SAAG scam blmbrg

GOT BEAT ON THIS? judge said no info foia? horner?

see academic suppression

see legal suppression

see climate lawsuits

see horner 4 cei report

===

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Law Enforcement for Rent

View Full Document as PDF · View Full Appendix. Author's Note. This paper is based on documents obtained over two and a half years from open...

Aug 28, 2018](https://cei.org/studies/law-enforcement-for-rent/)

law-enforcement-for-rent

View Full Document as PDF

View Full Appendix

Author’s Note

This paper is based on documents obtained over two and a half years from open records requests and, in some cases, subsequent litigation. Due to the volume of records, not all cited records are included in the body of this paper. Key documents are provided in the paper’s appendix, which can be accessed at CEI.org. The complete collection of documents cited in this paper is available at ClimateLitigationWatch.org, a project of the nonprofit public interest law firm Government Accountability & Oversight.

Executive Summary

This paper details an extensive and elaborate campaign using elective law enforcement offices, in coordination with major donors and activist pressure groups, to attain a policy agenda that failed through the democratic process. The plan is revealed in emails and other public records obtained during two and a half years of requests under state open records laws. Most are being released now for the first time. Many were obtained only by court order in the face of a determined and coordinated resistance that one deputy attorney general foresaw, expressing early concerns over “an affirmative obligation to always litigate” requests looking into the effort. The paper details how donor-financed governance has expanded into dangerous and likely unconstitutional territory: state attorney general (AG) offices.

The plan traces back to 2012 when activists agreed to seek “a single sympathetic attorney general” to assist their cause. AGs began subpoenaing private parties’ records in service of a campaign of litigation against opponents of their climate policy agenda. The public records date to a July 2015 email in which Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists confided the group’s involvement with AGs.

Those public records reveal the following: (a) donors introduced plaintiffs’ lawyers to AG offices (OAGs), (b) a slideshow tour by plaintiffs’ lawyers recruiting OAGs to the effort, and (c) senior attorneys from OAGs flying in—some at taxpayer expense and others on the donors’ tab, which had been run through a pressure group— for a briefing with “prospective funders” about “potential state causes of action against major carbon producers.” One presenter described this briefing as a“secret meeting.”It was secret enough that one AG litigated to withhold the agenda— under implausible claims of privilege—for a year and a half before being compelled by a court to release the lineup for what turned out to have been an AG-assisted fundraiser.

Those public records reveal the anatomy of what began as an “informal coalition” of AGs to use the legal system in pursuit of an overtly political agenda in coordination with activists and plaintiffs’ lawyers. That coalition disbanded under open records and media scrutiny, but it has now reconstituted through a program by which donorsfund, privately hire, andplace investigators and prosecutors in AG offices. It uses a nonprofit organization to pass the funding through and to provide the OAGs with a network of “pro bono” attorneys and public relations services. In return, OAGs provide office space to the privately hired prosecutors; agree they are there to “advanc[e] progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions”; and provide regular reports about their work.

Led and funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this scheme hires “Research Fellows,” which it then places as activist “Special Assistant Attorneys General.” All of the participating OAGs had to promise that this work would not get done but for this private funding. All OAGs also certified they are not violating the law by accepting privately funded prosecutors. At best, as several OAGs tacitly admit, this unprecedented arrangement operates in a gray area with neither prohibition nor authority. One state where the scheme is arguably illegal is New York, where disgraced former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had a leading and organizing role at every stage of the campaign this paper describes.

The New York OAG openly boasted to a donor that its “need” for privately funded prosecutors was driven in part by the “significant strain on staff resources” that had been caused by its “non- litigation advocacy”—that described as its having “led” the resistance to the Trump administration. Importantly, the NYOAG also cited its campaign “building models for two different types of common law cases to seek compensation” from industries for supposedly having caused global warming; moreover, it “needs additional attorney resources to assist with this project.”On these bases and with a claim to having statutory authority to enter the unprecedented arrangement—a claim which on its face appears to be an invention—the NYOAG was awarded not one but two privately underwritten prosecutors.

This is the most dangerous example of a modus operandi we have found: it uses nonprofit organizations as pass-through entities by which donors can support elected officials to, in turn, use their offices to advance a specific set of policies favored by said donors. It also uses resources that legislatures will not provide and that donors cannot legally provide directly. The budget for climate policy work alone is in the tens of millions of dollars per year.

Across various levels of government—including mayors and governors—the bulk of this money is budgeted for pass-through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and off-the-books consultants, report writers, and public relations (PR) firms that are hired through an NGO. The NGO takes a percentage as its fee (up to 24 percent in some cases). Another component involves privately hiring and then placing in-house, non- official personnel as advisors when they are actually employed by a donor’s group.

The extension of this billion-dollar per year climate industry to privately fund AG investigations sets a dangerous precedent. It represents private interests commandeering the state’s police powers to target opponents of their policy agenda and to hijack the justice system as a way to overturn the democratic process’s rejection of a political agenda.

As a subsequent report will affirm, this model of using nonprofit groups as cutouts for donors to finance elected officials’ activism is, in fact, widely adopted generally by the axis of donors, elected officials, and NGOs and by the climate litigation industry specifically. The de facto law enforcement for hire by private interests raises concerns beyond mere political opportunism, obvious appearances of impropriety, or even compliant 501(c)3s that seemingly rent out their tax-exempt status on behalf of activist donors.

The use of this approach by AGs carries legal, ethical, and constitutional implications, as well as for the integrity of law enforcement and the constitutional policy process. The public–private partnership of law enforcement for hire revealed in this report, in which the partnership uses public office to expend resources not appropriated or approved by their legislatures, raises significant constitutional and other legal issues—as well as ethics concerns—and should be the subject of prompt and serious legislative oversight.

Introduction

BEFORE YOU GASP, PLEASE NOTE that foundations are currently spending over $1 billion a year on climate work.”1 So wrote Dan Carol, a senior aide to California Governor Jerry Brown (D), on October 3, 2017, to his colleagues and staff members for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) and Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) regarding charitable foundation spending that promotes their climate policy agenda (see Figure 1). This figure dwarfs spending in opposition to that agenda—efforts to portray matters otherwise notwithstanding.2

Carol offered this sum to make his case that $50 million per year is reasonable to ask so donors can privately underwrite an off-the-books network of “support functions” for a handful of governors’ climate policy advocacy.

In further support of his position, Carol attached a “draft agenda, presentation slides, and budget worksheet.”Those items are among a large cache of public records that were obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), along with other public policy groups, and that detail and propose the exploitation of a “plethora of funder interest” in secretly bankrolling the public office holders’ use of their positions to take a more aggressive role concerning climate politics and policy.

This years-long campaign by substantial, left-leaning donors revealed in Carol’s email correspondence and in other emails produced under state open records laws has now expanded into dangerous and likely unconstitutional territory. Led and funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this scheme centers

Figure 1

on paying to place activist attorneys—dubbed State Assistant Attorneys General (SAAGs)—in offices of the attorney general (OAGs) to play an agreed, predetermined, and activist role.

The intent is for those attorneys to advance the donors’ and large environmental advocacy groups’ “progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental” policy agenda3 and—according to at least one OAG application—expressly to assist in pursuing the same agenda’s political opponents. In practice, this is a case of law enforcement for hire.

The roadmap for this campaign was laid out by activists and donors in 2012.4 Then in 2016, several state attorneys general (AGs) joined the campaign, which accelerated after that year’s elections. Public record requests looking into how such sensitive offices came to be used this way revealed that, since at least mid-2015, this use of law enforcement underwritten by private donors had secretly involved activist pressure groups, which are working in close coordination with donors and serving as the state AGs’ backroom strategists and partners.

After collapse of an early “informal coalition” of AGs—formed in the spring of 2016 to make desired climate policies become “reality”—in late 2017, another major donor, Bloomberg, announced his plan to use AG offices by privately funding the special AGs program. This expansion extends the model of off-the-books governance detailed by Carol and company from executive offices (such as mayors and governors) to AGs with law enforcement powers.

This approach represents an elaborate, deliberate plan to politicize state law enforcement offices in the service of an ideological, left-wing, climate policy agenda that has been frustrated by the democratic process. Under this scheme and deviating from standard government contracting procedures, private parties with an express policy advocacy agenda can pay to place activist investigators and lawyers in state AG offices to pursue that agenda.

Finally, as if to leave no doubt about the extent of this capture of law enforcement by activist donors, some of those chief law enforcement offices sent attorneys—some at taxpayer expense and others accepting payment of their travel expenses from a green advocacy group—to participate in a briefing on “Potential State Causes of Action against Major Carbon Producers” for prospective funders of the same environmentalist group.

Privately Funded Government and Investigations, an Overview

THE MODUS OPERANDI THAT WE have found entails using nonprofit organizations as pass-through entities by which donors support elected officials to use their offices to advance a specific set of policies favored by said donors, with resources that legislatures will not provide and which donors cannot legally provide directly. This model is being employed by activist elected prosecutors as part of this billion dollar-plus annual climate activism industry.

Across various levels of government— including mayors and governors—the bulk of the money apparently goes to pass-through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and off-the-books consultants, report writers, and public relations firms hired through an NGO, which takes a percentage as its fee (up to 24 percent in some cases).5 Another component involves privately hiring and then placing in-house, non-official personnel as advisors when they are actually employed by a donor’s group—again as a cutout.

Extending this scheme to law enforcement seeds sympathetic state AG offices with additional lawyers to pursue“progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions”—in other words, to use their offices to compensate for a political agenda’s failure through the political process.6 Even more troubling, this effort involves investigating opponents, of the climate policy agenda while using law enforcement to intimidate political opponents, seeking to silence the opposition.

The New York AG office’s successful application to the donors’ pass-through for two privately funded attorneys also shows that one objective is to provide personnel to its effort to extract financial settlements from those opponents. Recent practice suggests that the settlements will be distributed in part among political constituencies.

For its part, the group of donors offered inducements to entice AG offices to allow them to place attorneys and investigators in the law enforcement operation, including these:

Supplemental donor-funded lawyers housed at the pass-through, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization;
An outside “pro bono” network of privately funded lawyers; and
A public relations aide to serve those AGs; emails suggest that this approach also involves providing a media firm based in California to promote the AGs’ efforts.

This model of donors using non-profit groups as pass-throughs to make specific hires and to perform specific jobs, which now extends to the de facto contracting out of law enforcement to private interests, raises concerns beyond mere political opportunism, obvious appearances of impropriety, or even compliant 501(c)3s seemingly renting out their tax-exempt status on behalf of activist donors.7 The use of this approach by AGs carries legal, ethical, and constitutional implications for the integrity of law enforcement and the constitutional policy process. The scheme that gives rise to such concerns is the subject of this paper.

The Central Role of Eric Schneiderman

DISGRACED FORMER NEW YORK Attorney General Eric Schneiderman played a central—indeed the leading—DISGRACED FORMER NEW YORK

role among AGs in developing the schemes laid out in this paper. In fact, Schneiderman led the precursor “informal coalition”8 of state AGs who presented, along with former Vice President Al Gore, ata March 2016 pressconferencetopublicly launch what proved to be the first attempt at using AG offices to assist the climate litigation industry in going after “Exxon specifically, and the fossil fuel industry generally.”9 That effort also resulted in a subsequently withdrawn subpoena to CEI for 10 years’ worth of records going back 20 years.

Key facts and events in the development of the scheme follow:

Emails obtained in open records litigation show the environmental pressure group Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) admitting, in July 2015, that it was working on OAG investigations of opponents of the climate agenda well before the AGs went public with their efforts in November of that year.
In November 2015, months after this first admission of the collaboration, Schneiderman issued his first subpoena in pursuit of that agenda.
Privilege logs filed by Schneiderman’s office in two Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) suits admit to withholding, as “law enforcement” materials, extensive correspondence regarding—in the AG office’s description— “company specific climate change information” with the office of environmentalist mega- donor Tom Steyer and Rockefeller Family Fund Director Lee Wasserman. This correspondence dated back at least nine months prior to Schneiderman’s issuing the first subpoena.10
In March 2016, Schneiderman recruited a coalition of 16 Democratic state AGs to investigate opponents of their climate political agenda, under the name “Attorneys General United for Clean Power.”11 The coalition quickly dispersed a few months later when confronted with open records law requests and negative media attention.
Schneiderman arranged for plaintiffs’ lawyer Matt Pawa and the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Peter Frumhoff to brief the AGs and Gore before their AGs United 2016 press conference—where the AGs announced their plans to pursue the investigations sought by UCS, plaintiffs’ lawyers, their partners, and their donors. Both Frumhoff and Pawa were involved early on in the campaign to find “a single sympathetic attorney general” to assist their cause by subpoenaing private parties’ records.
Wendy Abrams, a major Democratic party and environmentalist group donor and recent member of UCS’ board of directors, provided Pawa entrée to at least one other law enforcement office. When arranging an April 2016 meeting for her and Pawa, as well as other attorneys who would figure prominently in the climate change litigation, to brief the office of Illinois AG Lisa Madigan, Abrams informed the office that she believed Pawa had brought the idea of the climate investigation to Schneiderman.12
Schneiderman’s office provided UCS an invitation list of OAG contacts to participate in a briefing of outside parties on this collaborative climate litigation strategy, but specifically “Potential State Causes of Action” (discussing investigations and litigation the AGs might bring). The briefing included senior attorneys from AG offices in the Schneiderman-led coalition, UCS, plaintiffs’ lawyers, and their academic and activist partners.
One presenter at the briefing described it to at least two correspondents as a“secret meeting.”
There may be a good explanation for the secrecy. Recently obtained emails show that this “secret” briefing on litigation strategy, which Schneiderman’s office co-organized to ensure OAG attorneys flew in from around the country—some at taxpayer expense, others accepting UCS’s offer to pay their travel expenses—was, in fact, for “prospective funders.”

Several of the AG offices involved in this campaign have responded to requests for release of those public records by stonewalling, often forcing costly litigation. This litigation penalty has been paid for by nonprofit groups that the AGs have forced to sue to obtain public records. With two OAGs having been ordered to pay substantial costs and fees, this means an even greater price price has been paid by the taxpayers—not the climate activists’“prospective funders.”

Activist Government without Limits and Donor-Funded Law Enforcement

PUBLIC RECORDS CONFIRM THAT state AGs have willingly agreed to—and following very specific instructions have pleaded for—privately funded investigators and attorneys to use AG offices in pursuit of the “progressive clean energy, climate change, and environment” policy agenda.

This personnel benefit and other inducements were offered to the AGs through a program set up by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire donor who has ramped up his funding of climate policy activism in recent years. Bloomberg’s ideological campaign to impose specific policies includes openly vowing to run politically disfavored energy sources out of existence.13

Frustrated by failure through the democratic process, this campaign now includes the use of law enforcement for political ends. To attain his goals, Bloomberg established the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at the New York University (NYU) School of Law, announcing that creation on August 15, 2017.14 The name itself is telling of his intent—to obtain his desired policy effects at the state level, after activists lost certain levers of power at the federal level.

Under the unusual arrangement offered by Bloomberg’s Center:

A state attorney general’s office“hires” the NYU Impact Center as its attorney.
The client pays nothing. Its consideration to NYU is in receiving the NYU Impact Center’s prosecutors (see Figure 2), who promise they will work on specified issues expressly of NYU’s interest and report back to NYU according to a specified schedule.15
NYU also affords the AG ’s office a “pro bono” network of lawyers and a communications staffer who is dedicated to the work that the office agrees to perform.
The contract is for an attorney–client (NYU– OAG) relationship.

much more see see horner 4 cei report

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.

===

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/08/keith-ellison-minnesota-bloomberg-climate-lawsuit/

no lnx many

ENERGY

AG Keith Ellison Faces Lawsuit Accusing Him Of Coordinating With Bloomberg On Anti-Exxon Crusade

[pixRep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), a candidate for Democratic National Committee Chairman, speaks during a Democratic National Committee forum in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., February 11, 2017. ]

Daily Caller News Foundation

CHRIS WHITE

TECH REPORTER

July 08, 2020

A Virginia-based law firm is suing Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for access to records revealing his use of attorneys financed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to engage in a climate crusade targeting oil companies.

The nonprofit Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) filed a lawsuit Wednesday for records detailing how the Democratic attorney general is allegedly deploying Bloomberg-financed lawyers to advance a lawsuit his office leveled against the fossil fuel industry. The firm’s complaint was filed on behalf of the nonprofit group Energy Policy Advocates.

This is the second lawsuit that GAO, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit launched in 2018, has filed against Ellison in the last two years. (RELATED: Emails Reveal Role Michael Bloomberg’s Climate Crusaders Are Playing In Maryland’s AG Office)

The law firm’s complaint also reveals that the Minnesota attorney general entered into confidentiality agreements and so-called common interest agreements requiring his office to obtain the consent of the private attorneys before releasing public information about such climate lawsuits.

[pix NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 04: Former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg addresses his staff and the media after announcing that he will be ending his campaign on March 04, 2020 in New York City. Bloomberg, who has endorsed Joe Biden, spent millions of dollars in his short lived campaign for president.]

GAO attorney Chris Horner believes such contracts undermine open records laws and violate obligations of attorneys general to taxpayers.

“They likely are void as against public policy including that underlining open records laws, and probably violate obligations of state attorney generals to the people of their states by purporting to contract away the public’s right to access to public information such as is embodied in the MGDPA,” Horner staid in a statement Wednesday.

The agreements cover records related to lawsuits two Special Assistant Attorneys General (SAAGs) inside Ellison’s office leveled against ExxonMobil. Ellison announced lawsuits targeting Exxon, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute over what he calls “a campaign of deception” on climate change.

SAAGs are placed in attorney general offices around the country by New York University’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center (SEEIC), which received $6 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2018.

The NYU School of Law launched the group in 2017 to “identify and hire NYU Law Fellows who serve as special assistant attorneys general in state attorney general offices, focusing on clean energy, climate and environmental matters,” according to the NYU Law website.

Ellison submitted an application for SAAGs in March 2019, according to the GAO lawsuit.

He expressed in the application a willingness to do more in certain areas of “known public interest to Bloomberg and his SEEIC,” the complaint stated. Ellison’s application also suggested the attorney general intends on focusing on “multistate initiatives…including…supporting state-led efforts to investigate Exxon Mobil [sic].”

Neither Bloomberg nor Ellison’s office have responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requestS for comment about the lawsuit.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags : energy keith ellison michael bloomberg minnesota

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ref https://dailycaller.com/2019/09/09/michael-bloomberg-global-warming/

no lnx many

emails Reveal Role Michael Bloomberg’s Climate Crusaders Are Playing In Maryland’s AG Office

Former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg speaks during the Presidential Gun Sense Forum in Des Moines]

Daily Caller News Foundation l

CHRIS WHITE

TECH REPORTER

September 09, 2019

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s legal fellows are likely too closely connected to the billionaire’s climate change crusading group, new emails show.

Analyst Chris Horner tells the Daily Caller News Foundation that the emails reveal how Maryland is “outsourcing” law enforcement activities to “activist donors.”

The emailsapparently contradict what the Bloomberg-financed climate group has said in the past about the legal fellows it places in state attorneys general offices.

A climate attorney inside Maryland’s attorney general’s office appears to be working at the direction of a group connected to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, according to documents published recently by awatchdog group.

The special assistant attorneymove to seek guidance contracts claims from the billionaire-financed group thatsuch attorneys are loyal only to the states where they are placed.The so-called SAAGs are being placed in state AG offices around the country by a group that received $6 million from Bloomberg in 2018.

“I’m considering moving from my current environmental-focused position to the energy position that the Maryland AG’s Office has open, ” SAAG John Howard said in an email to David Haynes, director of the State Environmental and Energy Impact Center,which works to plantattorneys in various AG offices.

The memo was published Sept. 3 by Energy Policy Advocates (EPA), a non-profit group founded in Washington state. (RELATED: One Of The Lawyers Targeting Oil Companies Worked In Bloomberg’s Office)

“Would you have a few minutes this afternoon to call me? I want to get a better sense than I currently have about what the Center envisions for these positions,” Howard added in the email, which is dated March, 13 2019. Haynes responded: “I’d be happy to chat with you about this. Could we talk tomorrow.”

Howard has been working at Maryland’s AG office since March 2018.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (C) speaks at a news conference with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (R) and other U.S. State Attorney's General to announce a state-based effort to combat climate change in the Manhattan borough of New York City, March 29, 2016. ]

Bloomberg’s grant went to the SEEI, which is designed to escalate attacks against President Donald Trump’s regulatory rollbacks. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in February that Illinois, Maryland, and other states involved in the program hired attorneys with ties to the billionaire.

The exchange between Howard and Haynes appears to contradict SEEIC’s past claims that such fellows receive orders exclusively from their respective attorney general. The SEEIC operates out of the New York University of Law, media reports show.

The group’s website states: “NYU pays the salaries of the law fellows, but the fellows’ sole duty of loyalty is to the attorney general in whose office he or she serves. All work performed by the fellows is entirely identified and managed by their respective AG offices.”

Analysts argue Howard knew what was expected of him before he reached out.

“This scheme represents a dangerous outsourcing of law enforcement to an activist donor — and further undermines the AGs’ and Bloomberg Center’s insistence that these are simply more bodies,” Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF.

Horner is on the board of directors at the Government Accountability & Oversight, which played a role in releasing the emails.

Howard, Haynes, and Maryland AG Brian Frosh have not responded to the DCNF’s request for comment about the nature of the program. Media reports have also raised questions about SEEI’s role in financing state attorneys general attempts to sue oil companies for supposedly contributing to climate change.

Gavin McCabe, a lawyer connected to Bloomberg Philanthropies, for instance, signed an amicus brief in 2018 supporting New York City’s yearlong climate lawsuit against Exxon and Chevron. Bloomberg founded Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2017 to provide AG offices with attorneys to help push green energy.

McCabe is one of at least eight attorneys hired by attorneys general across the country to work on environmental litigation.

McCabe’s involvement suggestsBloomberg’s money is playing a role in the anti-Exxon campaign. He made himself a part of the lawsuit demanding energy companies compensate the city for the alleged damages from global warming. U.S. District Judge John Keenan dismissed the case in July after months of arguments.

Bloomberg’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Tags : donald trump energy michael bloomberg

---

some lnx

“I’m considering moving from my current environmental-focused position to the energy position that the Maryland AG’s Office has open, ” SAAG John Howard said in an emailto David Haynes, director of the State Environmental and Energy Impact Center, which works to plant attorneys in various AG offices.

The memo was published Sept. 3 by Energy Policy Advocates (EPA), a non-profit group founded in Washington state. (RELATED: One Of The Lawyers Targeting Oil Companies Worked In Bloomberg’s Office)

===

ref 2

no lnx

one Of The Lawyers Targeting Oil Companies Worked In Bloomberg’s Office

cHRIS WHITE

TECH REPORTER

February 04, 2019

Some of the special assistant attorneys general involved in targeting energy companies have extensive ties to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Documents reveal attorneys behind the project targeting President Donald Trump’s regulatory rollback have deeper ties to Bloomberg than previously reported.

One of the attorneys hired by a group targeting Trump and energy companies previously worked in former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ties to a group pushing to sue energy companies over climate change are a lot deeper than previously noted, according to documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Four of the special assistant attorneys general involved in the State Impact Center project have significant connections to the New York City billionaire, the documents show. Past reports fleshing out Bloomberg’s effort focused only on his roughly $6 million donation to the project.

Bloomberg’s grant went to the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, which is designed to escalate attacks against President Donald Trump’s decision to eliminate several of his predecessor’s climate regulations. Documents appear to show Illinois, Maryland, the District of Columbia and others involved in the program hired attorneys with ties to the billionaire.

Sarah Kogel-Smucker of Washington D.C., for instance, worked in Bloomberg’s office as one of his top environmental lawyers, and implemented the former mayor’s bike share program [effing commie?!] in 2013.She began her career as an activist in 2004 with Sierra Club’s chapter before representing New York City in a 2017 lawsuit targeting the Trump administration’s regulation rollback.

Her career at the New York City Law Department’s Environmental Division coincided with Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor from Jan. 1, 2002, to Dec. 31, 2013. (RELATED: Judge Tosses Out New York City’s Climate Change Lawsuit)

Kogel-Smucker was also among the attorneys representing New York City in a federal lawsuit against ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others seeking to hold the energy companies responsible for present and damage to the city from global warming. A judge tossed out the case in July 2018, arguing the court system is not responsible for addressing climate change.

Other attorneys involved in the State Impact Center have an indirect connection to Bloomberg. Jason James, a special assistant attorney general in Illinois, for instance, was colleagues with Daniel Firger, a former researcher at theColumbia Law School Center for Climate Change Law. Firger chairs the Impact Center and heads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ climate change program.

Oregon special assistant attorney general Steve Novick shares connections to Bloomberg as well. One of Bloomberg’s biggest lobbyists, Jake Weigler, ran the former mayor’s gun control advocacy group, Mayors Against Illegal Gunsin 2013. Weigler managed Novick’s campaign for unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate in 2008. He lost to then-House Speaker Jeff Merkley.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, a longtime Democrat, appointed the former Portland city commissioner as a legal fellow to the AG office in 2018. She raised alarms in June 2018 after her office hired Novick.

“Are we sure it is correct to refer to him as a ‘volunteer.’ And not an employee,” Rosenblum asked her deputy AG in a June 17, 2018, email. “Can you be an unpaid employee of the State? As a SAAG doesn’t that make one an employee?”

Her email was included in a June 2018 report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute detailing the extent of Bloomberg’s campaign.

Rosenblum added: “I find it strange to call someone who is working under our supervision with the title of SAAG and who is getting paid (by a third-party) the same as he would if he were working for [the Department of Justice] as a regular [assistant attorney general] — a volunteer.”

Novick, meanwhile, has a long track record of environmental activism and is responsible for promoting a series of proposals targeting oil companies. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Court Memos Shed Light On Michael Bloomberg’s Role In NYC’s Climate Crusade)

Novick voted to divest Portland from the top 200 fossil fuel companies in 2015 during his time as the Portland City commissioner, though he said at the time, “This is obviously just one of the steps we need to take.”

He ultimately lost his re-election in 2016, becoming “the first sitting commissioner to lose re-election in 24 years.”

The billionaire environmentalist has since become something of a major liberal financier. Bloomberg, who spent $5 million on a television ad in favor of Democratic candidates two days ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, said in December 2018 he wants to see any plan potential presidential candidates have regarding climate change to make sure the plan could work. He made the demand while still considering a possible White House run in 2020.

Bloomberg has not yet responded to TheDCNF’s request for comment about what role his connections to Kogel-Smucker, Novick, James and Segal played in their current positions at the State Impact Center. The AG offices at Illinois, Maryland and the District of Columbia have not returned request for comment.

Follow Chris White on Facebook and Twitter

===

ref

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nyu-law-launches-new-center-to-help-state-ags-fight-environmental-rollbacks/2017/08/16

NYU Law launches new center to help state AGs fight environmental rollbacks

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg addresses the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami Beach in June. His philanthropy is helping to launch a new center that will support state attorneys general in fighting federal efforts to roll back energy and environmental policies. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

By Juliet Eilperin August 16, 2017

NYU School of Law will launch a new center, financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, aimed at helping state attorneys general fight any federal moves to roll back renewable energy, environmental protections and climate policies.

The grant of nearly $6 million, which will establish the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, marks a new step in the escalating battle between state attorneys general and the Trump administration over the nation’s energy and environmental trajectory. Although the center will provide assistance to states regardless of party, Democratic attorneys general have been particularly aggressive in challenging the administration’s efforts to unravel regulations and policies that aim to curb fossil fuel production in the United States as well as restrict drilling and mining on federal lands and in federal waters.

“Every day there’s something that goes on that endangers the health and safety of Americans,” Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) said Wednesday. “Attorneys general don’t begin to have the resources to meet these challenges.

Former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has spent tens of millions of dollars through his charitable group to address climate change, giving $80 million to the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign to shut down coal-fired plants across the country. The new center will provide legal assistance to the attorneys general on renewable energy, climate and environmental issues and will sponsor 10 lawyers on two-year fellowships who will work directly on cases in different attorneys general offices.

David J. Hayes, who served as the Interior Department’s deputy secretary under both the Obama and Clinton administrations, will serve as the center’s executive director. In an interview Wednesday, Hayes said that although “there’s never enough” funding to support this sort of advocacy, the grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies could support not only litigation against the federal government but also enforcement activities on the state level.

How Trump is rolling back Obama’s legacy VIEW GRAPHIC ]

Hayes, who has taught at Stanford University Law School since leaving the federal government in 2013, said he thinks that Trump administration officials “are, as a general matter, very vulnerable” when it comes to court challenges.

“They are moving very quickly, and too quickly from a legal point of view,” Hayes said.

[Interior’s shift on energy advances Trump’s goals-and prompts lawsuits]

Justice Department spokesman Mark Abueg said the department “is fully prepared and committed to defend the administration’s decisions on energy and environmental matters in federal court.”

In many ways, the new initiative reflects the extent to which the parties have switched sides now that President Trump is in the Oval Office. When Barack Obama was president, Republican attorneys general — including Oklahoma’s Scott Pruitt, who now heads the Environmental Protection Agency — challenged federal policies on issues including immigration and water quality.

Now it is Democratic attorneys general such as Frosh, New York’s Eric Schneiderman, California’s Xavier Becerra and New Mexico’s Hector Balderas who have filed multiple suits against the White House.

Schneiderman alone has spearheaded more than half a dozen suits challenging changes to federal energy and environmental policies, including leading a coalition of 23 state and local governments intervening to defend the Obama-era rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. This month, after 15 states and the District of Columbia sued to implement the 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for smog, the EPA reversed course and announced that it would enforce them.

“There may be no better example of how the Trump administration is quickly and quietly trying to deregulate, defund, and destabilize our basic regulatory infrastructure than environmental policy,” Schneiderman said in a statement Wednesday.

In recent years Republican attorneys general have been able to mobilize substantial resources to support their statewide political campaigns. The Republican Attorneys General Association raised more than $19 million during the 2016 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, including nearly $1.4 million from theU.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform and $500,000 from Republican casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. That total compared with about $6.7 million raised by the Democratic Attorneys General Association.

It remains unclear whether any Republican state leaders will collaborate with the new center. Frosh said the lawsuits he has filed against the administration have not needed the approval of Gov. Larry Hogan (R). But Maryland officials have informed the EPA that they plan to sue unless the agency ensures that coal-fired plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia install pollution controls so their output doesn’t harm Maryland’s air quality.

Juliet Eilperin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Washington Post, editing climate and environmental coverage. She has written two books, "Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks" and "Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives." Follow

===

peeling back onion

https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/13/michael-bloomberg-climate-exxonmobil-lawyer/

https://dailycaller.com/2018/07/19/judge-new-york-climate-change-lawsuit/

no lnx

ENERGY

Judge Tosses Out New York City’s Climate Change Lawsuit

Daily Caller News Foundation

MICHAEL BASTASCH

CONTRIBUTOR

July 19, 2018

A federal judge tossed a lawsuit New York City brought against five major oil companies, demanding compensation for the alleged damages from man-made global warming.

“The Court recognizes that the City, and many other governmental entities around the United States and in other nations, will be forced to grapple with the harmful impacts of climate change in the coming decades,” U.S. District Judge John Keenan ruled on Thursday.

“However, the immense and complicated problem of global warming requires a comprehensive solution that weighs the global benefits of fossil fuel use with the gravity of the impending harms,” Keenan ruled.

“To litigate such an action for injuries from foreign greenhouse gas emissions in federal court would severely infringe upon the foreign-policy decisions that are squarely within the purview of the political branches of the U.S. Government,” Keenan wrote for the court.

It’s the third such lawsuit brought against oil companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips. A U.S. District Court judge in Northern California struck down identical lawsuits in June brought by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland.

Trial lawyers with Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP handled climate lawsuits on behalf of the two California cities and New York City in exchange for a percentage of any winnings, called a contingency fee. (RELATED: Trial Lawyers Handling Cities’ Global Warming Lawsuits Stand To Make Billions)

Hagens Berman stood to earn billions of dollars in contingency fees depending on the total winnings, from a favorable judgement against oil companies. The three cities claimed billions of dollars worth of damage from global warming induced by fossil fuels.

Cities and trial lawyers argue the alleged effects of global warming, including sea level rise and extreme weather,violate public nuisance laws. Cities want oil companies to pay for past damages and future mitigation projects.

However, two judges have shot down this argument this year. Both judges found the Clean Air Act supplanted common law on global warming nuisance complaints, and ruling otherwise would circumvent elected officials.

“Global warming and solutions thereto must be addressed by the two other branches of government,” Keenan wrote.

At least a dozen state and local governments have filed suit against fossil fuel companies over global warming since 2017, including six California cities and the state of Rhode Island. (RELATED: Trial Lawyers Are BehindRhode Island’s Global Warming Lawsuit Against Big Oil)

Those lawsuits are also being handled by trial lawyers in exchange for a percentage of any winnings.

Hagens Berman, for example, is also handling a climate lawsuit against oil companies brought by King County, Washington. (RELATED: Washington Joins Growing List Of Locals Suing Oil Companies Over Climate Change)

“This case is, fundamentally, about shifting the costs of abatement back onto the companies,” reads King County’s complaint. “After all, it is Defendants who have profited and will continue to profit by knowingly contributing to global warming, thereby doing all they can to help create and maintain a profound public nuisance.”

Tags : energy new york city u s district court

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no bio affiliations one of many pp:

Michael Bastasch

Contributor

OPINION

BASTASCH: It's Now Clearer Than Ever Before, Science Bends Itself To Fit Left-Wing Politics

2020 Democrats Eschew Climate Change For 'Crisis,' 'Chaos' In Debate

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Jay Inslee Says McDonald's Employees Are 'Slinging Hash' In Democratic Debate

Top EPA Official Steps Down After Spearheading Trump's Deregulatory Agenda

2020 Hopeful Claims Global Warming Made Parts Of Central America 'Uninhabitable'

2020 Hopeful Proposes Tax Plan That Voters In His Home State Twice Rejected

House Democrats Haven't Held Their Latest Climate Change Hearing And A Scientist Is Already Debunking It

Will The Philadelphia Refinery Explosion Send Gas Prices Skyrocketing? Experts Weigh In

Trump's EPA Gets Unexpected Challenge From The Right

New York Passes 'Very Expensive' Climate Change Bill To Cut Global CO2 Emissions 0.3% Over 30 Years

Trump's EPA Repealed The Centerpiece Of Obama's Climate Agenda

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Tags : donald trump energy exxon mobil michael bloomberg

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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Amicus Brief in Texas Reveals New Info on :{Climate Litigation Industry:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:

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