energy policy advocates E P A

===

SHOCK TROOPS FOR CLIMATE LAWSUITS

SEE OPPO RESEARCH

see AG Ellison

see horner 3

see G A O bs

rule 23 bs?

bad code bibli srch bot

see bak 9 22

wow, how did i miss dr evil?rick berman

===

whoohoo win!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/7/2127500/-WSJ-Mad-About-Anti-Climate-Disinfo-Efforts-As-CFACT-Pretends-Not-To-Be

WSJ Mad About Anti-Climate Disinfo Efforts, As CFACT Pretends Not To Be - Daily Kos

Daily Kos

We promise that next week it'll be back to bad news only here, but for the third day in a row we're going to do a bit of celebrating, because once again, deniers are losing!

Lesley Clark reported yesterday at E&E News that"Minnesota’s highest court has delivered a victory to Attorney General Keith Ellison in legal action surrounding the state’s climate liability lawsuit against the oil and gas industry."

More specifically, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided not to let tobacco-turned-fossil-fuel-backed lawyer and harasser of climate scientists and public servants Chris Horner's front group try and recreate Climategate, but this time with emails from Attorney General Keith Ellison's office concerning their litigation against fossil fuel companies.

Meanwhile, it was heartening to see that CFACT is so desperate for signs of its effectiveness that it's emailing people to brag about the "six hit pieces referencing [Marc] Morano since July."

Two of those are from MediaMatters, one where Morano is mentioned by name only once, in passing, and another where his appearance was noted in a larger piece on Tucker Carlson. The other four are from yours truly, who CFACT describes as seeming "to have a love-hate relationship" with Morano.

Which is true, in that we love how easy it is Morano makes it to write about how deniers are wrong on purpose for money by constantly saying dumb stuff, like that some 1930's New Deal book is proof of a 2022 plot for world domination through a Great Reset. The other example they linked also only mentioned Morano in passing, as one of many disinfo-spreaders proving YouTube is failing to enforce its demonetization policy. Not exactly evidence of effectiveness.

They unfortunately did not clear up the mystery of whether our memory that Marc Morano told Bill Nye that he uses Ambien to sleep at night is accurate, but the fact that even our petty sniping is enough to warrant an email blast to subscribers shows how little evidence they actually do have that they're making a real impact. People ridiculing you does not necessarily mean they're threatened by you. Sometimes it just means you're ridiculous.

Because this is, admittedly, not exactly a big news outlet with the largest readership in the world, and we're happy about that! This space is for people who have to deal with deniers, the general public shouldn't have to know about professional goobers!

Similarly, if some equally small-time, dedicated opposition outlet like theDaily Caller were to run something on anti-climate disinfo efforts, that wouldn't be worth writing home about either.

But if the paper that does have one of the largest subscriber lists, the Wall Street Journal, took the time to complain about something its opposition is doing, thatmight be something worth celebrating!

And what do you know, Thursday's print edition of the Wall Street Journal, going to some 2 million subscribers, featured an editorial complaining about "the climate-change censorship campaign."

Yes, one of the biggest papers in the country decided that a letter from green groups asking Big Tech companies to include climate disinformation when complying with the EU's Digital Services Act was worth its column inches and readers' attention.

Given that Bloomberg, Common Defense and The Hill were the only other coverage, landing news of the letter on the WSJ's pages was quite a score, if even in the shape of it calling on Elon Musk to use Twitter to "shut down the climate censors."

Sounds like the WSJ's the one that wants to censor its opponents!

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ref paywall

climatewire

Minn. AG wins climate skirmish weeks before election

Minnesota's Supreme Court sides with Attorney General Keith Ellison and says some office material is protected by attorney-client privilege and does not have to be disclosed to critics of his climate lawsuit against the oil and gas industry.

BY: LESLEY CLARK

| 10/06/2022

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison answering questions during a 2020 news conference in St. Paul, Minn.

CLIMATEWIRE | Minnesota’s highest court has delivered a victory to Attorney General Keith Ellison in legal action surrounding the state’s climate liability lawsuit against the oil and gas industry in what has become a campaign issue in the Democrat’s run for reelection.

The Minnesota Supreme Court in a decision last week sided with Ellison over whether internal office deliberations about Minnesota’s climate lawsuit can be kept confidential.

The case stems from a 2019 lawsuit filed by conservative critics of Ellison and other Democratic state attorneys general who have hired outside lawyers to work on lawsuits seeking damages from oil and gas companies for climate change-related damages (Climatewire, Aug. 19, 2019).

Energy Policy Advocates, based out of Washington state, had sought documents detailing the communication between Ellison’s office and a law firm that works on climate litigation against energy companies. The group had also asked for records related to Ellison's hiring of a lawyer through a Michael Bloomberg-backed fellowship program.

...

===

replay of 2017 munchkin BS randy weber lamar :

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-yellen-investigate-russian-money-usa-green-groups

no lnx vid

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Published March 12, 2022

Republicans call on Yellen to investigate whether Russian money financed USA green groups

Republican Study Committee sends letter to Treasury Secretary to investigate

By Marisa Schultz | Fox News

Facebook..[soc med]

[Putin is 'committed to taking and controlling' Ukraine: Expert

Center for Strategic and International Studies Chair Anthony Cordesman says Russia appears to be reorganizing its military strategy.]

EXCLUSIVE: The head of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) has called on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to launch an investigation into whether Russia secretly funded U.S. green groups that advocate against domestic oil and gas production.

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., led a letter to Yellen Friday that cites a 2015 Washington Free Beacon report that suggested the California-based Sea Change Foundation may allegedly be a conduit for Russian oil interests in funneling money to groups like the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club and the Center for American Progress. 

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., is chair of the Republican Study Committee.

"Russia spent millions promoting anti-energy policies and politicians in the U.S.," Banks said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Now, thanks to Biden’s war on domestic energy, U.S. oil production has dropped 10%, pushing up prices and enriching and emboldening Putin before he invaded Ukraine."

HOUSE REPUBLICANS DEMAND ANSWERS FROM ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS OVER ALLEGATION OF COLLUSION WITH RUSSIA]

Banks continued: "Unlike the Russia hoax, Putin’s malign influence on our energy sector is real and deserves further investigation."

RSC Letter to Treasury on R... by Fox News

The Treasury Department did not immediately reply to email requests for comment on whether it would investigate.

Banks' letter coincides with a similar effort from House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans who are calling on certain environmental groups to disclose their ties to a non-governmental organization which is, according to the committee, reportedly used by Russian President Vladimir Putin to make an impact on American energy production.

GAS PRICES FUELING COMING DEMOCRATIC BLOODBATH IN MIDTERMS, REPUBLICANS SAY]

Three environmental groups – the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Sierra Club –reportedly have ties to the San Francisco-based NGO environmental organization called the Sea Change Foundation, according to Republicans on the committee.

In a letter sent to each of the three groups, Republicans inquired about the funding the groups have received from Sea Change since 2006 and called for disclosure of whether the groups "are aware of concerns that Sea Change may be a conduit for Russian funding."

The Center for American Progress said the allegations have been "thoroughly debunked," citing a 2018 article in which Sea Change founders Nat Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons say they have received no funding from outside sources and the foundation's $500 million in grants for climate and clean energy were based on their family money.

"In the midst of a serious national security crisis, this is a disgusting disinformation campaign by unpatriotic Republican extremistswho have been actively cheering on Putin throughout the Trump years, and who are now masking that disgrace with lies that have been thoroughly debunked," Center for American Progress said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

Sea Change told Fox News Digital that it has no connection to Russia or Russian funds and wants to put to rest the allegations. A statement from co-Founders and co-Directors, Nat Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons, restates their 2018 position.

"All funding to Klein (now Sea Change Foundation International) has been exclusively from philanthropic contributions by Bermuda-based family trusts of which, I [Nat Simons], my children, and family-related philanthropic organizations are the only beneficiaries," the statement said. "I wish to clarify that press reports speculating that Klein has received funding from outside sources are factually incorrect and have no basis. Neither Klein nor Sea Change Foundation has ever solicited or accepted contributions from non-family related sources."

Similarly, LCV, NRDC and Sierra Club have pushed back hard against these GOP allegations in previous statements to Fox News Digital.

The NRDC said the "allegations are false" and are "rooted in a smear campaign." [SAME QUOTE FROM 2017?]

"We receive no funding from the governments of Russia or China," Bob Deans, the director of strategic engagement for the NRDC, said. "We answer to our independent leadership, and we don’t do the bidding of any government – foreign or otherwise – in our work to advocate for commonsense environmental protections in the public interest. These allegations are rooted in a smear campaign orchestrated nearly a decade ago by fossil fuel interests and a right-wing think tank. They only serve then, as now, as a distraction."

A statement provided to Fox News from the LCV said the "story is completely false and has been put to rest for years."

"We have no connections to Russia, or China, and have been an effective advocate for environmental protection for over 50 years," the group stated. "These false and poorly researched allegations are rooted in a nearly 10-year-old right-wing think tank and fossil fuel industry-funded smear campaign that gets revived every few years to serve as a distraction."

In a statement shared with Fox News, Melinda Pierce, Sierra Club's legislative director, concluded the allegation of collusion is a "false conspiracy theory."

[Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law legislation that could punish journalists with up to 15 years in prison for reporting so-called "fake" news about his military invasion of Ukraine.    ]   

"This false conspiracy theory, invented by the same deceitful front groups paid to do polluters' and big tobacco’s dirty work, has been repeatedly debunked over its nearly 10-year existence," Pierce said."The Sierra Club has no connections to Russia or China, and proudly fights for clean energy and climate action because this is what our planet requires, our families deserve, and what the overwhelming majority of Americans across the country demand."

[CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Republican Study Committee is the largest group of conservatives in the House. They've been hitting Biden hard for his domestic energy policies they say stifle domestic oil and gas production and led to the U.S. buying Russian oil to fund Putin's war against Ukraine.

Biden announced this week the U.S. will stop importing Russian oil products and said "it's simply not true" that his administration is holding back domestic energy production.

Fox News' Kyle Morris contributed to this report.

Marisa Schultz is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to marisa.schultz@fox.com or @marisa.schultz.

[doc/ltr]

[LTR PDF SCRIBD]

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REF

https://www.**insidephilanthropy**.com/home/2018/7/20/top-climate-change-donors-pull-back-the-curtain-on-their-past-and-future-giving

No lnx doc ltr

Nat Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons have run the Sea Change Foundation, one of the biggest funders of climate and clean energy work, for over a decade with almost no public profile. The foundation has been a powerful, low-key friend to green groups, and at times, a target for conservatives.

Now, for the first time, the couple are publicizing details about their philanthropy, including confirming more than $500 million in grants for climate and clean energy initiatives to date. That figure makes Nat and Laura among the all-time top living donors in this space. 

In a statement released to Inside Philanthropy, Nat Simons also stated that Klein Ltd.—a Bermuda-based entity that contributed to Sea Change and has drawn speculation about foreign funding of environmentalists—is directed solely by him and funded exclusively by Simons family wealth. Klein has been renamed Sea Change Foundation International, and will continue as a Bermuda-based philanthropy that shares the mission of the couple’s stateside foundation.

“I wish to clarify that press reports speculating that Klein has received funding from outside sources are factually incorrect and have no basis. Neither Klein nor Sea Change Foundation has ever solicited or accepted contributions from non-family related sources,” Simons said (see the full statement below).

Rather, the couple said, Klein is entirely derived from a large trust in Bermuda whose beneficiaries were Nat Simons’ father Jim Simons, his family members, and charitable entities. As previously reported in the Paradise Papers investigation, Jim Simons had a massive trust that had grown to billions of dollars, and in 2010 was divided up into Simons family “sub-trusts.” All of Klein's funding comes from that restructuring, the couple said.

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The announcement is a move toward more transparency for the couple’s philanthropy, but also, particularly based on what we know about the size of the family’s offshore wealth, indicates substantially more climate grantmaking on the way. The Simonses said they intend to give between $50 million and $75 million per year toward climate mitigation and clean energy work for the foreseeable future. For context, the country’s largest climate funder, the Hewlett Foundation, gave $128 million to the cause in 2017.

Nat Simons is a member of the philanthropically active Simons clan—son of billionaire hedge fund wizard and major Democratic donor Jim Simons, who runs a top science foundation with his wife Marilyn Simons. Three Simons children have their own philanthropies, with Liz Simons, Audrey Cappell, and Nat Simons taking on climate change, human rights, and other issues. Nat and Laura Baxter-Simons recently joined others in the family in signing on to the Giving Pledge.

While they each have become forces in the various issues they fund, the family has also been touched by controversy over how the country’s richest people manage and deploy their tremendous wealth, including in ways that keep both assets and giving out of the public eye. This move marks a notable shift for a couple that, whether they wanted to or not, have become key figures in the country’s climate fight.

What is Sea Change?

The Sea Change Foundation does pretty much one thing—gives big funding to nonprofits working on climate change and clean energy. The foundation makes large grants, and has been known to give millions to individual groups in a given year. It's working with outside consultants and a two-person board, but nonetheless channels large amounts in a uniquely focused manner.

Sea Change launched in 2006, and according to Nat Simons, has given around $500 million to date, at a rate that’s increasing. “Due to the urgency of the issue and the momentum generated by theParis Climate Accord, Sea Change Foundation has recently materially increased its annual grant budget as it continues to focus its efforts on this issue,” he said in the statement. 

The strategies it's backed are not unlike what you’d see in a center-left foundation like Hewlett or Packard—a lot of working with industry and utilities, supporting expansion of renewables, and energy efficiency. One major recipient is the country’s leading funding collaborative for climate change work, The Energy Foundation, which in the latest year of reporting received $19.5 million from Sea Change. 

A big theme for Sea Change is collaboration. One recent initiative was participating with 17 other foundations and individuals in support of theKigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, to phase out hydrofluorocarbons while making energy efficiency improvements. The foundation is also backing the Global Climate Action Summit in September, hosted by California Gov. Jerry Brown.

As far as who’s guiding their funding, Simons revealed that Sea Change has a team of consultants called Tempest Advisors (see the full roster on a new website), which is led by longtime philanthropy and nonprofit leader Tom Steinbach, formerly of Hewlett, and Brigid McCormack, former executive director of the Audubon California.

So Sea Change moves a lot of money on climate change, which is still a relatively small sliver of American philanthropy overall (as we’ve often criticized).

But given the fairly mainstream climate solutions it’s backing, you might wonder why Sea Change Foundation has become a bogeyman among the right. And why did two GOP congressmen go so far as to call for an investigation based in part on its activity?

Klein Controversy

The controversy stems from two contributions to Sea Change around 2011 totaling $23 million, from Klein Ltd., the Bermuda-based entity. The remaining $315 million-plus deposited into Sea Change over its decade or so of existence came from U.S.-based funds belonging to Nat and Laura—who've made their own wealth through the Meritage Group, a San Francisco-based hedge fund—and a couple of deposits from Jim Simons.

Speculation about that $23 million has ricocheted mostly around conservative media for years. Specifically, voices on the right have claimed that Sea Change is a conduit for Russian funding of the U.S. environmental movement. And despite the lack of evidence behind it, the theory has taken on a life of its own.

Claims about Sea Change and Russia cite a dubious 2014 report from the Environmental Policy Alliance, a front group run by notorious communications firm Berman & Company to discredit environmental groups. The report hinges on Russian business connections of employees at a Bermuda law firm that provides financial services, including for Klein, declaring that this “raises serious questions.” A sort of telephone game of tweets, blog posts and op-eds have followed, often misleading or vastly overstating the report’s shaky premise. The theory was resurfaced in 2017 by GOP Reps. Lamar Smith and Randy Weber, who used it as a reason to request an investigation by the U.S. Treasury.

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Claims about Sea Change and Russia cite a dubious 2014 report from the Environmental Policy Alliance, a front group run by notorious communications firm Berman & Company to discredit environmental groups. The report hinges on Russian business connections of employees at a Bermuda law firm that provides financial services, including for Klein, declaring that this “raises serious questions.” A sort of telephone game of tweets, blog posts and op-eds have followed, often misleading or vastly overstating the report’s shaky premise. The theory was resurfaced in 2017 by GOP Reps. Lamar Smith and Randy Weber, who used it as a reason to request an investigation by the U.S. Treasury.

While we’re first in line to encourage scrutiny of philanthropy, there’s little to this theory, and its originators are highly suspect. Sea Change, the law firm, and green groups singled out have all flatly denied it, repeatedly.

Because Klein (now Sea Change Foundation International) is based in Bermuda, it's not possible to track its activities through tax filings, like U.S. foundations (more on this later). But given what we know about Simons trusts in Bermuda, it makes a lot of sense that Klein has turned out to be merely a chunk of the family’s now well-documented offshore wealth.

The Origin of Sea Change Foundation International

Along with earlier revelations around the Panama Papers, the huge leak last fall of documents known as the Paradise Papers, and the sweeping investigative reporting that followed, opened the public’s eyes to how the ultra-wealthy manage money through offshore accounts. It also shed particular light on the wealth of the Simons family, and why it stands to reason that Klein was funded by a portion of that wealth.

One major story from the leak revolved around Jim Simons, who showed up as the main beneficiary of a massive offshore pot of money known as the Lord Jim Trust, which had been accumulating capital since the 1970s when it was set up as a gift by a non-U.S. citizen friend.

As the New York Times and other outlets reported, the trust had built up a large tax liability were it to ever pay out to the Simons family, so in 2010, it was restructured and divided up for charitable purposes. A little over half of the sum went into a new philanthropic entity of Jim Simons’ called Simons Foundation International, which has been reported as having $8 billion in assets, more than twice that of his New York-based Simons Foundation. The remaining portion was divided among Bermuda-based trusts for the three children.

The entirety of the assets in what was previously called Klein, established in 2011, comes from the restructuring of the Lord Jim Trust, Nat Simons told Inside Philanthropy. And that’s now Sea Change Foundation International, with all grants past and future focusing on climate change, they said. The Simonses declined to disclose the size of Sea Change Foundation International’s assets. They also said they see no reason to move Sea Change Foundation International out of Bermuda at this time, and expect it to focus mainly on international grantmaking.

As far as we know, U.S. donors establishing philanthropic entities in Bermuda is not super-common, but it’s not without precedent. WhenChuck Feeney established Atlantic Philanthropies in 1982, he set it up in Bermuda to operate anonymously and to “maximize the foundation’s endowment.” It wasn’t until 1997 that the funder ceased anonymity, and extensively documented its spending-down process in the public eye.

According to Michael Pfeifer, an international income tax and trust and estates lawyer who participated in drafting of tax rules for overseas trusts, there are potential benefits to keeping such a philanthropic entity offshore, rather than moving it to the States. While each investment is different, and rules governing them are highly complex, generally speaking, Pfeifer said, advantages to a donor could include less reporting, a greater range of charitable objectives allowed, and avoiding financial penalties in moving the money.

Wealth and Transparency

It's hard to say whether the Simonses’ effort to shine some light on their giving will stem unfounded accusations, but Sea Change’s story does say a lot about overall concerns over wealth and philanthropy in this moment, and the related problems of opacity in the sector.

The revelation of a U.S. family’s billions of dollars based on an island in the Atlantic is certainly staggering in its own way, regardless of how you feel about the philanthropic causes they're going to support. The influence of wealth, especially what we don’t know about it, is a growing concern for many Americans. And the allegations that have followed the foundation, far-fetched as they may be, at least partially result from the fact that there was so little on record about it for so long.

Of course, Sea Change was far from alone in its desire to stay out of the public eye. As personal wealth and the philanthropic sector continue to surge, donors are becoming more savvy about moving money in non-transparent ways, especially through the use of donor-advised funds. As a result, philanthropy is becoming even less transparent in a number of ways—and minimally, transparency is necessary for the sector to function democratically.

In that sense, Sea Change is taking steps in the right direction.

Even more important, though, is the message that Nat Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons are sending to other wealthy donors by publicly stepping up their giving on climate change, which is that the situation is urgent and that those who can give more need to do so.

As we've noted in the past, even billionaires who've signed the Giving Pledge and publicly called climate change an existential threat are giving only a sliver of what they could—at a moment when humanity is running out of time to implement solutions to save civilization as we know it, and as many green groups complain that they need more resources.

The clock is ticking on climate change, and larger-scale climate philanthropy is essential—now.

===

ref

https://www**.huffpost.**com/entry/environmental-policy-alliance-berman_n_4913303

nEW YORK -- A front group for Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm Berman & Company is back with new targets: green buildings, green groups and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Berman & Co., helmed by Rick Berman (who was once called "Dr. Evil" by CBS' "60 Minutes"), has a long history of running campaigns on behalf of the food and beverage industry under the banner of the Center for Consumer Freedom. Earlier this year, CCF changed its name to the Center for Organizational Research & Education, according to documents filed with the Government of the District of Columbia and the North Carolina Secretary of State's Office, which were obtained by The Huffington Post. The group also recently launched the cleverly named Environmental Policy Alliance, or EPA for short, a group "devoted to uncovering the funding and hidden agendas behind environmental activist groups."

an Environmental Policy Alliance spokesperson told HuffPost that the name change is part of a "restructuring" to "broaden the work that we're doing." The CCF will continue to exist, but alongside the "EPA" under the umbrella of the Center for Organizational Research & Education.

The new Environmental Policy Alliance appears to be one of Berman's first major forays into energy and environmental policy. The new "EPA" targets the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which it deems "America's most powerful environmental activist."

Berman's "EPA Facts" site suggests that the connection between rising greenhouse gas emissions and warming temperatures is "still unclear," despite the fact that scientists have a solid understanding of the correlation. The group also argues that there are flaws in the work of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, citing reports from two well-known climate change-denying groups, the Heartland Institute and the George C. Marshall Institute.

CCF's Environmental Policy Alliance also launched a campaign called "LEED Exposed" last week, which critiques the usefulness of the U.S. Green Building Council's rating system for sustainability and efficiency of buildings. The group's "research" purports to show that "LEED-certified buildings use more energy and are more expensive" than uncertified buildings.

"This latest data release only confirms what we already knew: LEED certification is little more than a fancy plaque displayed by these 'green' buildings," Berman staffer Anastasia Swearingen said in a press release announcing the launch of the campaign on Feb. 28.

Swearingen also wrote an anti-LEED op-ed for Forbes in December 2013, arguing, "we're clearly not spending that money wisely."

A closer look at LEED Exposed's methodology reveals a significant omission. The report concludes that, as a whole, LEED-certified buildings in Washington, D.C., use more energy than buildings without the certification. But the analysis only looks at the energy use of buildings relative to size, or what is known as energy use intensity.

EUI is only one of several recognized benchmarks used by building professionals to assess a building's efficiency, and looking at it in isolation ignores the importance of building density. Thus a large, abandoned building would score well for EUI, because its energy use is quite low relative to size.

"Their goal is just to confuse you," Scot Horst, the senior vice president of LEED at the U.S. Green Building Council, told HuffPost. Most Americans are unfamiliar with terms like energy use intensity, he explained, and may not fully grasp the complexities of assessing efficiency. EUI is "only a very partial snapshot of what's happening," according to Horst, and ignoring other measurements "leads to very unfair comparisons."

Groups like the American Chemistry Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represent the wood, plastics and vinyl industries, have bashed LEED in the past.

Swearingen told HuffPost that the alliance doesn't solely represent business interests, arguing that all Americans have a vested interest in affordable energy.

"Berman makes his money as a corporate hired gun, setting up front groups to denigrate public interest organizations that threaten his clients' bottom lines," Melanie Sloan, executive director for the nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington told HuffPost. "I'm not surprised he's attacking groups and agencies focused on the environment, given the deep pockets of those interested in paying to stop climate change legislation and regulation."

"These methods of attack rely on the way people read media," Horst added. "They rely on creating confusion."

Manufacturing doubt around scientific issues and sowing confusion through the media is a well-documented industry strategy -- one that Berman has often employed.

Berman & Co. has previously attacked organizations like the Humane Society of the United States and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and campaigned against minimum-wage increases and unionization.

The Environmental Policy Alliance also ran a full-page ad in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, claiming that the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Food & Water Watch "are using scare tactics and junk science to push policies that increase the cost of energy."

"This feeble attempt at a smear campaign is a good reminder to always consider the source," an NRDC spokesperson told HuffPost. "As opposed to this newly re-named front group, we've been around for decades. We cite our research. We sign our names on our materials. And we don't lurk in the shadows because there's no reason to hide our good work to protect our air, our water and our communities."

UPDATE: March 12 -- On March 9, Swearingen, writing as a "senior research analyst" for the Environmental Policy Alliance, published an online op-ed on USA Today's website. In the essay she argues "LEED certification is more or less useless as a metric for determining how 'green' a building is," and goes on to describe the LEED standard as "greenwashing."

when asked by HuffPost about the column (which did not run in USA Today's print edition), a member of USA Today's editorial board said he wasn't aware at the time it was published that it had originated with Berman's group.

"I thought I was up to date on their various incarnations," he said, adding that USA Today intends to add an editor's note to Swearingen's piece to clarify its origin.

Berman's Environmental Policy Alliance also ran a full-page advertisement for its "EPA Facts" website in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. The ad charges that energy prices may "skyrocket," and lambastes "oppressive energy regulations" from the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency.

A 2013 Office of Management and Budget report estimated that the benefits of 32 EPA rules, including reduced exposure to particulate matter and other air pollution, greatly exceeded the aggregate costs of their implementation over the preceding decade.

[hit ad]

---ref

https://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BermanCORECCF.pdf

high webster ch and bean DC 1747 penn av nw; 501c3 educ does not mention lobby thio any lawfull BS

ref https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meet-rick-berman-aka-dr-evil/

no lnx in orig

Meet Rick Berman, A.K.A. "Dr. Evil"

60-minutes

BY DANIEL SCHORN

FEBRUARY 25, 2011 / 1:24 PM / CBS

This segment was originally broadcast on April 8, 2007. It was updated on July 17, 2007.

Rick Berman takes a certain pride, even joy, in the nickname "Dr. Evil." But the people who use it see nothing funny about it—they mean it.

His real name is Rick Berman, a Washington lobbyist and arch-enemy of other lobbyists and do-gooders who would have government control—and even ban-a myriad of products they claim are killing us, products like caffeine, salt, fast food and the oil they fry it in. He's against Mothers Against Drunk Driving, animal rights activists, food watchdog groups and unions of every kind.

As correspondent Morley Safer reports, Berman believes we are fast becoming a nation of passive children ruled by the iron thumb of self-appointed "nannies" and he gets paid good money to keep all those "Mary Poppinses" at bay. And they have reserved a special place in hell for him.

"Let me just take you through some of the things your critics have said about you. Sleazy, greedy, outrageous, deceptive, ineffective except when it comes to making money for yourself, corporate lackey who is one of the scariest people in America," Safer remarks.

"You know, I grew up in the Bronx. Name-calling is not the worst thing that I've been subjected to," Berman replies.

Rick Berman is lawyer and a lobbyist, which some might say is bad enough, but he would say lawyer and lobbyist for personal freedom.

"If the government is truly interested in my health and welfare, I'm appreciative of it. But, I think I can take care of myself," Berman tells Safer.

Berman claims that we are quickly becoming a "nanny state," an overregulated society with ever-declining freedom of choice from how much we earn, to when we may drive, to what we eat.

He has particular contempt for so-called "food cops" who claim to know what's best for us.

"They create this Chicken Little mentality that the sky is falling over everything," Berman says. "You know, the latest study says this, the latest study says that. And they drive the government to satisfy that artificial public need."

Berman blames activist, safety and watchdog groups—"do-gooders run amok" he calls them—for trying to scare America into submission. He points to those endless reports, often contradictory, which offer us a dizzying array of fearful news about everyday food and drink that might just kill you: like tuna fish, chicken, diet soda, salt, and that demon, trans-fats.

"I don't think that the other side should be allowed to talk and the response be intimidated into submission or silence. And so I'm the other side," Berman says.

The other side as in big business, mainly the food, beverage and restaurant business, which have a vested interest in encouraging people to continue to eat, drink and be merry to their heart's delight.

Berman's the booze and food industry's 6'4", 64-year-old weapon of mass destruction. They hire him to front for them in the "food wars."

"The businesses themselves don't find it convenient to take on causes that might seem politically incorrect, and I'm not afraid to do that," Berman says.

Asked if has become a major tool for corporate America, Berman says, "My mission is not to defend corporate America."

"You're a hired gun," Safer remarks.

"Well, I go out to people and I say, 'Look, if you believe in what I believe, will you help fund it?' Now, I don't know if that's a hired gun or not. But, the point is, yes, I do get paid for educating people. If that's my biggest crime, I stand accused," Berman says.

And it's not just the "food police" Berman goes after: it's anyone who seeks to limit or regulate our way of life, like animal rights activists, trial lawyers, and his current favorite, union leaders.

And Berman uses ads to drive home the message.

"You know what I love? Paying union dues, just so I can keep my job," one TV ad says. "I really like how the union discriminates against minorities!" "Nothing makes me feel better than knowing that I'm supporting their fat-cat lifestyles. Find out the facts about union officials at unionfacts.com" "Thanks, union bosses!"

"There's no sense in putting out a 17 page scientific report that nobody will read. So, I put out a 30 second commercial that makes the point," Berman explains.

But the "point" is not made by Berman and Company. He has come up with a clever system of non-profit educational entities. Companies can make charitable donations to these groups, which have names like Center for Consumer Freedom and Center for Union Facts. They are neutral sounding but "educating," with a particular point of view, all perfectly legal.

Berman and his staff of young crusaders attack the nanny culture by combing through watchdog and government reports, seeking inconsistencies, overstatements, seizing on the one fact here or there that might discredit the research. And Berman says he's rarely disappointed.

He blasts MADD for no longer being run by mothers, and PETA, who he accused of killing animals in its care. And he questions the danger of mercury in tuna; he says it's massively over-hyped.

Web sites devoted to nanny bashing and ads showing children being exploited by union bosses are all in a day's work for Rick Berman.

In the end, Berman says it's all about "shooting the messenger."

"Shooting the messenger means getting people to understand that this messenger is not as credible as their name would suggest," Berman says.

While those tactics have made him rich and powerful, they have also made him mightily unpopular. Even in a mudslinging city like Washington, it's difficult to find someone who provokes as much venom as Rick Berman.

"He's a one-man goon squad for any company that's willing to hire him," says Dr. Michael Jacobson, who heads the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a healthy food advocacy group. Jacobson has been the point man in the "food wars" for decades.

Jacobson's declaration of war on obesity has often brought him face to face with "Dr. Evil."

"Berman is against every single measure, no matter how sensible. He'd have no restrictions on tobacco advertising, junk foods galore in schools. No minimum wage," Jacobson tells Safer. "He wants to leave corporate America unfettered of any regulations that protect the public's health."

Jacobson says corporate America simply hires Berman to say the nasty things they wouldn't dare say themselves.

"He's a hit man. He's dishonest, deceptive, he makes things up," Jacobson says. "He does things that the companies can't do or say themselves, badmouthing just about anybody who says anything critical of industry."

Who are the companies that support Berman?

"The food industry, the beverage industry, alcoholic beverage industry, the restaurant industry's a major supporter. He doesn't disclose the names of his funders," Jacobson says.

But a partial list of Berman's clients was leaked to the media some years back. Names included Coca-Cola, Tyson Chicken, Outback Steakhouse and Wendy's.

Berman will not confirm or deny. "You're not going to get a lot of companies who want to say that I'm funding Rick Berman to go after you. They're just not going to do it," he says.

Asked if these companies are embarrassed about being associated with him, Berman says, "I think it all comes down to not wanting to be targeted. I mean, I get attacked. But, I don't get attacked for my information. I get attacked personally."

And though his business rakes in millions, Berman says it's not about the cash. He says it's a calling.

"I didn't need to be doing this. I'm doing this because it's a passion of mind. I believe in what I'm doing," Berman tells Safer.

"But, you're also doing it for the money. C'mon, admit it," Safer says.

"I was making a lot of money before I ever started this firm. I do it because I believe in it. I do it because it's the right thing to do," Berman replies.

Berman says his methods are fair, and that he is only responding to his opponents, who consistently use scare tactics.

He has spoken out against trans-fat, that controversial frying oil under attack by city councils around the country. Berman says it's hardly the poison its enemies claim it is.

"People should not be led around by the nose with bad information," Berman says. "You can make up your own mind as to whether or not margarine is really rat poison as some people have said."

"Oh come on…," Safer remarks.

"But, that's what they've said," Berman replies.

"You just love it when they do that, though, don't you?" Safer asks.

"Well, they're so stupid when they do that because they leave themselves open for criticism," Berman says. "And that's the tension between these communication battles. Somebody exaggerating the hell out of a story and someone like myself coming in and saying, 'What in the world were you thinking.'"

And on the very genuine issue of increasing obesity in this country, Berman's blood boils when people describe it as an "epidemic" or "disease."

"There are people, the morbidly obese who truly do have a problem in this country. I mean, these are the people who when you see them walk down the street, you get the feeling that their butt is another zip code. OK, I understand that. Okay? That's a problem. Those people are at a health risk. But this whole issue that it's a disease, that it's not your fault that you're fat. I mean, if this is a disease, this is going to be the only disease in the country that you could solve by taking long walks and keeping your mouth shut. This is a personal responsibility issue in most cases," Berman says.

"I understand that and a lot of social activists and the government to some extent is trying to get these people to change these bad habits," Safer remarks.

"I have no problem with education. But, education turns into regulation, you know?" Berman says. "As the government gets deeper and deeper into people's lives, they start to dictate more and more. If a bartender can cut you off for visibly being intoxicated, why won't we get to the point where a restaurant operator is not allowed to let you order dessert? I mean, you could get there."

"Oh, it sounds ridiculous, right? 'Well, I can't imagine that.' But, imagine ten steps to get there and all of the sudden it doesn't appear so crazy," Berman adds.

And that is how Dr. Evil frames almost any issue he fights—resist or big nanny will crush you.

He says MADD won't be happy until there is a breathalyzer in every car. Caffeine and salt will disappear, America will be regulated to a police state, one without French fries or foie gras.

"I am not opposed to stopping any of the stuff that's really bad. But, I am opposed to making the problem seem worse than it is. And these groups will make it seem so bad so it justifies their Draconian solutions," Berman says.

But Michael Jacobson says Berman, in his malevolence, is distorting deathly serious issues that will have long term effects on Americans.

"An occasional hot dog is not gonna kill anybody. But, when you're having fettuccini Alfredo one night and the next day you have a double whopper with cheese at Burger King and the next day you go over to Denny's and you have one of their enormous breakfasts, that's what's killing us. Half a million people die every year of heart disease," Jacobson says.

Asked if Berman believes in what he does, Jacobson says, "He's a PR guy. How you can believe anything he says? I think he's in favor of making a lot of money."

"But I think he does hit a nerve in this country when he goes after the nanny state that everything you do is being controlled by Big Mother," Safer remarks.

"Yeah. Isn't it terrible? We have health departments that are trying to clean up restaurants, environmental agencies that are trying to clean the air and the water. It's just terrible," Jacobson says. "I think it's great that government sometimes protects the public's welfare. And he's there protecting industry."

Berman concedes government has a role, but says for the most part the marketplace will self-regulate.

"If the other side thinks that I'm all of these bad things, the one thing that they must think is I'm effective, or else they wouldn't be bitching about it so much," Berman says.

"The fact is you enjoy being the contrarian. You like to be out there," Safer says.

"Well, I don't want to be in a business where it's a me-too thing, where everybody's saying the same thing, and I'm saying, 'Oh by the way, I agree,'" Berman replies. "I'm not afraid to say that the emperor has no clothes."

Berman says he rates his success by one simple measure: is he making people think twice?

As for his critics, Berman says, "I say to them, 'Look, once you get past the name-calling, tell me what's wrong with our statistics. Tell me what's wrong with our science.' Have I said anything that's wrong, or am I just objectionable? And if I'm objectionable, I say, 'Take a deep breath and get over it. I'm not going away.'"

Produced By Deirdre Naphin and Katy Textor

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also ref

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/us/politics/pr-executives-western-energy-alliance-speech-taped.html

might have it?

Hard-Nosed Advice From Veteran Lobbyist: ‘Win Ugly or Lose Pretty’

Richard Berman, a political consultant, said oil and gas industry officials need to exploit emotions like fear and turn them against environmental groups. “Think of this as an endless war ,”   he told executives in a speech that was secretly recorded.

Richard Berman, a political consultant, said oil and gas industry officials need to exploit emotions like fear and turn them against environmental groups. “Think of this as an endless war,” he told executives in a speech that was secretly recorded.  Credit...Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times

By Eric Lipton

Oct. 30, 2014

WASHINGTON — If the oil and gas industry wants to prevent its opponents from slowing its efforts to drill in more places, it must be prepared to employ tactics like digging up embarrassing tidbits about environmentalists and liberal celebrities, a veteran Washington political consultant told a room full of industry executives in a speech that was secretly recorded.

The blunt advice from the consultant, Richard Berman, the founder and chief executive of the Washington-based Berman & Company consulting firm, came as Mr. Berman solicited up to $3 million from oil and gas industry executives to finance an advertising and public relations campaign called Big Green Radicals.

“Endless War” and Other Rallying Points

This transcript of the speech made by Richard Berman in June in Colorado Springs to a group of energy executives, as well as other documents, provides a unguarded glimpse of Mr. Berman’s lobbying tactics.

Continue reading the main story

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off bs sun logo!

http://epadvocates.org/

RECORDS LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP RE: USE OF DONOR-PROVIDED CONSULTANTS AS CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIVE STAFF

Today, award-winning independent journalist Rob Schilling filed a lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the Clerk and Chief Administrator of the House of Representatives to exercise the public’s common law right of access to records. Specifically, Schilling’s suit seeks certain described emails, and any Skype and similar recordings and logs, pertaining to the use by two committee chairs of donor-provided consultants as professional staff to perform official business.

This follows the revelation that Congress also had joined in a practice, initiated by Democratic governors and attorneys general with the assistance of major donors after the election of Donald Trump as President, ofusing privately funded staff to perform official business to advance the “climate” agenda.Public records show budgets for tens of millions of dollars of in-kind gifts to governors in the form of non-employee climate “staff” and media consultants, and that progressive state attorneys general took in donor-hired and -provided prosecutors.

Now, it appears that the House Committee on Oversight & Reform is using donor-provided consultants as staff to guide what Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ro Khanna told activists to expect will be a “year-long” investigation of private parties, already expanded, for political speech that Rep. Khanna believes has frustrated attempts to legislate the agenda.

Scapegoating congressional failures is not a constitutionally permissible use of Congress’s investigative powers — with or without the financial assistance of activist donors. While the constitutionality of this “year-long” investigation is not yet at hand, Schilling was one of two parties filing two complaints with congressional ethics watchdogs over this work, the Inspector General of the House and the Office of Congressional Ethics.

As the complaints noted, the gray area exploited by some governors and AGs is not present here: House Rules and federal law prohibit private financing of the performance of official House business, in-kind or otherwise.

This new congressional investigation began with oil company executives in October but, according to past behavior and recent hints, seems likely to extend soon to others the “climate” industry views as having impeded its desires. A previous AGs’ campaign noted in today’s suit led to subpoenas to over 100 think tanks, scientists, and others also in the name of pursuing energy companies for purported climate-related sins. This blew up on the AGs when the targets challenged the obvious violation of private individuals’ First Amendment rights, thanks to the   subpoena battle fought by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The AG leading that charge retreated. However, many of the same AG offices involved in that scheme then brought on attorneys privately hired and placed in their offices by a group created by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg, which offices then resumed the investigations. It has thus become clear that none of these abuses of power, in the name of enormous payouts and massive new governmental authority, were ever truly abandoned.

If anything, they have expanded. The complaint also notes the prospect that the Committee objective is to engineer criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice, in aid of a Biden-Harris campaign  promise to engage DoJ on behalf of the climate industry in its lawsuits against private industry. Indeed, the Oversight Chairmen told activists they were eyeing perjury charges against witnesses...a week before any testimony was taken or any questions posed.

Further, however, prompting Schilling’s requests was Committee leadership also letting slip that it had brought in consultants to help guide the campaign, describing them in a way strongly indicating — thanks both to the New York Times and the group itself — use of a group funded by Arabella Advisors, the “mothership” behind a Democratic “Dark money juggernaut.”

The suit notes that this expansion of donor-provided climate “staff” comes after previous revelations of a $50 million per year budget request for off-books climate staff for progressive governors by 2020. Then came Bloomberg's millions to staff up AGs to, e.g., push climate prosecutions that — with ever-changing rationales but a constant demand for hundreds of billions of dollars to be politically distributed — appear to be little more than shakedowns.

Now the spawn of both disgraces prowls the halls of Congress, and in this case there is no room to excuse the behavior which on its face violates 31 U.S. Code § 1342, House Rules and ethics requirements/prohibitions (House Rule XXIV and official House interpretations thereof).

Fortunately, the NYT launched the outside consultants’ effort,hiding it in plain sightwith a promotional piece that, tellingly, made no inquiry into what skeptical voices — let alone House Rules or federal law — say about what the Times nonetheless admits (if with understatement) is a “unique approach”. That same article, and the consultants’ website admissions, now tie the hands of the Members of Congress who brought in outside parties on the basis, indeed the confession, that the House did not grant them the level of professional staff the “climate” movement feels it should have to use the power of government to pursue political opponents.

Those opponents have apparently frustrated the “climate” movement beyond the point of caring about rules, a matter which House Inspector General has already declined to examine, about which the Congressional Office on Ethics which has a complaint, and the House Committee on Administration. The latter’s Ranking Minority Member Rodney Davis has already stirred to action out of his own frustration with what he views as coverup by the House leadership.

For now, Schilling’s common law right of access suit seeks to exercise the public’s right to know about this metastasizing of off-books private staffing to Congress, again (as was the case with the AGs) for adjudicative/quasi-judicial matters against private, political opponents.

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Plaintiff Robert Schilling hosts The Schilling Show radio program broadcast on Newsradio 1070 and 98.9 FM WINA in Central Virginia, and is the founder and editor of a news, analysis, and commentary web site, SchillingShow.com, whose reporting and investigative journalism has been awarded multiple times by the Associated Press and the Virginia Association of Broadcasters, including two “Superior Awards for Best Investigative Reporting” from the Associated Press.

 GAO Board Member Matthew D. Hardin filed suit for Schilling, following requests for the records made in November and December 2021, which all of the named defendants ignored.

c

https://www.desmog.com/2020/04/30/energy-policy-advocates-horner-exxon-legal-climate/

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‘Energy Policy Advocates’ and the Fossil Fuel Boosters Attacking Legal Efforts to Hold Climate Polluters Accountable

ByDana Drugmand on

Apr 30, 2020

While fossil fuel companies defend against mounting climate liability lawsuits in court, their surrogates are working in parallel to target the attorneys, academics, and institutions supporting these lawsuits. This defensive strategy involves vigorous public records requests, and in some cases legal action or intervention, to try proving a supposed conspiracy by those working to hold polluters accountable.

ExxonMobil has itself argued that attorneys general and municipal officials that have sued the company are engaged in a conspiracy to take down Big Oil. That argument hasn’t gained traction in court, but this hasn’t stopped operatives tied to fossil fuel funding from trying to take up that charge.

A month after the New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager ruled for Exxon in a securities fraud suit brought by the state attorney general, a group called Energy Policy Advocates filed a motion to intervene in the closed case. The group, along with board member Rob Schilling, a radio and internet journalist, asked for access to a specific set of sealed documents in the case: communications between the attorney general’s office and Matt Pawa, an environmental attorney active in climate liability lawsuits.

In its filing EP Advocates echoed Exxon’s legal tactics by alleging that Pawa had spearheaded a “coordinated campaign with activists and ‘prospective funders,’ going after climate denialism [sic] — along with a bunch of state and local prosecutors nationwide.”

In late February, Ostrager denied the motion, saying that the group had not “demonstrated a sufficient interest in the merits of the underlying securities fraud case.” Noting that the proceedings in the now-closed case had been open and transparent, and the documents made available “with the exception of minor redactions,” Ostrager  wrote in his decision that New York’s contact with Pawa was “no secret,” and that EP Advocates and Schilling had themselves admitted in their filing “that they have already obtained substantial information concerning those communications from various sources.”

Ostrager also denied a cross motion by Pawa to appear as an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” in the matter, in support of the attorney general’s opposition to EP Advocates and Schilling’s motion and to shed light on the group’s apparent ties to fossil fuel interests.

“We documented in our amicus brief the connections between this organization and the coal industry, and between some of the individuals that have been working on behalf of this organization and Exxon,” Pawa told DeSmog. “So it’s pretty obvious who they are, they’re an industry front group.”

According to Pawa’s brief, “publicly available documents indicate that EP Advocates has a former coal attorney on its board,[horner?[  and is associated with at least one entity funded by coal money; one of these affiliated entities is run in part by someone who previously accepted money from Exxon to promote the view that virtually all climate science is ‘junk science.’”

‘Transparency’ Groups Funded by Coal?

Energy Policy Advocates’ stated goal is to use public records laws to “bring transparency to the realm of energy and environmental policy,” according to the group’s website. Although the organization incorporated in Washington State in 2018, its mailing address and most of the people associated with it appear to be based in Virginia. And while EP Advocates claims it doesn’t take policy positions, its consistent probing of nearly anyone involved in climate liability litigation appears to align well with the interests of fossil fuel corporations.

EP Advocates board member Mike Gardner, an attorney based in Cleveland, is a former coal company lawyer and a former mine inspector, according to his biography on the group’s website.

Energy Policy Advocates website

From the website of Energy Policy Advocates

EP Advocates is tied in through a partnership with another organization, Government Accountability & Oversight, and its Climate Litigation Watch project. The Climate Litigation Watch website launched in May 2018 purportedly to counter the increase in climate litigation against fossil fuel companies.

As Climate Liability News reported, “The website, while claiming to be a neutral clearinghouse for documents, records and information on climate change lawsuits, is run by an attorney with a long history of ties to the coal industry, and strikes an antagonistic tone in describing these lawsuits as a ‘perversion of the justice system’ and the modern equivalent to burning witches.” Energy Policy Advocates uses the Climate Litigation Watch website to publish documents obtained through records requests.

The closely related organization Government Accountability & Oversight describes itself as a public interest law firm, but the people running this nonprofit have ties to the fossil fuel industry, including coal giant Murray Energy. And its board member Chris Horner had been paid directly as a regulatory counsel by coal company Alpha Natural Resources.

Horner previously worked with several “free market” groups peddling climate denial including the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal). Peabody and Arch Coal have both funded E&E Legal, where Horner worked as a senior legal fellow and where “junk science” proponent Steve Milloy (who has worked for tobacco giant Philip Morris and for Murray Energy) currently works as a senior policy fellow and board member.

Peabody also funded a group called the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, which Horner co-founded with attorney David Schnare and that later folded following a heated legal dispute between the two. Horner then started Government Accountability & Oversight along with founding board member Matthew Hardin, who also is a board member for Energy Policy Advocates.

Government Accountability & Oversight and Energy Policy Advocates do not disclose any information about funding, but there are clear ties to the coal industry with Gardner and Horner both having worked as counsel to coal companies.Although Energy Policy Advocates claims to focus on transparency, it does not mention its ties to coal in its many public records requests to state attorneys general.

“Never in the numerous FOIAs [Freedom of Information Act requests] to state AGs etc. does Horner or his associates reveal that their patron has a material interest in the outcome of the lawsuits (accountability for pollution) and ultimately the regulation of global warming pollution,” Kert Davies of Climate Investigations Center, a watchdog group tracking fossil fuel front groups and campaigns, said in an email.

Energy Policy Advocates did not respond to requests for more information about the group’s funding sources or its affiliation with Government Accountability & Oversight.

Targeting Climate Scientists and State Attorneys General

As one expert familiar with these organizations told DeSmog, EP Advocates and Government Accountability & Oversight are the latest iterations of Horner-affiliated groups that harass climate scientists and climate advocates.

“They go through cycles, and they do the same anti-science climate denial work under the guise of being pro-American, pro-transparency,” said Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit that works to protect scientists from legal attacks and intimidation efforts.

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Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, the predecessor to both industry front groups, had pursued FOIA requests and litigation against high-profile climate scientists including Penn State Professor Michael Mann, Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, Texas Tech University Professor Katherine Hayhoe, and Texas A&M University Professor Andrew Dessler.

The American Tradition Institute (ATI) is the former name for the Energy & Environment Legal Institute.

“They have this angle where they try to undermine science or the credibility of the scientists, or the people otherwise advocating for action on climate change,” Kurtz said of Horner and his associates. “They can create a lot of hassle for folks on the receiving end of these records requests.”

The tactic of using public records laws to target scientists also has a “chilling effect,” she said. Kurtz explained that she knows scientists who have been FOIA’d by Chris Horner and said that their colleagues are now hesitant to communicate with them.

Kurtz contended that Horner’s requests constituted a “fishing expedition, where they’re looking for jargon they can take out of context, technical information that they can twist.”

While Kurtz said that Horner and his associates have “stepped back a touch from debating the actual science,” they continue to go after scientists who try to speak out or engage in policy discussions relating to climate change. “They have targeted scientists that have worked with attorneys general,” she said.

They also appear to be targeting the attorneys general directly. Both EP Advocates and Government Accountability & Oversight have brought suits under public records laws against several Democratic state attorneys general. Most recently, in March, the latter group sued Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh for documents involving Pawa, the environmental lawyer. The group filed a similar suit against Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson in early February.

EP Advocates and Government Accountability & Oversight have also sued attorneys general for information on the hiring of fellows at the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at NYU Law School, a program funded in part by former New York Mayor and presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.

EP Advocates and Government Accountability & Oversight are seeking to advance a “law enforcement for rent” narrative that privately funded attorneys are placed in state attorney general offices to pursue a politically motivated agenda. Sources including a law professor and a spokesman for the State Impact Center told DeSmog this narrative is unfounded, as there is nothing unusual or improper about attorneys general taking on outside assistants.

‘Tool of Industry’ Pursuing a ‘Broad-Scale Fishing Expedition’

Following an unsuccessful attempt to intervene in the New York attorney general lawsuit against Exxon, Energy Policy Advocates is now trying to intervene in another attorney general lawsuit against Exxon and other fossil fuel companies.

On March 10, EP Advocates filed a motion in the First Circuit Court of Appeals to file an amicus brief in support of fossil fuel company defendants in a climate liability lawsuit brought by the Rhode Island Attorney General. The deadline to file amicus briefs in this case has passed, so EP Advocates is again attempting to intervene belatedly. The group says it has records including handwritten and typed notes that reveal the objective of the lawsuit is to obtain a sustainable funding stream.

Rhode Island, as well a dozen cities and counties across the country, have sued fossil fuel companies for monetary damages, meaning EP Advocates’ “revelation” amounts to nothing. But nevertheless the group is seeking to defend the fossil fuel companies in court, arguing that the Rhode Island suit and similar climate nuisance cases are an “impermissible use of the courts” — an argument that the companies themselves are making.

As Pawa explained, Energy Policy Advocates appears to be simply a “tool of [the fossil fuel] industry.” He said the people associated with the group have tried to make his life harder for awhile, “and they’ve been completely unsuccessful.”

Beyond Pawa and the attorneys general, EP Advocates appears to be in pursuit of communications of anyone involved in climate lawsuits, including attorneys, academics, advocacy organizations, and public officials.

Targets of its records requests have included thelaw firm Sher Edling, which is helping represent state and municipal plaintiffs in climate liability cases; the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development/Center for Climate Integrity, a Washington, DC, based nonprofit that advocates for progressive climate and development policies; and EarthRights International, an environmental law group involved with a climate damages lawsuit brought by several Colorado communities against fossil fuel producers, as well as several cases involving alleged Indigenous and human rights violations by Big Oil firms.

In California, EP Advocates is seeking records of correspondence between Richmond Mayor Tom Butt and the Union of Concerned Scientists, as well as records between Imperial Beach municipal officials and Vermont Law School Professor Pat Parenteau. Richmond and Imperial Beach are each suing the fossil fuel industry for climate-related damages.

EP Advocates also is targeting Parenteau (who is this reporter’s former climate law professor) in its records requests in Baltimore, Maryland and in Rhode Island, both of which have sued fossil fuel companies.

Parenteau said he hasn’t been in communication with public officials in Baltimore or in California or Rhode Island. “It’s just a broad-scale fishing expedition,” he said.

Parenteau and Davies of the Climate Investigations Center both say these attempts by EP Advocates to dig up dirt on opponents of Exxon and other fossil fuel firms show that these companies and their allies are frightened of potential legal liability and of losing financial and public support.

“The whole financial world is turning on a dime, so the oil companies are getting more and more desperate,” Parenteau said.

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“They’re really scared,” Davies added. “The coal industry is the first to fall, and it’s falling hard. But they’re fighting much harder in the face of that. They’re fighting like a trapped raccoon in the corner.”

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.

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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/

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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.

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 : 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)

“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.”

===

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 The DCNF’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

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.

===

ref

https://www:(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}::{.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.”

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 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

Hickenlooper: 'Socialism Is Not The Solution' To Climate Change

Democrats Dodged An Important Question: Who Pays For Trillion-Dollar Climate Change Plans?

Jay Inslee Says He Can Save Miami From Climate Change By Ending The Filibuster

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

Here's What Amy Klobuchar Said Her First Act As President Would Be

Crumbling Roads, Dilapidated Buildings, Sewage Leaks: Iconic National Parks Are Falling Into Disrepair

Population Bomb? China Expected To Have 400 Million Fewer People By 2100

Why Is Pope Francis Backing Energy Taxes? Here's A Hint: Big Oil

US Reliance On OPEC Oil Hits 30-Year Low

West Coast Heat Wave: Experts Say It's Weather, Not Global Warming

UN Chief Poses For TIME Cover Off 'Sinking' Pacific Island Nation That's Actually Growing In Size

Trump Is Doing What Obama Didn't: Putting Forward New Policies To Stop Catastrophic Wildfires

'Climate Change' Isn't Alarming Enough For The Liberal Media. Here's What They Now Call It

Peak Coal? Not Anytime Soon, Says One Of The World's Biggest Energy Companies

Why Won't Democrats Talk About The Green New Deal? Republicans Want To Know

Mike Bloomberg Declared War On Coal, So West Virginia Declared War On Mike Bloomberg

'Contempt For Working Families': Miners' Union Blasts Mike Bloomberg's Anti-Coal Push

Dozens Of Conservative Groups Signed A Stinging Rebuke Of A Policy Mitt Romney Just Said He Was 'Looking At' Supporting

Gone By 2020? National Park Quietly Changes Its Alarming Imminent Glacial MeltClaim

Mike Bloomberg Devotes $500 Million To Ending Coal Industry, Influencing 2020 Elections

EPA Reassigns Top Bureaucrat Critics See As Key Resistor Of Trump's Agenda

Did The DNC Reject A Climate Change Debate To 'Protect' Joe Biden?

Allied Weather Forecasters Saved D-Day From Failure. 75 Years Later, We’re Very Grateful

We Found Another Serious Gaffe In Biden's Climate Change Plan. It's Embarrassing

2020 Hopeful Jay Inslee Has A New Climate Change Plan - More Immigration

'He Is Really Into Climate Change': Trump Told Piers Morgan About His Conversation With Prince Charles

Trump Says 'Plagiarism Charge' Against Biden's Climate Change Plan 'Is A Big Problem'

Trump's EPA Chief Fires Back At Reporters Who Spread Fake News About Him

Liz Warren Pitches Climate Change 'Jobs' Plan. It Costs $2 Million Per Job

Joe Biden Signals Willingness To Provoke A Trade War With China Over Global Warming

Tags : donald trump energy exxon mobil michael bloomberg

=

June 24–25, 2020

API was highlighted in a lawsuit from the Minnesota Attorney General’s office that also called out Exxon Mobil Corporation, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, Koch Industries, Inc., and the Koch-owned Flint Hills Resources LP and Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend for allegedly misleading consumers about climate change. [87]

“When corporations and trade associations break the law and hurt Minnesotans, it’s my job and my duty to hold them accountable. The fraud, deceptive advertising, and other violations of Minnesota state law and common law that the lawsuit shows they perpetrated have harmed Minnesotans’ health and our state’s environment, infrastructure, and economy,” said Attorney General Keith Ellison, as reported in the AG office press release. [88]

“Previously unknown internal documents were recently discovered that confirm that Defendants well understood the devastating effects that their products would cause to the climate, including Minnesota, dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. But Defendants did not ever disclose to the public—or to Minnesotans—their actual knowledge that would confirm the very science they sought to undermine. Instead, Defendants, both directly and through proxies, engaged in a public-relations campaign that was not only false, but also highly effective. This campaign was intended to, and did, target and influence the public, and consumers, including in Minnesota,” the lawsuit reads. [89]

Discussing API‘s role:

“API has been a member of at least five organizations that have promoted disinformation about fossil-fuel products to consumers, including the Global Climate Coalition, Partnership for a Better Energy Future, Coalition for American Jobs, Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, and Alliance for Climate Strategies. These front groups were formed to provide climate disinformation and advocacy from a seemingly objective source, when, in fact, they were financed and controlled by ExxonMobil and other sellers of fossil-fuel products. Defendants benefited from the spread of this disinformation.”

On Koch, the lawsuit suggests that the company is liable for the various actions of its numerous subsidiaries involved in the manufacturing, refining, and distribution of petroleum products. It also notes:

“Koch also supports numerous foundations including the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Koch Institute, and the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation. Koch expects the foundations that it supports to fund groups that further its financial interests. Koch constructively controls how the foundations that it supports direct their philanthropic activities.”

It also notes that, like numerous other oil companies, “Koch also understood climate-change science, the connection to sales of its fossil fuel products, and the potential for catastrophic consequences before the science was widely understood by the general public.”

It highlights what appeared to be a coordinated effort by companies including Koch to “combat climate change ‘alarmists’ through a campaign focused on science, information dissemination, and politics.” It highlights a 2006 memo from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association that outlined how Koch Industries was working with other large corporations including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Southern Company, American Electric Power (AEP), and National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

Shortly after, the D.C. Attorney General’s Office joined in a similar lawsuit against BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell. The lawsuit alleges the four largest investor-owned oil and gas companies violated the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act by promoting and selling fossil fuel products contributing to global warming, while knowing about the harmful consequences since at least the 1950s. [90]

The lawsuit highlights the industry’s use of fake grassroots groups, such as the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which started out as a front group for tobacco giant Philip Morris in 1993. This group had transitioned to become the Advancement of Sound Science Center in 1997 and was run out of the home of climate science denier Steve Milloy, who most recently worked in public relations for coal company Murray Energy, before being disbanded. [90]

According to a press release from the D.C. Attorney General’s Office, “The [oil] companies not only employed the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition — a fake grassroots citizen group created by Big Tobacco as part of the industry’s misinformation campaign — they also funded and promoted some of the same scientists hired by tobacco companies. These scientists disputed the conclusions of climate researchers, despite not having any training in climate science themselves.” [91]

“For decades, these oil and gas companies spent millions to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of profits,” said AG Racine. “The defendants violated the District’s consumer protection law by concealing the fact that using fossil fuels threatens the health of District residents and the environment. OAG filed this suit to end these disinformation campaigns and to hold these companies accountable for their deceptive practices.

March 20, 2020

===

Other climate lawsuits, including one filed in Minnesota, allege the oil firms’ campaigns of deception and denial about the climate crisis amount to fraud. Minnesota is suing Exxon, Koch Industries and an industry trade group for breaches of state law for deceptive trade practices, false advertising and consumer fraud over what the lawsuit characterises as distortions and lies about climate science.

[How cities and states could finally hold fossil fuel companies accountable

Read more]

The midwestern state, which has seen temperatures rise faster than the US and global averages, said scorching temperatures and “mega-rains” have devastated farming and flooded people out of their homes, with low-income and minority families most at risk.

Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, claims in his lawsuit that for years Exxon orchestrated a campaign to bury the evidence of environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels “with disturbing success”.

“Defendants spent millions on advertising and public relations because they understood that an accurate understanding of climate change would affect their ability to continue to earn profits by conducting business as usual,” Ellison said in his lawsuit.

Farber said cases rooted in claims that the petroleum industry lied have the most promising chance of success.

“To the extent the plaintiffs can point to misconduct, like telling everybody there’s no such thing as climate change when your scientists have told you the opposite, that might give the courts a greater feeling of comfort that they’re not trying to take over the US energy system,” he said.

===

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/**2020-01-10**/exxon-climate-trial-loss-won-t-be-appealed-n-y-a-g-says

New York won’t appeal a ruling by a judge who rejected the state’s claim that Exxon Mobil Corp. misled investors for years about the oil giant’s internal planning for risks associated with climate change.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who took office after the suit was filed, announced the decision late Friday without giving a reason. James nevertheless hailed the trial in state court as a landmark -- “the first time in history” Exxon was forced to answer publicly for its messaging around climate change.

“As we have done for the last year, my office will continue to fight to ensure companies are held responsible for actions that undermine and jeopardize the financial health and safety of Americans across our country,” James said in a statement.

Read More: Exxon Says N.Y. Used Fraud Claims to Score Political Points

James’s defiance belies the decision by New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager, who rejected all the state’s claims.  Exxon has never taken the economic impact of climate change on its business seriously, “and that truth was laid bare at trial,” she said.

In its securities fraud suit, filed in October 2018, New York accused Exxon of lying to shareholders about its use of a “proxy cost” for carbon in its internal accounting to prepare for future climate change regulations. That alleged lie suggested to the public that Exxon was being more prudent about climate risks than it really was, the state said.

Ostrager, in a 55-page ruling in December, said the attorney general’s office “failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Exxon Mobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor.”

Read More: Former Exxon CEO Says Climate Change ‘With Us Forever’

Irving, Texas-based Exxon previously accused New York of filing the lawsuit in a politically motivated attempt to target the company. That argument was bolstered on the final day of the trial when the state dropped its two most serious fraud claims against the company after failing to back them up with any evidence during the trial.

On Friday, a non-profit energy industry organization filed a motion to intervene in the case in an effort to unseal communications between the Attorney General’s office and a well-known plaintiffs lawyer who is involved in various lawsuits against the energy industry. [= EPA below?]

Energy Policy Advocates, based in Washington state, said in its filing that the lawyer, Matt Pawa, shopped around anti-Exxon litigation strategies in pitches to various AG’s office, including Massachusetts, which has also sued Exxon.

“Documents filed in this matter will shed light on the important ongoing debate about the propriety of the New York Attorney General’s actions in this matter,” the group said in its filing. “Regardless, they will show how such costly if failed litigation came to pass, or at least key influences.”

Neither the New York Attorney General’s office nor Pawa immediately responded to requests for comment on Saturday.

===

http://epadvocates.org/Colorado/DC-Kerry-Recusal-Request_2.pdf

August 3, 2021

Freedom of Information Act Request

U. S. Department of State

Office of Information Programs and Services

2201 C Street N.W., Suite B266

Washington, D.C. 20520-0000

By Facsimile (202) 485-1669

Re: Recusal memos and communications related to John Kerry

Dear Ms. Hardy:

On behalf of Energy Policy Advocates (“EPA”), recognized by the Internal Revenue Service

as a non- profit public policy institute under § 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code,

pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552 et seq., please provide

copies of the records as described herein

Records Requested

EPA requests the following records from the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”).

The requested information is of great public interest for its relevance to the Biden

Administration’s ethics policies and procedures and compliance therewith:

1. All memoranda or documents produced by or received by employees within

the Office pertaining or relating to creation of and/or compliance with

recusal statements of and any ethics waivers and/or recusals for John Kerry.

This request includes, but is not limited to, any draft or final memoranda or

letter(s) outlining recusal obligations, potential conflicts of interest, and any

particular matters that have been identified for recusal, as well as any

waivers issued by ethics officials for those named officials.

2. This request also includes but again is not limited to any and all

communications, including written analysis in any form, regarding actual or

possible meeting requests with non-governmental entities which meeting(s)

or request(s) involve Mr. Kerry. If any requested records were produced

between December 2, 2020, and the official start date of Mr. Kerry, those

should also be included.

3. This request also includes, but is not limited to, all other communications

between Mr. Kerry, and employees within the Executive Office of the

President pertaining or relating to the drafting and revision of any ethics or

recusal letter, any memoranda or other documents pertaining or relating to

Mr. Kerry’s actual or possible recusal obligations. That is, this request ...

===

September 13, 2021

Rob Schilling

Executive Director

Energy Policy Advocates

By e-mail to: Schilling@allhookedup.com

Re: Vermont Public Records Act Request

Dear Mr. Schilling:

I write in response to your Vermont Access to Public Records Act

request dated September 7, 2021, which this office received on September 8,

2021. In that request, on behalf of Energy Policy Advocates, you sought:

I. all electronic correspondence . . . and any accompanying

information . . . including also any attachments, a) sent to or from or

which copies (whether as cc: or bcc:) i) Charity Clark, ii) Robert

McDougall and/or ii) Nick Persampieri, that b) was also sent to or from

or which copies (whether as cc: or bcc:), or which includes anywhere

in the correspondence, i) enckj@aol.com, ii) any email address ending

in @climateintegrity.org, iii) any email address ending in @vtcha.org,

and/or iv) pparenteau@vermontlaw.edu, which c) is dated from October

1, 2020 through today, inclusive; and

II. any i) “COMMON INTEREST AGREEMENT REGARDING THE

SHARING OF INFORMATION RELATED TOSTATE LAWSUITS

AGAINST FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES FOR DECEPTIVE ACTSAND

PRACTICES AND OTHER STATE LAW CLAIMS” signed by OAG

since October 1, 2020, and of ii) any fee, representation, consulting, pro

bono, non-disclosure, confidentiality and/or common interest agreement

signed between your office and Pat Parenteau and/or Vermont Law

School that is presently in effect.

Please be advised that we have no records that are responsive to your

request.

If you feel any information or records have been withheld in error, you

may appeal to Deputy Attorney General Joshua Diamond at the following

email address: Joshua.Diamond@vermont.gov.

Sincerely,

/s/Nicholas F. Persampieri

Nicholas F. Persampieri

Assistant Attorney General

===

that's some big dangerous game they have their sights set on, godspeed

@vtcha.org,

vid lancet richard horton

We are Vermont physicians, nurses, therapists, veterinarians, researchers, aides, and other medical/health professionals who share a deep concern about climate change and its impacts on our patients, our children, our communities, and our planet.  We have joined together in response to a deepening conviction that, left unaddressed, climate change will become an immensely powerful threat to Vermont communities, and to rest of the world.

Like many of you, our families and our jobs keep us very busy in an increasingly busy world.

Like many of you, we have been sitting on the sidelines hoping that government and business would begin to move at the pace required.

That is not happening.

We have decided that it is time to make our voices heard.

Our mission is to use our expertise to inform the public and our lawmakers about the effects of climate change on human and animal health.  We will use this information to support our urgent call to convert all energy use from fossil fuels to renewable sources as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence.

We are a home-grown Vermont based group.

We are people in your local community who care about your health,

and the health of the ones you love.

​

We are grateful for the support we have received from individual donors,

the High Meadows Fund and the New England Grassroots Environment Fund.

===

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off bs

http://epadvocates.org/about-2/

MATTHEW D. HARDIN

Board Member

Hardin spent over three years in the fight to bring transparency to government, litigating what proved to be highly significant open records cases in state and federal courts, eliciting damning privilege logs, admissions by government counsel in court, and key public records now housed in the Climate Litigation Watch documentary trove.

Hardin was elected Greene County (Virginia) Commonwealth’s Attorney in November 2017 and served through 2019.

https://climatelitigationwatch.org/ not bogus

pawa: https://climatelitigationwatch.org/**player-cards**/#cbp=/?html-inline-1525723590806

...environmental attorney who built his career on prosecuting corporations. His legal strategy centers on liability law, with a foundation in racketeering and public nuisance common law. Pawa previously served on the board of the Climate Accountability Institute, an organization that has guided legal thought on prosecuting energy companies through RICO statutes. Pawa has made numerous presentations to governing bodies and Attorneys General associations, attempting to persuade them to contract out legal work to private firms and to sue larger corporations. For example, in March 2016, Pawa gave a legal briefing to a group of attorneys considering legal action against ExxonMobil.

Relevant Connections: The Rockefeller Foundations; the Global Warming Legal Action Project; Climate Accountability Institute; Eric Schneiderman; Peter Frumhoff; Bill McKibben; Center for International Environmental Law

Financials:

• Pawa is well connected to the Rockefeller Foundations, often acting as a liaison between their funds and the legal community. At several Rockefeller Family Fund environmental strategy meetings, Pawa was their legal expert. They have paid him $225,000 for his counsel.
• The Global Warming Legal Action Project is Pawa’s primary means for pursuing fossil fuel companies. The project coordinates private firms with state Attorneys General on climate cases. As a result, Pawa enjoys a friendly relationship with public legal officials across the country. According to public records, his firm has been paid more than $3 million to run the Project, with most funded provided by the Rockefeller family’s organizations. [Source: $3 million has been found according to the reported 990s of foundations]

Of Note:

• Pawa is on record saying that, “by bringing these cases over and over again, the judiciary [and] the public get used to the idea of liability,” a persistent mentality evident in his work
• He has sued a number of industries for alleged violations of environmental laws and regulations. In 2004, he filed the nation’s first tort against major greenhouse gas emitters. In 2008, he worked on a team that sued 24 energy companies for their supposed roles in Alaskan coastal destruction. In 2013, Pawa represented New Hampshire in a suit against ExxonMobil, which he won, rendering a $236 million dollar verdict.
• Pawa misled the Wall Street Journal’s Amy Harder about his involvement at the Al Gore’s “publicity stunt” press conference to announce the targeting of opponents of the global warming agenda.

Sources:

• Inside Climate News: “The Man Who Makes Greenhouse gas Polluters Face Their Victims in Court,” by Amy Westervelt (6/22/10)
• Wired: “The Coming Tide Of Global Climate Lawsuits, by Rachel Morris (4/20/10)
• NY Times: “Flooded Village Files Suit, Citing Corporate Link to Climate Change,” by Felicity Barringer (2/27/08)
• FindLaw: The State of New Hampshire v. Exxon Mobil Corporation & a. (accessed 12/2/17)
• The Observer: “Al Gore and Eric Schneiderman Hail ‘Best, Most Hopeful Step’ Against Climate Change,” by Will Bredderman (3/29/16)
• Fox News: “Email bombshell: Attorneys General worked with Green groups to punish political opponents,” by Chris Horner (4/18/16)

===

===

energy policy advocates washington state

Search Results

Web results

Energy Policy Advocatesepadvocates.org

Energy Policy Advocates is a nonprofit corporation organized in Washington State. We seek to bring transparency to the realm of energy and environmental policy. ... We don't take policy positions, but we do use federal and state transparency laws, such as the Freedom of Information Act, to seek out information.

Missing: pawa ‎| Must include:

pawa

Group Intervenes in New York's Exxon Case, Seeking ...eidclimate.org › group-intervenes-in-new-yorks-exxon-...

Jan 15, 2020 - The proposed intervenors are Energy Policy Advocates (EPA), a nonprofit corporation in Washington State that uses federal and state ... She would like to bring in a lawyer named Matt Pawa, who has offices in Boston and DC.

Watchdog wants emails between anti-Exxon lawyer and New ...legalnewsline.com › stories › 525154511-watchdog-wa...

Feb 10, 2020 - Pawa. NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - A conservative energy-policy group has ... ExxonMobil filed a 50-page response to the state's claims that included redacted ... But the would-be intervenors, Energy Policy Advocates and Virginia ... earlier this month sued Washington AG Bob Ferguson for emails and ...

In The News Archives - Page 2 of 7 - Government Accountability ...govoversight.org › category › in-the-news › page

Energy Policy Advocates and Rob Schilling previously filed a motion to intervene in the ...

Pawa and public officials in multiple states have fought to keep this slideshow hidden from the ... GAO Files Suit Against Washington Attorney General.

AG/TORT BAR COLLUSION: Massachusetts AG Emails ...climatelitigationwatch.org › ag-tort-bar-collusion-massa...

Oct 17, 2019 - Those posts discussed OAG's NYU State Impact Center fellowship program ... Energy Policy Advocates (EPA) filed suit to compel production, after a ... of certain correspondence between OAG and plaintiff's attorney Matt Pawa. ... Virginia (15), Washington State (5), UCLA (3), Uncategorized (38), USCA (1).

6.3.19 EPA v MA OAG and S of C Complaint - Climate Litigation ...climatelitigationwatch.org › uploads › 2019/06 › 6.3.1...

PDF

Jun 6, 2019 - Plaintiff Energy Policy Advocates (“EPA”) is a nonprofit organization incorporated in the state of Washington and dedicated to transparency and open ... concerning OAG's work in early 2016 with Mr. Pawa and/or Ms. Oreskes ...

Center for Environmental Law & Policy | Clean, Flowing ...celp.org

The Center for Environmental Law & Policy is a statewide organization whose ... in water law and policy to advocate for sustainable stewardship of Washington's ... Watch as CELP argues our case before the Washington State Supreme Court: ...

Missing: pawa ‎| Must include:

pawa

Second Installment: Insights on Pawa's Calculations on Legal ...mfgaccountabilityproject.org › 2017/12/04 › second-insta...

Dec 4, 2017 - Matt Pawa is patient and methodical in his approach to suing energy ... For over 10 years, Pawa has banded together with environmental activists with deep pockets to ... In that case, eight states, the City of New York, and other entities ... Pawa is unwilling to work for policy solutions from the political arena, ...

=== https://www.google.com/search?q=energy+policy+advocates+washington+state+paws&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwioz4OgqsHqAhVGHs0KHZtiCEgQBSgAegQICxAm" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">energy policy advocates washington state& http://epadvocates.org/,,, Energy Policy Advocates is a nonprofit corporation organized in Washington State. We seek to bring transparency to the realm of& very bad cose] https://legalnewsline.com/stories/525154511-watchdog-wants-emails-between-anti-exxon-lawyer-and-new-york-attorney-general-s-office-company-used-them-in-its-defense&ved=2ahUKEwioz4OgqsHqAhVGHs0KHZtiCEgQFjACegQICRAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">

Watchdog wants emails between anti-Exxon lawyer and New ...

legalnewsline.com › stories › 525154511-watchdog-wa...

1.

Feb 10, 2020 - Pawa. NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - A conservative energy-policy group has ... ExxonMobil filed a 50-page response to the state's claims that included redacted ... But the would-be intervenors, Energy Policy Advocates and Virginia ... earlier this month sued Washington AG Bob Ferguson for emails and ...

In The News Archives - Page 2 of 7 - Government Accountability ...

govoversight.org › category › in-the-news › page

Energy Policy Advocates and Rob Schilling previously filed a motion to intervene in the ...

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 Pawa and public officials in multiple states have fought to keep this slideshow hidden from the ... GAO Files Suit Against Washington Attorney General.

AG/TORT BAR COLLUSION: Massachusetts AG Emails ...

climatelitigationwatch.org › ag-tort-bar-collusion-massa...

1.

Oct 17, 2019 - Those posts discussed OAG's NYU State Impact Center fellowship program ... Energy Policy Advocates (EPA) filed suit to compel production, after a ... of certain correspondence between OAG and plaintiff's attorney Matt Pawa. ... Virginia (15), Washington State (5), UCLA (3), Uncategorized (38), USCA (1).

6.3.19 EPA v MA OAG and SofC Complaint - Climate Litigation ...

climatelitigationwatch.org › uploads › 2019/06 › 6.3.1...

1.

PDF

Jun 6, 2019 - Plaintiff Energy Policy Advocates (“EPA”) is a nonprofit organization incorporated in the state of Washington and dedicated to transparency and open ... concerning OAG's work in early 2016 with Mr. Pawa and/or Ms. Oreskes ...

Center for Environmental Law & Policy | Clean, Flowing ...

celp.org

1.

The Center for Environmental Law & Policy is a statewide organization whose ... in water law and policy to advocate for sustainable stewardship of Washington's ... Watch as CELP argues our case before the Washington State Supreme Court: ...

Missing: pawa ‎| Must include:pawa

Second Installment: Insights on Pawa's Calculations on Legal ...

mfgaccountabilityproject.org › 2017/12/04 › second-insta...

Dec 4, 2017 - Matt Pawa is patient and methodical in his approach to suing energy ... For over 10 years, Pawa has banded together with environmental activists with deep pockets to ... In that case, eight states, the City of New York, and other entities ... Pawa is unwilling to work for policy solutions from the political arena, ...

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