay!"

Climate activists held a rally outside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office in Manhattan to deliver thousands of petitions asking her to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act last year.Credit...Erik McGregor/Sipa USA, via Reuters Connect

Executives from nearly two dozen oil and gas companies raised their concerns about the climate superfund laws at a meeting last week with President Trump at the White House. They want the Justice Department to file briefs in support of their litigation against the state laws, said two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting.

The campaign is being waged by a group that has largely been funded by the foundation created by Joseph Craft III, chief executive of the nation’s third largest coal company and an ally of and campaign donor to President Trump.

Ms. Rothschild’s initial memo — now making its way through statehouses — laid out the case for states to use the model of the 1980 Superfund law, which requires polluters to pay to clean abandoned toxic waste sites, and apply it to the climate damage caused by emissions from the burning of oil, gas and coal. Lawmakers in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Connecticut are now considering climate superfund legislation.

In addition, more than 30 lawsuits have been filed by states and municipalities aimed at forcing oil and gas companies to pay for repairs or adaptations linked to damage from climate change. Many of those cases, some of which could end up before the Supreme Court, argue that the companies knew for years about the dangers of climate change linked to their products but concealed that information.

The approach is similar to those of past lawsuits that led to landmark settlements with the tobacco industry and opioid manufacturers.

The fossil fuel industry counters that climate change is a global problem and that individual state laws are an unconstitutional attempt to assert control over the nation’s energy system.

“These extraordinary, unprecedented laws impose massive retroactive penalties going back decades for lawful, out-of-state conduct that was regulated by Congress,” said Daryl Joseffer, executive vice president and chief counsel for the litigation arm of the United States Chamber of Commerce, which has sued both New York and Vermont to overturn the climate superfund laws.

Twenty-two other states, led by their Republican attorneys general, are challenging the New York law in federal court.

Ryan Meyers, senior vice president and general counsel at the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group that is also fighting to overturn the climate superfund laws in New York and Vermont, said they were part of “a coordinated campaign against an industry that is vital to everyday life and serves as the engine of America’s economy.”

A key player in the campaign to stop the effort to hold fossil fuel companies financially accountable for damages is Christopher Horner, a lawyer and conservative activist who served on the transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency during Mr. Trump’s first term.

For years, Mr. Horner has used public records laws to unearth emails of climate scientists and disseminate them in ways that aim to undermine their work.

“Chris Horner is the nation’s most prolific user of FOIA and its state equivalents to go after anyone fighting climate change who works for a public entity,” said Michael Gerrard, an expert in climate law at Columbia University.

In 2011, the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science complained that Mr. Horner was making “unreasonable, excessive Freedom of Information Act requests for personal information and voluminous data that are then used to harass and intimidate scientists.”

When President Barack Obama tried to pass a climate law, allies of Mr. Horner worked to spread the emails of climate scientists, gathered by Mr. Horner, to Republicans in Congress.

In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Horner said that had helped kill the bill.

Now, Mr. Horner and his allies are focused on the architects behind the “polluter pays” laws.

Mr. Horner did not respond to several requests for comment.

From 2018 to 2021, Mr. Horner served as a board member for Government Accountability and Oversight, the group that filed suit against Ms. Rothschild. As recently as January, Mr. Horner wrote an article for The Washington Reporter, a conservative media website, in which he said he represented the Government Accountability and Oversight group in federal and state open records matters.

According to public records, a major donor to the group is a nonprofit foundation formed by Mr. Craft, the chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners, the country’s third largest coal company. The Joseph Craft III Foundation contributed $300,000 a year to the Government Accountability and Oversight group from 2020 to 2023, for a total of $1.2 million, according to its public tax filings. That appears to make it a major funder of the group’s activities: During those years, G.A.O.’s total annual revenue averaged $576,172.

Mr. Craft and his wife, Kelly, who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the first Trump administration, have given nearly $3 million to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaigns, the Republican Party and a Republican super PAC.

Image

Joseph Craft III, dressed in a dark sports jacket, white shirt, dark pants and sunglasses, walks on a brick sidewalk next to Kelly Craft, who is wearing a white blouse, a black and white polka-dot skirt and pointy shoes.

Joseph Craft III with his wife, Kelly, in Washington in 2018.Credit...Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Craft foundation and Alliance Resource Partners did not respond to requests for comment.

Matthew Hardin, who serves on the board of Government Accountability and Oversight, wrote in a statement, “Like all nonprofits, G.A.O. relies on contributions from donors to fulfill its independent, charitable mission of seeking transparency in public institutions and educating the public.”

The group’s interest in Ms. Rothschild appears focused on her communications with Lee Wasserman, the director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, a philanthropy that has supported efforts to sue oil companies over what it calls climate deception.

It was Mr. Wasserman who first wondered if lawmakers could combine the old Superfund law with new penalties for climate polluters.

Mr. Wasserman brought the idea to the Institute for Policy Integrity, a nonprofit research organization that is housed in New York University’s law school, where Ms. Rothschild was then working as a fellow. She researched whether the idea could stand up legally. The Rockefeller Family Fund donated $50,000 to the Institute for Policy Integrity to fund her research, which led New York and Vermont lawmakers to propose legislation.

When it comes to climate and environmental matters, states often rely on academics for legal advice because many private law firms represent fossil fuel companies, which can create a conflict of interest.

After writing her memo, Ms. Rothschild joined the faculty at the University of Michigan, where she continued to work on climate superfund legislation in her free time, briefing lawmakers and testifying before legislative committees.

“I’m proud of the fact that I do a lot of pro bono work in areas where I have particular expertise, and I was glad I could help states like Vermont and New York draft these laws,” she said in a statement.

Ms. Rothschild’s pro bono work was “critical” to passage of the law in New York, said Justin Flagg, director of environmental policy for Liz Krueger, a Democratic New York state senator who sponsored the legislation. “This was something that had not yet been tested in court,” he added. “So we really hung our hat on her analysis.”

Environmental law professors at other public universities have been targets of similar campaigns. During the Biden administration, Mr. Horner used the state public records law to obtain the emails of Ann Carlson, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ms. Carlson, who had consulted on climate damage lawsuits, was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to run a federal agency that writes rules aimed at reducing climate-warming tailpipe pollution — a position requiring Senate confirmation.

Government Accountability and Oversight gave Ms. Carlson’s emails to Fox News, which published stories about her on its website including one titled, “Biden nominee coordinated dark money climate nuisance lawsuits involving Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Image

Ann Carlson, who has shoulder-length wavy brown hair and large glasses, looks into the distance.

Professor Ann Carlson at the University of California, Los Angeles.Credit...Joyce Kim for The New York Times

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, used the emails to fight Ms. Carlson’s confirmation, at one point calling her an “ethically challenged, environmental zealot.” He introduced an amendment on the Senate floor to strip the salary from her position.

While the amendment failed, she ultimately withdrew her nomination, although she did end up serving in the role in an acting capacity.

“It was ruthless, relentless and baseless,” Ms. Carlson said of the experience of having her emails used against her. “This is a tactic designed to dissuade people from working on important climate policies.”

The campaign has extended to at least one judge. In 2023, Mark Recktenwald, the chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court, wrote a unanimous decision that the local government in Honolulu could move forward with a climate liability lawsuit against major oil companies.

Justice Recktenwald gave a remote presentation to the Environmental Law Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that runs seminars on environmental litigation.

Conservative media outlets including as The Daily Caller and Fox News ran stories noting that a member of the institute’s board had worked at a law firm that defended the climate law in the Honolulu case. The stories did not mention that oil executives also serve on the institute’s board. Justice Recktenwald had also asked both parties in the Honolulu lawsuit for any concerns about his plans to speak at the seminar, and neither side had objected.

But in virtually every story, a group called Energy Policy Advocates, which has named Mr. Horner as its lawyer, charged that Justice Recktenwald’s participation showed improper bias.

Justice Recktenwald declined to comment. The effort to devalue the legal scholars involved in the climate cases reflects the potential impact of the new laws and litigation, experts said.

“These new state laws and this avalanche of lawsuits are threatening the survival of these fossil fuel companies,” said Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.

Karen Zraick contributed reporting.

Coral Davenport covers energy and environment policy, with a focus on climate change, for The Times.

A version of this article appears in print on March 29, 2025, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Her Work Inspired Climate Superfund Laws. Now She’s a Target..

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The Key Players will include environmental activists, plaintiff law firms and the individuals and organizations who have devised and financed this effort.

350.org

DeSmog Blog

BlackRock

Steve Coll

Ceres

CGSJ

Dan Cantor

Serge Dedina

Roland C. “Kert” Davies III

Sharon Eubanks

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Peter Frumhoff

Rockefeller Family Fund

Greenpeace

John Passacantando

Climate Hawks

David Hayes

InsideClimate News

Kevin Kirchner

Hugh Lawson

Bill McKibben

Carroll Muffett

RL Miller

Climate Liability News

Naomi Oreskes

Matthew Pawa

Susanne RustHuffington Post: “When A Journalist Crosses From Science To Ideology: Climate Change And The Case Of Susanne Rust,” by Jon Entine (4/29/17)

UCS

David Sassoon

Tom Steyer

Lee Wasserman

Climate Litigation Watch

Government Accountability & Oversight

10 23 p 1 of 145

AO Files Reply in New Jersey OPRA Case Over Secretive Climate Litigation Contract

October 6, 2023

Read GAO’s Reply in Support of its Motion to Show Cause in GAO v. OAG under New Jersey’s Open Records Act (OPRA). This action seeks an unredacted copy of New Jersey’s agreement with a litigation firm to file the Garden State’s entry in the cavalcade of climate lawsuits by progressive-led political offices chasing a “sustainable […]

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Congressional Inquiry Into Climate Litigation Industry

September 25, 2023

CLW readers will recognize the themes set forth in this letter, sent today by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Ranking Senate Commerce Committee member Sen. Ted Cruz and reported first here. While addressed to a law firm engaged by numerous progressive elected officials—to which these politicians promised so many millions out of their […]

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Rundown on Climate Courts Run Amok

August 17, 2023

Montana weighed in with its entry in the climate kidz sweepstakes with a trial court opinion which, for so long as it lasts, is worth examining. The Wall Street Journal editorial board captured the affair nicely (excerpt below, read the entire item here): … As did Legal Newsline: And National Review:

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Honolulu-lulu II

June 9, 2023

Following up on this post, it seems the Hawai’i Supreme Court has completely reversed course — and CLW means completely — when it comes to releasing records about its justices’ participation in the climate litigation industry’s seminars to parade plaintiffs’ witnesses and amicus filers in front of as many judges as possible who might hear […]

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Honolulu-lulu

May 24, 2023

Following up on this item, CLW has learned that the Hawai’i state Supreme Court has released a few records to Energy Policy Advocates pertaining to the remarkable series of ‘seminars’ — launched after two setbacks in court for the band of litigious warriors in 2018 — for judges to hear from plaintiffs’ counsel, plaintiffs’ witnesses, […]

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A-Whoa-hah

May 16, 2023

Sunshine law revelations prompt (deeply selective) judicial disclosure Energy Policy Advocates has an eye-opening post about the Hawai’i courts, and the involvement of judges with the climate litigation industry, piggybacking on CLW revelations. Click the link to read the whole thing.

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Mahalo, Energy Policy Advocates

April 18, 2023

Courtesy of the transparency-in-government group Energy Policy Advocates, CLW sees this selection from a University of Hawaii Law School document production, pertaining to that institution playing its part to support the climate litigation industry. Nicely capturing the machinations are the emails showing how the imported event, imported media coverage — and even imported oped published […]

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Connect(icut)-ing the Dots: Email provides further hints about propriety of FOI Commission’s “Spontaneous and Unexplained Reversal”

March 20, 2023

What’s ‘Due Process’? Email shows FOI Commission all on the same “Teams” Possibly explains bizarre flip-flop after AG implied tough times ahead for errant FOI Commissions As CLW readers recall, CT OAG not only sought (and got) a Bloomberg-provided activist attorney to help drive the donor’s agenda through the public’s office, but then filed suit […]

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Climate Plaintiffs’ Own-goal: It Really is About a “Sustainable Funding Stream”

February 17, 2023

Video of litigation pitch adds to evidence that lawsuits seek dough to pay for pols’ pet projects CLW readers will remember the admission — reflected in two independent sets of notes taken at a meeting at the Rockefeller family mansion at Pocantico — that governmental “climate” litigation is not actually about “combatting climate change” but is […]

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...

Maybe They Should Talk

February 17, 2023

“At CCI we really do focus on supporting municipalities and states [rather than businesses] bringing cases to support all of the different facets within the state, and what they support… With one caveat I will mention here. One of the cases that has been filed that we do support was brought by a fishermen’s association […]

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Inside “Attribution” Advocacy

February 14, 2023

CLW has recently posted two items including “unlisted” YouTube video seminars from the plaintiff-recruitment process, released in public information by ‘recruitee’ New Jersey municipalities. A next video sets forth how to advance the industry’s claims about “Attributing Climate Change Impacts to Fossil Fuel Companies”. CLW readers know the history of the plaintiffs’ emerging argument that […]

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More Candid Climate Camera

February 14, 2023

Recent CLW posts have laid out public information obtained by Energy Policy Advocates opening a window into the climate litigation industry, and specifically plaintiff-recruitment. Continuing in that vein, CLW notes another video released by a New Jersey municipality being wooed by the Rockefeller Family Fund litigant-recruitment vehicle called the “Center for Climate Integrity”, and its […]

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===

fox

no lnx docs

Leonardo DiCaprio's non-profit foundation awarded grants to a dark money group which, in turn, funneled money to a law firm spearheading climate nuisance lawsuits nationwide, according to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital.

Correspondence between Dan Emmett, a major philanthropist, and Ann Carlson — a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) climate professor — in 2017 revealed that the two worked with law firm Sher Edling to raise money for its efforts to sue oil companies over alleged climate change deception on behalf of state and local governments, according to the emails obtained by watchdog group Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) and shared with Fox News Digital.

In their emails, Emmett and Carlson discuss how Chuck Savitt, Sher Edling's director of strategic client relationships, had sought Emmett's support and had already received support from Terry Tamminen in his role as the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation's CEO, a title he held between 2016 and 2019. When the emails were exchanged, Carlson, who is now a senior Biden administration official, served as co-director of the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment, the advisory board which Emmett still chairs.

"Chuck Savitt who is heading this new organization behind the lawsuits has been seeking our support," Emmett wrote to Carlson on July 22, 2017. "Terry Tamminen in his new role with the DiCaprio Foundation has been a key supporter."

[CLIMATE ACTIVISTS EMBRACE EXTREME TACTICS, VIOLENCE AS DEADLINE TO 'SAVE THE PLANET' DRAWS NEAR

doc.

Emmett mentions to Carlson that the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation has been a "key supporter" of Sher Edling's litigation. (Government Accountability & Oversight)

Emmett also forwarded a message Savitt sent him three days earlier on July 19, 2022 asking for his support, according to the records. Savitt mentioned in that email that Sher Edling's first lawsuits were filed with the support of the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptation, a fund managed at the time by dark money group Resources Legacy Fund (RLF).

"Wanted to let you know that we filed the first three lawsuits supported by the Collective Action Fund on Monday," Savitt had told Emmett. "These precedent setting cases call on 37 of the world's leading fossil fuel companies to take responsibility for the devastating damage sea level rise - caused by their greenhouse gas emissions - is having on coastal communities."

Savitt also offered to set up a meeting between Emmett and Vic Sher, a partner at Sher Edling.

The email correspondence took place two months before the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation publicly announced it would contribute $20 million in grants to various climate and conservation causes. The group's announcement, which has since been deleted but remains archived, included a grant to the RLF "to support precedent-setting legal actions to hold major corporations in the fossil fuel industry liable," closely mirroring Savitt's language.

[ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS KEEP PUSHING EXTREME MEASURES AMID GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS

"These grantees are active on the ground, protecting our oceans, forests and endangered species for future generations – and tackling the urgent, existential challenges of climate change," DiCaprio said at the time.

Tamminen added that the organization believed it needed "to do as much as we can now, before it is too late." The announcement didn't mention Sher Edling.

[Vic Sher, a partner at law firm Sher Edling, speaks about the climate litigation he is involved in during a virtual panel in December. (American Museum of Tort Law/YouTube)

In February 2018, months after the initial email exchange, Emmett told Carlson that she could mention to other prospective donors that he and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation were now "serious supporters" of Sher Edling's ongoing litigation. The suggestion came after Carlson asked whether she should ask New York philanthropist Andy Sabin to support the effort.

"You can tell him Terry's organization and I are both serious supporters, that you are an advisor, that the science is there, that it could do more for the environment than just about anything going on if it succeeds," Emmett said in the email Carlson.

In addition to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and the Emmett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and JPB Foundation have contributed to the Collective Action Fund since 2017.

[TRIAL LAWYERS BENEFITING FROM LUCRATIVE PUBLIC CONTRACTS MAKE 99% OF DONATIONS TO DEMOCRATS, REPORT FINDS

Sher Edling's website states that the firm is specifically dedicated to representing "states, cities, public agencies, and businesses in high-impact, high-value environmental cases." Since its initial cases in July 2017 — filed on behalf of a city and two counties in California — Sher Edling has sued major oil companies on behalf of Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, Honolulu and several local governments across the country, alleging the companies have deceived the public about climate change.

Most of the cases are ongoing with two, involving San Francisco and Oakland, Calfornia, on appeal before a federal panel.

doc:

Dan Emmett emails Ann Carlson, saying she can mention to prospective donors that he and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, at the time led by CEO Terry Tamminen, are "serious supporters" of Sher Edling's litigation. (Government Accountability & Oversight)

"Obviously, the donors created — including DiCaprio — several purported arms' lengths,"Chris Horner, a lawyer who represented GAO in the case involving the emails, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

"This model used a couple of pass-throughs, by which DiCaprio and, it appears, Dan Emmett and others could run things, including DiCaprio's foundation and Resources Legacy Fund, and they're not seen as financing the assault," Horner added.

Overall, the RLF contributed more than $5.2 million to Sher Edling between 2017 and 2020, according to the group's tax filings during that period.The organization doesn't disclose its donors and declined to confirm who it previously received money from to fund Sher Edling's litigation.

[KAMALA HARRIS NEVER 'SUED EXXON MOBIL,' DESPITE HER CLAIM ON CNN: REPORTS

"From 2017 to 2020, Sher Edling received grants from RLF to pursue charitable activities to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the accuracy of information they had disseminated to consumers and the public about the role their products played in causing climate change," an RLF spokesperson Mark Kleinman told Fox News Digital in an email.

"RLF receives support from many funding entities, and its board of directors and staff make all decisions as to where the funding goes," the spokesperson continued.

Sher Edling declined to comment.

Leonardo DiCaprio is pictured during a film premiere on July 22, 2019. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Experts have previously raised concerns regarding the source of Sher Edling's funding for its climate litigation.

Michael Krauss, a law professor emeritus at George Mason University,noted in a 2020 Forbes article the arrangement in which Sher Edling receives a payout from localities it represents if its cases are successful while, at the same time, it receives funding from tax-exempt groups, thereby removing some risk involved with taking on such cases.

"Can a non-profit funnel donations to a for-profit law firm that has already determined a different form of compensation?" Kraus wrote. "May a law firm, which could be fabulously enriched on a contingent basis, ethically accept funding that is paid whether or not the client prevails?"

"If legislation through litigation is bad, what to make of legislation through litigation subsidized by taxpayers through charitable donations? We don’t have all the answers to these questions yet," he continued. "I think we deserve them."

[CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Emmett, Tamminen, Sabin and the Earth Alliance, an organization that subsumed the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 2019, didn't respond to requests for comment.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer at Fox News Digital

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ref 2 lnx docs

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/leonardo-dicaprio-funneled-grants-dark-money-group-fund-climate-nuisance-lawsuits-emails-show

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realclear invest links to EID?!

no docs

https://eidclimate.org/failure-to-disclose-new-report-exposes-academics-with-financial-ties-to-law-firms/

no lnx see realclear invest

FAILURE TO DISCLOSE: NEW REPORT EXPOSES ACADEMICS WITH FINANCIAL TIES TO LAW FIRMS

MAY 24, 2021| WILLIAM ALLISON

Just a week after the bombshell admission that a Harvard academic is working under a retainer agreement with a top plaintiffs’ attorney firm without any previous disclosure,a new report puts the spotlight on this practice happening at universities across the country.

The report, “Private Funders, Public Institutions: ‘Climate’ Litigation and a Crisis of Integrity,” published by [NOT THE REAL]Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. (GAO), uncovers the coordination taking place between public officials, activist organizations, wealthy donors, and university faculty to bring climate change-related cases against energy companies, with a specific focus on the lawsuit filed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in June 2020.

Why the Naomi Oreskes-Sher Edling Retainer Presents Multiple Conflicts of Interest

The GAO report’s release couldn’t have come at a more apt time. Earlier this month, news broke that Harvard professor and longtime climate litigation activist Naomi Oreskes is on retainer with Sher Edling, LLP, the environmental plaintiffs’ law firm representing the majority of municipalities and states, including Minnesota, that have filed climate change lawsuits against the energy industry in recent years.

When Oreskes and fellow Harvard researcher Geoffrey Supran released a new study focused on climate change communications (that was just as flawed as their previous work), they did not seem prepared for the news that Oreskes is on retainer with Sher Edling to break. Notably, this wasn’t disclosed via a game of telephone, either, but Oreskes herself said so while under oath in a recent deposition.

It now appears that Oreskes sought to redefine her business relationship with Sher Edling after it hit the press, as she and Supran provided several different explanations to reporters when asked about her retainer disclosure. While Oreskes may be uncertain about the nature of her involvement with Sher Edling and its implications, others are not.

Academics took to Twitter to point out that this relationship should absolutely been disclosed:

A significant (an undisclosed) conflict of interesthttps://t.co/IPX2PgtsJ8

— Judith Curry(@curryja) May 14, 2021

Shot ‘n Chaser

LEFT – Authors of new paper about Exxon-Mobil complicity in downplaying climate states they have no relevant financial ties

RIGHT – Same author disclosing in a recent deposition (Mann vs CEI) that she is on retainer for a law firm suing Exxon-Mobil

This is fine pic.twitter.com/UGTxjAPizf

— Roger Pielke Jr.(@RogerPielkeJr) May 14, 2021

The Academic-Activist Behind the Curtain in Minnesota

The report shows that Oreskes is far from the only academic who is working directly with top attorneys involved in the climate litigation campaign.

In Minnesota, the report outlines the critical role that University of Minnesota law professor Alexandra Klassplayed in orchestratingAttorney General Ellison’s lawsuit. In April 2019, she signed a memo titled “Potential Lawsuit against Fossil Fuel Companies for Minnesota Climate Change Damages” to be shared with the newly sworn-in Ellison.

Newly released documents in the report show that Klass was approached by anoutside activist groupthat provided funding for her students to write the memo, reviewed by other attorneys supporting climate litigation, and backed by theRockefeller network that has manufactured entire national litigation campaign.

None of this involvement by Klass was ever disclosed to the public, whether when moderating a forum on campus with Ellison, providing quotes in local newspapers, or in podcasts discussing the lawsuit.

Highlighting emails obtained through public records requests, the report shows that in late 2018, Klass was approached by Michael Noble, executive director of local activist group Fresh Energy about enlisting her help with potential litigation in Minnesota. In conversations with Klass, Noble spoke of a “big idea” and sent along climate pleadings from previously filed cases, and that he was looking for Klass’s “reaction (and hopefully enthusiasm).”

Roughly one month later, in December 2018, Noble asked if Klass wanted “to do a phone call with the lawyers advising the Rockefeller family fund” (sic) and the climate case was off to the metaphorical races.

Image via GAO

By early 2019, Klass had a contract through Fresh Energy to hire several law students to assist her in drafting the legal memo focused on a potential Minnesota climate change lawsuit that was eventually sent to Ellison.

Image via GAO]

In October 2019, Klass helped to host a panel discussion at the University of Minnesota Law School on “the legal and scientific case for recovering climate change damages in Minnesota from fossil fuel companies” which featured both Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Sher Edling’s Vic Sher, whose law firm now represents Minnesota in its climate change deception case.

At the time, the event was framed as an academic discussion. But what the public didn’t know was that Klass had already written a memo to Ellison earlier that year laying out the proposed legal theories that could back a climate change-focused lawsuit targeting the energy industry. Furthermore, the event was coordinated by Sam Duggan – one of the students who helped write the memo.

Despite her direct involvement in the drafting of the lawsuit, Klass has continued to present herself as an impartial expert on Minnesota state law. When Ellison initially filed his climate case last summer, Klass was quoted in news stories, including coverage from the Minneapolis Star Tribune as a professor of environmental law and thus, a neutral third-party expert. To date, she has not publicly spoken about her lack of disclosure regarding her involvement in helping put the idea of climate litigation in front of Ellison.

Efforts to keep government actions hidden from the public has even extended to Ellison’s office.Earlier this year, Ellison wrote an op-ed in the Star Tribune touting his office’s transparency, but the hiring of two Bloomberg-funded Special Assistant Attorneys General from another university – the NYU Law School’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center – raises serious questions. Ellison’s claim that these SAAGs “report to me and no one else,” and thus solely loyalty is to Minnesota taxpayers, is hard to believe when the job description for a similar position with the New York Attorney General explained:

“Fellows hosted by the OAG as special assistants will have responsibilities that include… preparing periodic reports of activities and progress for the State Impact Center.”

The Group in the Middle of It All? The Rockefellers

To the surprise of no one who has is even remotely familiar with the climate litigation campaign, the Rockefellers are one of the common threads between Oreskes and Klass.

The Rockefeller Family Fund supported all three of Oreskes’ major studies focused on the energy industry,and if there was any doubt that the wealthy foundation that supports climate litigation wouldn’t have any subjective effect on this research, then let Oreskes herself explain how the source of a researcher’s funding can lead to unconscious bias.

As Oreskes stated in published a letter she co-authored in 2015:

“But the issue is deeper than one of obeying rules; the important question is why those rules are necessary. The answer is that even if we think of ourselves as honest, objective, and independent, scientific evidence demonstrates that our research can be influenced by the sources of our funding… Many of us are reluctant to accept this funding because it seems to imply that our colleagues—including individuals we may know and respect—have been corrupted. Corruption exists, but the funding effect may more often be the result of unconscious bias.” (emphasis added)

In Minnesota, the Rockefeller Family Fund has been just as active. The group, and its director Lee Wasserman in particular, put the idea of a climate lawsuit in front of Michael Noble right after Ellison was elected in November 2018, as the report shows:

Image via GAO]

In turn, Noble then went to Klass where he explained the Rockefeller Family Fund’s role in supporting a climate lawsuit in Minnesota:

Images via GAO]

The “lawyers advising Rockefeller family fund” that Noble mentions is the Center for Climate Integrity, an activist group that’s supporting climate lawsuits across the country and which has received more than $3 million from the Rockefeller Family Fund. The group was also a sponsor of the 2019 panel that Ellison and Klass attended, and two senior officials from the group, Judith Enck andAlyssa Johl, provided feedback on Klass’s memo:

Images via GAO

With the memo prepared, Noble then went about bringing all the threads togethers by arranging a meeting of the key players, including Klass and officials with the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Center for Climate Integrity:

Finally, shortly after Ellison introduced the lawsuit, Noble couldn’t help but tout his own work when he admitted on a public webinar that he and the Rockefeller-funded Center for Center for Climate Integrity convinced the attorney general to file the case.

West Coast Edition

The coordination among academics and law firms is indeed happening from coast to coast, includingAnn Carlson, the UCLA Law professortaking a leave of absence to serve in the Biden Administration.

Previously, Carlson has worked as a consultant with Sher Edling, the same firm that has Naomi Oreskes on retainer. Carlson also appeared on a panel discussion on climate litigation alongside Vic Sher at the University of Hawai’i Richardson School of Law in May 2019, just ten months before the City & County of Honolulu filed its own climate lawsuit.

The report outlines Carlson’s work at theUCLA Law School and the financial support she received:

“Consider another relevant example, revealed in a recent public-record production obtained from UCLA Law School by Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. That production of documents revealed certain details of how donors named Dan Emmett and Ralph and Shirley Shapiro gave a combined $1.5 million to a ‘Carlson discretionary fund’ which, according to the Shapiros’ instruction, is ‘to be used at the discretion of Professor Ann Carlson… in her sole discretion as she deems appropriate.’” (emphasis added)

Conclusion

As Energy In Depth as shown for years, the Rockefellers have manufactured the entire climate litigation campaign and their work hasn’t slowed down.

This new paper from Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. uncovers the role that academics have played in supporting these lawsuits with Minnesota the latest example of the lack of disclosure between government officials, activist groups, and college professors.

Added on top of the bombshell news that Harvard professorNaomi Oreskes is on retainer with a top plaintiffs firm, this nationally coordinated campaign becomes more interconnected by the day.

about --> professionalS = 1

Horner works for Government Accountability & Oversight after spending twenty years with the free-market/classical liberal think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute. As an attorney in Washington, D.C. for over twenty five years, Horner’s clients have included policy groups, scientists, and members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate on matters of environmental policy, in addition to providing regulatory counsel to effected parties.

Horner has been frequently mentioned and published by The Washington Times, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, and Washington Examiner. His FOIA work has been repeatedly cited by the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, whose “Letters to the Editor” section has also run his comments on several occasions. He has been a frequent contributor in numerous opinion pages, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, WSJ Letters, New York Times’ Room for Debate, National Review Online, Energy Tribune, Spain’s Actualidad Economica and the Brussels legislative news magazine EU Reporter. Horner has addressed legal, policy, and political issues hundreds of times on television and radio programs in the United States, the UK, Europe, Canada, and Australia. He was also a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the release of the first of his four books, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism” (2007), which spent six months on The New York Times best-seller list. Horner’s second book, “Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed” (2008) was also a best-seller.

Horner has testified before the United States Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and Environment and Public Works, and has worked on legal and policy issues with numerous think tanks and other policy organizations around the globe. An avid public speaker, he has spoken on numerous occasions before members of the European Parliament as well as policymakers in multiple European capitals on a range of issues.

Horner has held numerous volunteer positions in his community, including years of coaching youth sports. He received his Juris Doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis, where he received the Judge Samuel Breckenridge Award for Advocacy.

playing cards 31

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (CGSJ)

About: Founded in 1912, CGSJ has long been considered one of the top journalism schools in the world. CGSJ oversees and has been affiliated with some of the most prestigious awards in the journalism industry, including Cabot Prizes, Oakes Awards, Dupont Awards, and Pulitzer Prizes, amongst others.

Notable Connections:

Steve Coll, Energy Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the Rockefellers, Lorana Sullivan Foundation and the Tellus Mater Foundation.

Financials:

Between 2007 and 2014, the Rockefeller Family Fund and Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave well over $460,000 to CGSJ for environmental reporting.

Of Note:

In 2013, Steve Coll, author of Private Empire: ExxonMobil and Power, and a well-known journalist, was appointed dean of CGSJ.

In 2014, the Energy and Environmental Reporting Project was founded at the school with generous financial support from the Energy Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Family Fund, Lorana Sullivan Foundation and the Tellus Mater Foundation.

Columbia fellows, with oversight from Dean Steve Coll personally, wrote two articles regarding climate change in the Los Angeles Times. The paper added certain disclosures after the fact after criticism dfor failing to disclose that the project was funded by the aforementioned backers of the CGSJ’s Energy and Environmental Reporting Fellowship.

Lee Wasserman, Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF), told Reuters that RFF did donate to organizations in an effort to advance their views on climate change policy. The same year the Rockefeller foundations funded the Environmental Project, they provided other funding to Columbia specifically aimed at identifying "advanced solutions for climate change."

:{Sources:

The Observer: “Rockefeller Foundations Enlist Journalism in ‘Moral’ Crusade Against ExxonMobil,” by Ken Silverstein (1/6/17)

Reuters: “Rockefeller Family Fund hits Exxon, divests from fossil fuels,” by Terry Wade and Anna Driver (3/23/16)

Oregon Liberty Coalition: “Rockefellers seeking control of the energy industry” (accessed 7/12/18)

About: International environmental action group dedicated to “Stop Fossil Fuels”, “}:350 uses online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions to oppose new coal, oil and gas projects, take money out of the companies that are heating up the planet, and build 100% clean energy solutions that work for all.” Its name derives from the stated objective of reducing the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content from 400 PPM to 350 PPM.}:

:{:{Notable Connections: }:Bill McKibben:{; }:Rockefeller Brothers Fund:{; }:Tom Steyer:

:{:{Financials:}

org does not disclose its full donor base, but its 2017 report does reflect the group has received money from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, TomKat Foundation, and Tides Foundation.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund has donated almost $1 million in grants to 350.org since 2012 and donated hundreds of thousands to 350.org and 1Sky prior to the two groups’ 2011 merger “joining together two of the big mass movements” “into one mass climate movement”.
It claimed over $12 million in total assets in 2017, a more than 50% increase over 2016.

Of Note:

org grew to prominence around the Keystone XL debate, when scrutiny affirmed that “350.org has the look and feel of an amateur, grassroots operation, but in reality, it is a multi-million dollar campaign."
org highlighted its work in the #ExxonKnew and #ShellKnew campaigns against the energy industry in its 2017 annual report, calling the work against ExxonMobil “our hard-hitting #ExxonKnew campaign.”

Sources:

org 2017 financial report
About 350.org
2017 Annual Report
Financial Post: “Rockefellers behind ‘scruffy little outfit’,” by Vivian Krause (2/14/13)
“org and 1Sky merge into one mass climate movement”, grist.org by Bill McKibben and Betsy Taylor (4/7/2011)

Climate Liability News was a not-for-profit news site dedicated to reporting on the issues at the intersection of climate change impacts and law. Climate Liability News is a project funded by donations to Climate Communications & Law, a new 501(c)3 nonprofit. Climate Communications & Law seeks to deepen the public’s understanding of the issue of climate change and how its impacts are being dealt with by the legal system in the United States and around the world.

Notable Connections: Kert Davies Center for International Environmental Law, Environmental Working Group.

Of Note:

Lynn Zinserr was the founding editor of Climate Liability News. She had been Senior Editor at InsideClimate News from 2015-17, responsible for editing the staff ’s longer investigative projects, including ICN ’s Exxon: The Road Not Taken series. The series was funded, in part, by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and served as the basis for former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ’s case against ExxonMobil.

CLN closed its doors apparently as one of the rebranding efforts underway in the climate industry. Energy In Depth noted this development in an August 2020 post, including:

Media, Rebranded

The entire climate litigation campaign got plenty of air cover from so-called “journalism” outfits like InsideClimateNews and the Los Angeles Times, which turned out to be bought and paid for by the Rockefellers to push the “Exxon Knew” narrative and provide support for state attorneys general filing lawsuits.

Another is Climate Liability News, a website set-up in 2017 to promote the campaign by Climate Communications and Law (CCL), which is run by Greenpeace activist Kert Davies and Richard Wiles of the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) – a project Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD). CCL has faced criticism for failing to properly register as a non-profit in its home state of Maryland, which may have helped it circumvent funding disclosures to Climate Liability News.

Like most organizations in the climate litigation campaign, CCI is funded by the Rockefellers, which has received millions from the Rockefeller Family Fund.

Earlier this year [2020], Climate Liability News shut its doors, rebranded as Climate Docket, and merged with the Drilled Podcast and HEATED newsletter – under a combined platform called Drilled News.

Drilled Podcast was started in 2018 by Amy Westervelt, who claims to be a journalist but is merely pushing anti-fossil fuel propaganda and she ’s partially funded by ISGD and Wiles is the producer. On a previous podcast, Westervelt exposed her bias:

“Holding the industry accountable for manufacturing climate denial isn ’t about finding a bad guy or even strictly about justice, although of course we love a good bad guy … it ’s about putting climate denial to rest once and for all and removing key obstacles for action.”

The latter is particularly noteworthy in the face of all of the admissions about what the climate litigation industry is really using the courts for, e.g., here, here, and here.

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https://climatelitigationwatch.org/oregon-attorney-general-bucks-state-contracting-practice-allows-privately-bloomberg-funded-special-assistant-ag-to-investigate-opponents-of-climate-political-agenda-state-contracts-call-f/

cEI Docs: Oregon Attorney General bucks state contracting practice, allows privately (Bloomberg-) funded ‘Special Assistant AG’ to investigate opponents of ‘climate’ political agenda. State contracts call for “benefiting agency”, not activist donor, to pay for outside counsel

Posted on June 24, 2018

on Friday, June 22, 2018, the Oregon Attorney General “announced the appointment of former Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick as a Legal Fellow from the NYU State Impact Center. As a Legal Fellow, Novick will work as an Oregon Special Assistant Attorney General on legal cases related to clean energy, climate change and the environment. The position is funded through NYU’s State Impact Center, but the work will be overseen by the Oregon Department of Justice.”

The “State Impact Center” is a project of billionaire Michael Bloomberg to, as the name makes clear, have an impact at the state level on his pet issue of promoting renewable energy and investigating those who oppose the ‘climate’ political agenda.

The below documents, all obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) under open records requests, include OR OAG’s application for the privately donated lawyer (who is an employee of NYU, funded by Mr. Bloomberg). As the Oregon Department of Justice acknowledged in making this announcement, the Bloomberg project had approved OAG for the privately funded special prosecutor back in December.

These documents show that, at NYU’s request, OR OAG had to first insist that if it only had more resources and lawyers than the legislature has given it, it would pursue more of those matters Mr. Bloomberg and his NYU project would like to see pursued.

As also shown in the below documents it is Oregon’s clear practice and policy that SAAG contracts do not contemplate private donors enlisting the office to pursue other parties. Not that Oregon’s taxpayers or courts should expect otherwise, given the obvious due process concerns with such use of government.

Instead, every Oregon SAAG contract explains how the benefitting agency — in this case, OAG — is to pay the SAAG, according to the state fee schedule laid out in the subsequent paragraph.

Oregon’s AG has broken with this practice, to allow the Bloomberg-funded project to engage Oregon’s top law enforcement office for the project’s own ends.

These OAG hires began with an August 25, 2017 letter from NYU, recruiting potentially willing OAGs to accept a Bloomberg-funded attorney in their offices in return for three inducements:

– “three full time attorneys who will be available to provide direct legal assistance to interested AGs on specific…matters involving clean energy, climate change and environmental interests…”

– “we will maintain a set of on-going relationships with advocates working in the area, and we also are identifying pro bono services that may be available to your offices on individual matters.”

– “a full time communications expert…to work with, and help leverage, the communications resources in your offices.”

That recruitment concluded with the plea, “It’s in everyone’s interest that we work with the relevant AGs and hire these lawyers as soon as practicable.”

Yet despite the urgency, and inducements, the process only bore fruit for NYU/Bloomberg in Oregon last week. Public records confirm that other OAGs also pumped the brakes in their rush to engage in such a highly questionable practice of outsourcing investigations of private parties, to other private parties with an avowed political and policy agenda.

A major consideration for that outbreak of caution should certainly have been what this problematic effort represents, and that the practice runs the risk of ensuring any subsequent efforts involving the privately funded law enforcement officers are fatally tainted. Those concerns seem also to have taken root in Virginia, New Mexico and, surprisingly, Illinois among others, who applied for and were approved for Bloomberg-funded special prosecutors.

Regardless, add Oregon to the list, along with New York and Maryland of states whose top law enforcement offices admit to having begun down this troubling path of outsourcing law enforcement to private activists.

Documents

State Energy & Environmental Impact Center NYU School of Law

State Energy & Environmental Impact Center

State Impact Center Retainer agreement FINAL DRAFT

Special Assistant Attny General

Special Assistant AG application deadline — September 15

Re State Energy & Environmnetal Impact Center

RE Special Assistant Attny General (2)

Re Special Assistant Attny General (3)

Re Special Assistant Attny General

RE Special Assistant Attny General (1)

Re NYU Law Fellow Program

RE Multistate AG Coordination Call

Re Oregon DOJ application for NYU Law Fellow copy

RE Multistate AG Coordination Call (3)

RE Multistate AG Coordination Call (4)

Oregon DOJ application for NYU Law Fellow

RE fellowship program follow up (4)

Re fellowship program follow up copy

OR DOJ application attachment

NYU Law Fellow Program

NYU Law Fellow Position Description Oct 2017

fellowship program followup

FW Paul Garrahan – Confidential

invite

Draft Secondment Agreement Oct 18 2017

Comms follow-up

Call b w State Impact Center & OR AG office

Barren_Liebman

Accepted Invitation Ca b w State Impact Center & OR AG office @ Wed Dec 13 2017 3 pm 4 pm fred boss

OR AG NYU production copy

Garvey_Schubert_Barer

Felderstein_Fitzgerald

Covington_and_Burling

Chamberlin

Images.. bunch emails?

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Bloomberg “SAAG” Withdraws from Ellison “Climate” Case She Filed

February 25, 2022

Rockefeller Family Fund ‘Cutout’ Revealed Ellison Suit Was Held Until Bloomberg Lawyers Were Provided Friday afternoon brings news of the withdrawal as counsel from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison‘s lawsuit against energy companies for purported climate sins. That SAAG is Leigh Currie (the remaining SAAG is Peter Surdo, who boasted on his LinkedIn site he […]

Amicus Brief in Texas Reveals New Info on :{Climate Litigation Industry}:

February 14, 2022

Government-transparency group Energy Policy Advocates (“EPA”) has filed anamicus brief with the Texas State Supreme Court, in a case considering Exxon Mobil’s Rule 202 petition against California municipalities like San Francisco and Oakland and their former “climate” lawyer, Matt Pawa. That action was filed by the company to obtain pre-suit discovery against some of the parties […]

Clinton-Gore EPA Affidavit Resurfaces, Further Undermines Climate Litigation “KNEW!!!” Claims

February 7, 2022

One Thing in Climate Has Remained Certain: Uncertainty Tomorrow, the House Oversight Oversight & Reform Committee will hold its second hearing in a “year-long investigation” of traditional energy companies. Not only does using Congress’s inherently limited investigative powers to find scapegoats for its own failures to persuade seem on its face unconstitutional given a long-line of […]

Competitive Enterprise Institute's Climate Denial Efforts Target Media, Cities Filing Liability Suits

By Guest • Saturday, January 26, 2019

Karen Savage, Climate Liability News. Crossposted from Climate Liability News.

The conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute has been busily pressing forward with its mission to promote climate denial, using high-profile tactics like full-page ads in major newspapers. But it is also working behind the scenes, filing records requests to dig for information from cities filing climate liability suits and academics studying the topic.

As the science has grown definitive in tying global warming to the burning of fossil fuels, even oil companies have been forced to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus and back away publicly from climate denial efforts. But CEI continues to double down on their mission to claim the science is not settled.

CEI made a splash this week by purchasing full-page ads in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal taking issue with Meet the Press host Chuck Todd and NBC for refusing to give airtime to denialists during his Dec. 30 show about climate change.

The think tank has deep ties to the fossil fuel industry and has long worked to promote climate denial. And as municipalities have begun to sue fossil fuel companies, including Exxon, CEI has filed briefs and launched other campaignsdefending them.

According to Kert Davies, founder and director of the Climate Investigations Center, CEI’s most recent push is likely motivated by the increasing number of those lawsuits and investigations of the fossil fuel industry.

“CEI has a personal interest in how these lawsuits proceed because they had a contract with ExxonMobil Foundation from the 1990s — they got over $2 million through 2007 when Exxon abruptly dropped them,” said Davies, adding that he expects lawyers pressing suits against the company would want to see the contracts between CEI and Exxon during that period.

CEI’s tactics go beyond its attempts to sway public opinion.

Last year, CEIsued UCLA to obtain emails the organization said were exchanged between two UCLA climate law professors and state attorneys general offices involved in investigations of the oil giant.

An ethics complaint filed by another fossil fuel industry-backed group in December against then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood echoes areport written by CEI legal fellow Chris Horner. The report relied on public records requests to allege that attorneys general are involved in a coordinated scheme by private interests to hold oil giants responsible for climate change. That alleged conspiracy includes Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who is also investigating Exxon for possible fraud.

Horner has also filed information requests with municipalities filing suit against the oil and gas industry, including Richmond and San Francisco. In those requests, he is seeking records related to a climate litigation-related briefing he said took place at Harvard in 2016 between activists, private attorneys and public employees of various states’ attorney general’s offices.

In July, he requested communication belonging to staff members in the Rhode Island attorney general’s office, after it became the first U.S. state to attempt to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate change by filing suit against 21 oil and gas companies.Horner’s request was for communication between special assistant attorney general Greg Schult, senior policy advisor Matthew Lenz and legal experts involved in climate litigation in other municipalities, including attorneyMatthew Pawa, Niskanen Center chief counsel David Bookbinderand director of climate policy Joseph Majkut.

Horner is also on the board of directors of the non-profit Government Accountability and Oversight, the organization behind Climate Litigation Watch, which posts public records obtained in an attempt to “expose the network of influence involving the litigation surrounding climate change.”

CEI has used full-page ads in major newspapers in previous campaigns to try to discredit climate action.

In one ad that appeared in The New York Times in 2016, CEI — along with more than 40 signatories — claimed that attorneys general across the country were abusing their power by attempting to silence the “debate” on climate science.

Between 1997 and 2014, those signatories and the organizations they representreceived more than $10 million from Exxon and the ExxonMobil Foundation and theyreceived more than $21 million from the Koch brothers, who have long funded climate denial efforts in support of their fossil fuel businesses.

Today, full-page ads in theWashington Post can cost $100,000 and more. Ads in the Wall Street Journal can top $325,000.

In a press release, CEI said the ads push back on Todd and NBC’s decision to “exclude guests who disagree with alarmists and calls for a real and open debate about the impacts of climate alarmist policies.”

“Sometimes, journalists like Chuck Todd are persuaded to join the activists in shutting down legitimate debate about policy issues and in those cases, we feel a duty to push back in defense of our rights and our policy positions,” a CEI spokesperson said in an email, adding that the organization’s requests for public records are made on their own initiative, and as part of this body of work defending their principles.

“Americans of all political stripes tune into NBC’s Meet the Press with the expectation that the great political issues of the day will be debated vigorously by guests representing a full range of viewpoints,” said CEI PresidentKent Lassman.

Because CEI does not disclose its donors, it’s unclear who is funding the current ads, but it has previously received funding directly from David Koch, as well as coal giantsMassey Energy Company andMurray Energy Corporation.

ExxonMobil was a publicly-acknowledged contributor to CEI for a number of years.

“In 2006, however, ExxonMobil publicly announced that it would cease its support for CEI and a number of other groups,” a CEI spokesperson said in an email.

NBC did not respond to a request for comment.

The ads fit into a long-running strategy to cloud the issue of climate science to the public.

CEI was named in a 1998 email to the American Petroleum Institute’s global climate science communications team as a possible funding recipient in a campaign to implement a “Climate Action Plan.”

According to that plan, “victory will be achieved” when people and the media are convinced there is significant uncertainty in climate science and “media coverage reflects balance on climate science and recognizes the validity of viewpoints that challenge the current ‘conventional wisdom.'”

Davies said in addition to potentially having to face an examination of its relationship with Exxon in the course of climate litigation, CEI has other concerns.

Davies pointed to a study published this week showing Greenland’s ice ismelting faster than previously thought and a recent Yalepoll showing that 73 percent of people in the U.S. understand climate change is occurring and 62 percent understand it is mostly human-caused.

“The evidence is in front of people, the weather‘s messed up, the climate’s messed up, the public opinion is moving away from CEI, and then they strike out at a national news broadcast for not including this extreme minority opinion that there’s nothing to worry about,” Davies said.

https://www.desmogblog.com/**2018/05/15**/pence-coal-funded-lawyer-chris-horner-climate-litigation-watch-attack

For a group apparently hooked on transparency, the latest organization to spring from the loins of the fossil fuel–funded climate science denial industry certainly manages to obscure one or two pertinent facts.

Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO) — the name of the group given public charity status on March 20, 2018 by the Internal Revenue Service — is promising to publish documents about the people and groups behind ongoing court cases against the energy industry and its impact on the global climate.

“We’re not going to get into the science debate and other arguments. We’ll just show the public the documents, so you can decide,” lawyer Chris Horner told a sympathetic Daily Caller about GAO’s Climate Litigation Watch (CLW) project.

Behind the group are three lawyers — one a Republican-elected district attorney, another a former radio host and “longtime friend” of Vice President Mike Pence, and Horner, who has been paid by coal companies and works at the fossil fuel–funded Competitive Enterprise Institute.

While apparently not wanting to “get into the science debate,” Climate Litigation Watch says the science linking fossil fuel producers to climate change is “dubious” — a position at odds with every major scientific academy on the planet.

So, who are these characters behind the GAO and its sole project, Climate Litigation Watch?

Christopher Horner's Coal Cash

According to Horner’s profile on the GAO and Climate Litigation Watch sites, he has been a lawyer for 25 years and his clients “have included policy groups, scientists, and members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate on matters of environmental policy, in addition to providing regulatory counsel to effected parties.”

Let’s fill in some gaps there, because there are some very large ones.

In the mid-1990s, Horner’s clients included cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds, which he suggested should back his idea to “construct explicit procedural hurdles” within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that would make it harder for the agency to use scientific findings as justification for new rules that would inconvenience certain industries.

According to official lobbying disclosures, in the late 1990s and early 2000s Horner also lobbied for the Chemical Manufacturers Association, paint company Dunn Edwards, infamous energy company Enron, and others.

Horner is a long-standing climate science denier, who has regularly appeared on conservative media including Fox News to talk about climate change policy and energy. He is known for his pursuit of climate scientists and their emails.

In 2015, it was revealed that Horner had been paid $18,600 that year by coal company Alpha Natural Resources. Months later, it emerged that Horner’s Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) also had a financial relationship with Arch Coal. When coal giant Peabody filed for bankruptcy in 2016, E&E Legal and the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic(FMELC), where Horner has also worked, appeared on the list of creditors.E&E Legal has received funding from FMELC.

Horner evaded questions about his coal funding during the premiere of a climate science denial film in Paris in 2015.

Horner, who was part of President Donald Trump’s EPA transition team, established FMELC with lawyer David Schnare. Schnare, an EPA veteran and transition team member, and Horner are currently at each other’s throats over accusations of financial malpractice at FMELC.

Commonwealth Attorney

Horner’s new GAO venture includes on its board of directors lawyer and Republican Matthew Hardin, the elected district attorney for Greene County, Virginia, a role known in Virginia as the Commonwealth Attorney.

The GAO (which perhaps intentionally has the same initials as the Government Accountability Office, which is a federal oversight agency) is registered to a residential address in Stanardsville, Greene County, Virginia, which public records show is owned by Hardin.

In 2015, Hardin represented FMELC and E&E Legal in a joint court filing as it tried to pursue the EPA for emails between staff and several environment groups in relation to discussions about the upcoming Paris climate change talks.

Mike Pence's Longtime Friend

A third director listed at GAO is Greg Garrison, a lawyer and recently retired radio host. Garrison is best known as the prosecutor who in 1992 successfully gained the conviction of boxer Mike Tyson for rape charges.

Garrison says he is a “longtime friend” of Vice President Mike Pence. In 2000, Garrison took over WIBC radio hosting duties from Pence, who was elected to Congress that year. Pence regularly appeared on Garrison's show.

In March 2018, Garrison described the science of human-caused climate change. He said: “The whole thing has been a hoax, a snare, and a delusion always.”

http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/State-Department-Complaint-EELI-v-State-cv-15-423.pdf

...

FOIA PARIS:

) The first request, sent via facsimile on January 28, 2015, sought records relating to the Office of Marine Conservation, Bureau of Oceans and Environmental and Scientific Affairs, and the Office of the Special Envoy for Climate Change. 3) State acknowledged plaintiffs' first request, granted a fee waiver, and assigned it a tracking number (F-15-02212) on February 5, 2015. 4) The second request, sent via facsimile on February 2,2015, sought one item of correspondence from Day Mount, a state department employee, which was sent on November 15, 1995

records, including: 1) Copies of all emails or text messages that were (a) sent to or from Kerri-Ann Jones, Daniel Rcifsnyder, William Gibbons-Fly, David A. Balton, or Todd Stem (whether as to, from, cc: or bcc;), (b) to or from any individual(s) with an email address ending in (including as to, from, cc: or bcc:), or includes such correspondence anywhere in the email thread: i)"wwfus.org" ii) "nrdc.org" iii) "greenpeace.org" or "gpfdn.com", and/or iv) "sicrraclub.org" 2) Copies of all emailsor textmessages— onlyresponsive correspondence, not attachments— that were (a) sentto or from any of the five State Department employees listed in item (l)(a) above, (b)which use one ormore of the following terms anywhere in the email including in the body and/or the To:, From:, cc:, bcc: or Subject fields: i)"Global warming" ii) "Climate change" iii) "Paris" iv) "UNCCC" v) "UNFCCC" vi) "Kyoto", and/or vii) "APEC

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https://www.desmogblog.com/free-market-environmental-law-clinic

Free Market Environmental Law Clinic (FMELC)

Background

The Free Market Environmental Law Clinic (FMELC), formerly known as the George Mason Environmental Law Clinic, operates as litigation counsel for the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal). According to public tax forms, FMELC's business address is the home of David Schnare, the general counsel for E&E Legal. The group shares staff with attorneys working for E&E Legal. [1]

According to the 2012 IRS filing of the George Mason Environment Law Clinic (EIN 4516021963), “The law clinic serves as the attorneys for the American Tradition Institute. The billable hours in these matters is shared by the FME Law Clinic and ATI, the division made on a case by case basis.” The American Tradition Instituteis the former name for E&E Legal.

According to its website, “FME Law seeks to provide a counter-weight to the litigious environmental movement that fosters an economically destructive regulatory regime in the United States.” [2]

The FMELC originallymaintained its own website at fmelawclinic.org, however that URL now redirects to the Energy and Environment Legal Institute. According to an archive of its website, The FME Law Clinic was originally incorporated as the George Mason Environmental Law Clinic until “the Directors of FME Law engaged in a friendly and supportive discussion with the Dean of the George Mason University School of Law and recognized that the clinic could better perform its function by servicing multiple law schools as a stand-alone clinic. The Board thus directed a name change to reflect this broadened purpose. Until completion of the legal transition to its new name, the Clinic is doing business as the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic but must retain its original name for banking and tax purposes.” [1]

Notably,George Mason University as received more in funding from the Koch Brothers than any other academic institution, with the GMU and GMU Foundation alone having received over $70 million from Koch-connected foundations since 1986. Charles Koch sits on the board of directors of the Mercatus Center. [3]

In 2018, FMELC became involved in a dispute with its leadership, with claims on one side of extortion, lying to the IRS in order to obtain its tax-exempt status, and other accusations. The primary dispute is between David Schnare, who faces allegations of misrepresenting the group to obtain tax-exempt status, and coal-industry lawyer Chris Horner. Horner and Schnare had conceived FME Law, then George Mason Environmental Law Clinic, in 2011. [4], [5]

The FMELC has repeatedly sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requeststargeting climate scientists including Michael Mann and James Hansen. They have also filed lawsuits fighting against Colorado's Renewable Energy Standard, and against the EPA's efforts to impose water quality standards in Virginia. [6]

Coal Industry Ties

E&E Legal, which works closely with the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, has received funding from Arch Coal, the coal company's 2015 bankruptcy proceedings revealed. [7]

The Interceptreported s that Alpha Natural Resources, another large coal company declaring bankruptcy, was directly funding Chris Horner, who works at both E&E Legal and FMELC. [8]

The Wall Street Journal reported Alpha paid Horner at least $18, 600 before it declared bankruptcy. The Free Market Environmental Law Clinic itself was listed as an Alpha Creditor, *HuffPost* noted. [9], [10]

Stance on Climate Change

The FMELC has a pattern of supporting climate change deniers such as Sallie Baliunas andWillie Soonwhile impeding mainstream climate scientists such as Michael Mann. One of the FMELC/American Tradition Institute's efforts requested records of Dr. Michael Mann from the University of Virginia including 12,000 emails that FMELC claims “chronicle the history of keystone efforts in the early climate change alarmism.” [6]

Funding

FMELC has given money to E&E Legal. FMELC's 2014 990 form shows that it gave the Energy and Environment Legal Institute $40,000 that year for “general support”. That funding increased to $172,500 in 2015, and lowered to $32,083 in 2016.

990 Forms

...

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/05/15/pence-coal-funded-lawyer-chris-horner-climate-litigation-watch-attack

Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO) — the name of the group given public charity status on March 20, 2018 by the Internal Revenue Service — is promising to publish documents about the people and groups behind ongoing court cases against the energy industry and its impact on the global climate.

So, who are these characters behind the GAO and its sole project, Climate Litigation Watch?

Christopher Horner's Coal Cash

Let’s fill in some gaps there, becuase there are some very large ones.

Horner evaded questions about his coal funding during the premiere of a climate science denial film in Paris in 2015.

Commonwealth Attorney

Horner’s new GAO venture includes on its board of directors lawyer andRepublican Matthew Hardin, the elected district attorney for Greene County, Virginia, a role known in Virginia as the Commonwealth Attorney.

Mike Pence's Longtime Friend

In March 2018, Garrison described the science of human-caused climate change. He said: “The whole thing has been a hoax, a snare, and a delusion always.”

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Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO)

Background

Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO)is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit launched in the beginning of 2018 by “experienced attorneys from the litigation, prosecutorial and classical liberal think tank worlds.” [1]

According to its website, “GAO will engage in litigation to protect public interests in economic liberty where taxing or permitting activities, property right restrictions and other extant or proposed regulatory or other policy impediments threaten to limit those interests.” [1]

GAO launchedClimate Litigation Watch in May 2018, a project to target those investigating ExxonMobiland other oil companies' knowledge about climate change. Climate Litigation Watch describes GAO as follows:[3]

“Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) is a non-profit public interest law firm created by, among others, individuals who have been most instrumental in bringing the public records exposing these AGs’ abuses to light. As this audacious legal assault ramps up still further, entering its third year, GAO through its project Climate Litigation Watch will shine a light on the campaign’s origins, its leadership and its tactics.

“Documents will serve as the antidote to the climate campaigners’ ad hominem attacks, time-worn talking points and half-baked scientific analysis. How did this effort come about, with whose impetus, when? Public records show the answers to these questions, and Climate Litigation Watch is now organizing them for easy search and education, a function that has been sorely lacing [ibid] to date as a way to allow the public to learn for themselves. If you want to understand the campaign behind these investigations and lawsuits, these are the organic documents, providing the background information, and news stories and analyses you might have missed in the legacy media’s enthusiastic promotion of the campaign.”

One of the key figures behind GAO and Climate Litigation Watch is Chris Horner, a lawyer with a history of working for the coal industrywho has claimed global temperatures haven't been increasing for at least 25 years. According to The Daily Caller,Horner is “one of the key figures spearheading the ClimateLitigationWatch project.” [4], [5]

Horner works as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), formerly the American Tradition Institute, where he “provides strategic and legal counsel on cases involving Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings and government transparency.” He is also a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). In 2016, E&ELegal issued a complaint to Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, requesting a turn over of documents discussing climate change deniers. An answer to that complaint is posted on the Climate Litigation Watch website. [6], [7]

J. Gregory Garrison, a member of GAO's Board of Directors, has described climate change as “a hoax, a snare and a delusion always.” Garrison is a partner at the Garrison Law Firm, LLC and a former legal analyst for CBS News. He also worked as a radio host at Indianapolis’s WIBC, where he replaced “longtime friend” Mike Pence.[8]

Matthew D. Hardinalso sits on GAO's Board of Directors. GAO's address listed at GuideStar is, according to public records, also registered to a house Hardin purchased in late 2017. Hardinwas electedGreene County's next Commonwealth's Attorney in 2018. He proudly lists among his accomplishments open records requests related to the Paris Accord under the Obama administration. “I believe in the Constitution and your rights to be free from overbearing government,” Hardin writes. “I’ve been a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, even teaching free concealed carry classes since 2014.”[9], [10],[17]

Separately from the nonprofit GAO with a listed Virginia address, business filings at the Departmant of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs indicate a “Government Accountability and Oversight” was also incorporated in Washington, DC on April 10, 2018 with Chris Horner listed as CEO. The address on record is ashared office space in Minnesota. [18]

Chris Horner has said that he worked closely with Matt Hardin “on various legal issues for the past three years” with various groups Horner is involved with. Horner officially endorsed Hardin for Commonwealth's Attorney in 2017 .[[11]](https://youtu.be/sS82HSt-gas).[11]

Climate Litigation Watch

The Climate Litigation Watch website claims “Its sole purpose is to ensure the public record about this explosion of litigation, in the name of 'climate accountability', is complete so as to allow a more honest, fact-driven and well-informed debate.” To achieve this, it would post “commentaries and analysis, posting and placing in context important information gleaned from Freedom of information

Act (FOIA) requests.” [2]

“Burning witches was an absurd response then, and today’s modern equivalent will be viewed in future years as an equally misguided response,” Climate Litigation Watch writes of the investigation into oil companies.

It describes the investigations as “a perversion of the justice system and particularly of chief law enforcement offices, state attorneys general” with the supposed goal to “to conjure a history of illegal conduct in order to advance an extremist policy agenda and fulfill a vision of an energy-starved world.” [2]

Stance on Climate Change

Climate Litigation Watch refers to a “climate that is always changing,” downplaying the impact of humans on climate change and subtly suggest increasing wealth and adapting to climate change as a strategy: [2]

“Misuse of the judicial system in the face of their agenda having failed through the proper, democratic process will not yield the practical responses the world needs as it faces a climate that is always changing, which change the wealthiest societies have always adapted to best.”

Funding

GAO does not publicly list its funding sources.Chris Horner, one of the key individuals working with both GAO and its Climate Litigation Watch Project was named in Alpha Natural Resources' bankruptcy documents. a January 11, 2016 document listed Horner as Regulatory Counsel for the coal company. The Wall Street Journal reported Horner was paid at least $18,600 before the group declared bankruptcy. The Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, also an Alpha creditor, paid Horner $110,000 in 2014, $115,865 in 2013, and $60,449 in 2012, according to the clinic’s tax filings.[12], [13], [14]

990 Forms

As of summer 2018, Government Accountability and Oversighthad not yet filed its first 990 forms.

Key People

Board of Directors

J. Gregory Garrison [15]
Matthew D. Hardin [15]
Chris Horner [15]

Professionals (Also listed at Climate Litigation Watch) [16]

Chris Horner
Jason Miller

Actions

May 2018

GAO launched Climate Litigation Watch, The Daily Caller reported.[5]

“We’re not going to get into the science debate and other arguments. We’ll just show the public the documents, so you can decide,” Horner told The Daily Caller. “Let people see what this campaign looks like. There is a constantly shifting narrative. This site lays out the progression — the players and their roles to put all of that into perspective.” [5]

The Daily Caller noted that Attorneys General Maura Healey of Massachusetts and Eric Schneiderman “will almost certainly be included in the profiles” compiled by Climate Litigation Watch. [5]

Climate Litigation Watch's launch occurred while several cities have filed lawsuits against oil companies including Exxon and Chevron. ExxonMobil itself has sued those attempting to investigate and sue the company over global warming, contending that the company is victim to a politically-motivated conspiracy. [5]

Related Organizations

Climate Litigation Watch — Project of GAO.
Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) — Also employs Chris Horner, and has sent similar records requests against those investigating ExxonMobil and other oil companies.

Contact & Address

Guidestar listed the following address for Government Accountability & Oversight: [10]

324 LOGTRAC RD

STANARDSVILLE, VA 22973

That address matches with a house sold on December 15, 2017, and now owned by Michael Hardin according to public property records for Greene County, VA: [10]

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