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recover, see html doc 816

e&erecover 816 doc 56pp

and ATI, and schnare, but also new 8/15

also e&e tag

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over the past month or so, thanks in large part to the work of reporter Michael Thomas, the Internet has rediscovered an effort that's been underfoot for more than a decade: the coal-funded attack on clean energy. In a few viral Twitter threads, Thomas has focused on the work of two longtime anti-renewables campaigners, John Drozand Kevon Martis, who have spent the past 15 years or so fighting renewable energy projects at the local level (and convincing and training others to do the same).

I first heard about Martis and Droz through Scott Peterson at Checks and Balances Project,back in 2018 when he was digging into the sudden, successful backlash against wind energy in Ohio and Michigan. They're still going strong (Droz is now a member of the CO2 Coalition as well) and, according to Thomas, gaining steam. I suspect we'll see a resurgence of anti-renewable activity as the fossil fuel industry looks to leverage the Inflation Reduction Act incentives for gas and dampen the benefit of the Act for renewables. So it's a good time to look at where that work fits in the broader climate countermovement.

When I look at both Droz's and Martis's presentations, what I see are the fingerprints of a guy who predates both of them in the anti-climate battle: Steve Milloy. Which is interesting because Milloy also happens to be the highest-paid staffer at the same organization where Martis is a senior fellow: Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), previously known as the American Tradition Institute—the organization that went after climate scientists like James Hansen, Michael Mann, and Katharine Hayhoe in the early aughts, trying to discredit them, and climate science in general. E&E Legal is also affiliated or sharing counsel with the Energy & Environment Action Team, the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Droz, Martis, E&E, and CEI turn up on all sorts of documents and letterstogether, too, and Milloy and Droz are both frequent speakers at Heartland Institute events.

According to the most recent 990 on file for E&E Legal,Milloy is pulling in close to half a million dollars a year from his role as a board member and senior policy fellow there. Their "Videos" sectionis dominated by Milloy's regular appearances "debunking" climate science on Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN. E&E Legal has received funding from Arch Coal, Peabody Coal, and the Koch brothers-funded Donors Trust.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about two things the media and much of the climate movement tends to dismiss as long past—old-school climate denial and the coal lobby. Both are not only still around, but seem to be having a bit of a renaissance. This ad that the Heartland Institute started running earlier this month, for example, looks like something you might have seen in the early 2000s:

[htlnd twt 97%]

And for at least a couple of decades, Heartland's longtime warrior Milloy has been at the intersection of the coal lobby and climate denial. Although he's often laughed off as something of a clown (he likes to call environmentalists "watermelons," green on the outside but red in the middle, and go on social media tirades against the "climate bedwetters"), Milloy is also lurking in the background of the climate denial resurgence.

Among Milloy's many claims to infamy is the fact that he is the architect of the proposed EPA "secret science" rule, something he's been pushing since the late 1990s. As Naomi Oreskes, who covered Milloy in her book Merchants of Doubt, pointed out in 2018, the proposal seemed reasonable on its face but was actually intended to do something Milloy has wanted to do for decades: erode the credibility of epidemiological studies, in order to erode the credibility of science, period. For Milloy, as with everything he does, it was also in service of his longtime goal: rolling back air pollution regulations. He came very close to getting his way under Trump, and I suspect we haven't seen the last of it.

A core Milloy belief is that EPA scientists are basically biased in favor of more regulation, and therefore can't be trusted. It's an idea that comes up over and over in Martis's and Droz's presentations, too. Check out the cover of one of Droz's presentations, taking aim at a state-level environmental policy, for example:

[pix]

and compare it with the way Milloy talks about federal environmental policy in one of his many Wall Street Journal op-eds:

[pix l]

I interviewed Milloy a couple years back, when he was basking in the glory of multiple wins under President Trump, posting pictures with his pals inside the Environmental Protection Agency and bragging about "eating the greens' lunch."A perfect example of the bizarre place Milloy holds on the right: he says he was a member of Trump's EPA transition team, and the leader of that team, Myron Ebell, the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, confirmed that claim to me, but Trump's EPA would never confirm nor deny his presence on the team. According to Milloy, though, he "was the only person on the team with a background in EPA science, so I was brought on to write the science part of the transition plan."

When reporter Paul Thacker covered controversial toxicologist (and Milloy pal) Ed Calabrese's studies being embraced by the Trump EPA, he told me he was surprised to see how much respect the rightwing climate denier universe showed Milloy. "He's like one of their warriors, that's one of the things that really struck me when I was writing about these Calabrese emails," Thacker told me at the time. "He's sort of their prince."

During the Trump administration, the prince of the climate deniers made a lot of his long-held dreams come true. There was EPA declining to tighten their air pollution standards, the rollback of mercury regulations, and then the 2018 disbanding of the EPA's Particulate Matter Review Panel, or as Milloy put it to me: "Blowing out that particulate matter sub-panel, another huge win."

"I’ve got huge wins under my belt, it's been tremendously satisfying for me,” he said.

When I asked him if he thought Republicans would take up the secret science proposal again, if and when they regained power of the government, Milloy replied, "That is on my agenda."

Also on the agenda? De-funding the EPA and handing environmental regulation over to the states. Milloy says the environment in which the EPA was created 50 years ago is not the one we're living in today. "The environment is clean," he says. "We know what's dangerous and what is not, or how to quickly determine that issue when it arises. Every state has a strong environment agency. The U.S. EPA should be dramatically reduced in size and authority, with most of its responsibilities delegated to states."

Advocates who work on environmental issues at the state level disagree. Take methane regulations: "Nobody has the staff resources to regulate methane emissions or VOCs [volatile organic compounds] from oil and gas drilling," says Sharon Wilson, who tracks methane emissions for the nonprofit Earthworks. She points to New Mexico as a recent example. "New Mexico just passed methane rules that look really good on paper. But they have five employees—five—to go out and inspect and regulate the entire state's oil and gas industry, which is expansive."

More than anything, of course, Milloy wants to win his lifelong battle against air pollution regulations. One of his earliest jobs was running The Advancement of Sound Science Center (TASSC), which was created by Philip Morris and their PR firm APCO in the 1990s to deal with the mounting evidence that linked secondhand smoke and, more broadly, indoor air pollution, to cancer. The secondhand smoke issue brought the tobacco industry together with lots of other industries that were worried about air pollution regulation—automotive, manufacturing, and, of course, fossil fuels. Which is how Milloy, working for the tobacco industry, became one of the first leaders of the climate countermovement.

And fairly early on, Milloy connected the dots on air pollution and climate change, especially around the subject of particulate matter, microscopic particles in the atmosphere that are tiny enough to be inhaled. Particulate matter and greenhouse gas emissions are mostly generated by the same activity—the combustion of fossil fuels—which is why Milloy has said  “PM2.5 is more important than CO2 on climate regulations.” His fear was that while climate policy had proven easy to beat back, industry was unlikely to be so lucky with air pollution; confusing people about atmospheric carbon is one thing, convincing them to embrace dirty air is something else altogether.

That sub-panel that Milloy "blew out" went ahead and published their work in the New England Journal of Medicine shortly after Trump left office. “We unequivocally and unanimously concluded that the current PM2.5 standards do not adequately protect public health," they wrote. Under Biden, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) agreed, and the EPA is in the process of strengthening the standards. According to Milloy, who backed a suit against the EPA trying to force the EPA to reinstate Trump appointees to the CASAC, it's all predicated on fraudulent science.  And if he were just one dude shouting on Twitter, it would be easy to dismiss,but this is a guy the Republican Party is likely to tap to restructure—or dismantle—the EPA if and when they regain power.

“What I think the right wing has done is try to saw the legs off the infrastructure that holds up environmental decision-making,” said Eric Schaeffer, a longtime EPA employee-turned-whistle blower and executive director of the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. “It’s hard to attack clean air and clean water, they don’t want to do that, so they suggest the science is flawed, make it about ‘secret science.’ It’s decades of that, and then you wind up in the middle of a pandemic and it’s like … we’re seeing right now the impacts of a decades-long campaign to undermine science.”

Although it was a front group for Philip Morris,TASSCalso included oil, chemical, and automotive companies, like Exxon, Dow, and GM, all working together to counteract efforts to regulate air pollution. In 1996, RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company was a funder of Milloy's website, JunkScience.com, which he still runs today. Memos outlining the creation of TASCC could pass as mission statements for Milloy's enterprise today, too. "It must be part of a larger mosaic that concentrates all of the EPA's enemies against it at one time."

TASCC operated under the principle that if an economic argument can't keep regulation at bay, your next best move is to undermine the science that regulation is based on. And almost as soon as he started working on air pollution, Milloy had new science to contend with: a 1993 epidemiological study that looked at 8,000 people across six American cities and found that exposure to fine particulate matter—PM2.5, or soot—was correlated to reduced life expectancy. Not what you want to hear when the companies you work for sell the products that produce PM2.5: cigarettes, cars, coal, and oil.

Milloy started by picking apart the methodology: the subject group was too small, researchers hadn't controlled for other factors, and epidemiology's reliance on observational data makes it suspect in general. He manufactured controversy around the researchers keeping their data private. And he targeted the scientists themselves, particularly lead researcher Steven Dockery and one of the statisticians involved, C. Arden Pope, calling them fraudsters.

But it's hard to discredit scientists who are, themselves, incredulous of their findings. “In all honesty, we were not even willing to lick the stamp on the manuscript [of the Harvard Six Cities study] because the result seemed so… It wasn't that it was absurd. It's just that it was a bit bigger than we expected, and we were a bit concerned about it,” Pope told me. That led the researchers to ask the American Cancer Society to re-run the analsysis with their own, independently collected cohort of subjects.They got similar results, and so did the Health Effects Institute, an organization half-funded by the EPA, and half-funded by the automotive industry. Milloy kept fighting it, but nothing worked. In 1997 the EPA passed its first regulation on particulate matter. It has tightened those regulations every eight years or so, right up until Scott Pruitt decided not to in 2018 (one of the Trump EPA moves that Milloy counts as a personal win).

Also during the 1990s, Milloy produced the paper that would become the basis for the "secret science" proposal at Trump's EPA. He was contracted by the Department of Energy to write it, but says when he submitted it to an EPA full of Clinton appointees, they wouldn't publish it, "because I said regulations were based on politics and not science. So, I decided to cut my contract and publish it on my own," he said. "It got picked up in the Wall Street Journal and that’s what sort of launched me into whatever I am today.”

25 years later, he "put it in the transition plan and talked with Pruitt about it,"Milloy said.

It wasn't new science or a new strategy that handed Milloy a win after 25 years. It wasn't new evidence that finally vindicated him, it was just…access. Being on the Trump EPA transition team enabled him to smuggle in all sorts of ideasfrom his pals, including James Enstrom, a tobacco-industry funded scientist who published one of the few studies contradicting the Six Cities data. While Milloy points to Enstrom’s study as proof that Pope et al are peddlers of “junk science,” Pope points to the 25 years worth of additional studies that have consistently replicated the Six Cities result, and says Enstrom "has a six year follow-up that he published in this sort of obscure journal a year or so ago. And he just barely doesn't get statistical significance. And so reports that [PM 2.5] has no effect.”

That obscure journal that put out Enstrom's paper is published by another friend of Milloy's, that toxicologist I mentioned before, Ed Calabrese, whose (mostly industry-funded) research focuses on the idea that a little bit of pollution and radiation are actually**good**for you. Calabrese's journal, Dose-Response, where he publishes his own research, published Enstrom's PM 2.5 study in 2017. When Trump EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announced in 2018 that the agency would not strengthen the regulations on particulate matter, he cited Enstrom's study as justification for the science on PM2.5 being "too uncertain" to act upon.

Almost as soon as the U.S. government began to mandate quarantine in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Milloy took to Twitter to warnthat Covid lockdown would lead to climate lockdown,and to take aim at one of his favorite scientific targets: epidemiology.

Aside frompolitical ideology— Milloy says that while he started out apolitical he’s now a “full blown conservative, libertarian, free market guy,”—there’s also a PM 2.5 connection with Covid. Early in the pandemic, Harvard released a study correlating PM 2.5 exposure with increased risk of death from the virus.

Milloy's wins on PM2.5 under President Trump illustrate just how much of the U.S. regulatory apparatus the administration was able to dismantle in a short amount of time, but they're an indicator of something else too: a willingness to go further than conservatives ever have in the battle against environmental regulation, to actually go ahead and attack clean air and water. Why? In a word, climate.If the Supreme Court does, as many expect it to, eventually, overturn the precedent set by Massachusetts v EPA, which granted the EPA the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one of the remaining ways for the EPA to get at CO2 is to regulate particulate matter. Both are emitted via the combustion of fossil fuels. Which is a big part of the reason Milloy, a longtime lobbyist for coal, has focused on blocking PM 2.5 regulations since 1990. As he put it to me recently: "PM2.5 is the most important backdoor science scheme for regulating fossil fuel emissions."

I don't recall seeing a lot of anti-renewables rhetoric from Milloy over the years, but since his arrival at E&E in 2016, it's become a mainstay of his public presence. Just this week, in fact, he described proposed onshore wind farms in the UK with a list of Kevon Martis's greatest hits, warning that it would "junk up beautiful countryside with ugly, expensive, climatically pointless and bird-killing wind turbines."

Another sign of what's next: Milloy, Droz, E&E Legal and the Competitive Enterprise Instiute have joined the fight against Environmental, Sustainability, and Governance (ESG) guidelines in the finance industry as well. Milloy says it's a "leftist scam."And E&E Legal, Droz, Heartland and CEI teamed up on a letter to the SECrecently, arguing that: "The Commission’s current proposal [to standardize climate disclosures in finance] is similar to much previous ESG activism in that it uses the language of business and financial management in order to suggest that it seeks practical, prosperity-enhancing goals, but is actually animated by environmental theory that is hostile to hydrocarbon energy and industrial development per se for moral and ideological reasons."

Groups like CEI, E&E Legal, Heartland Institute, and various others in the free-market, libertarian universe sprung into action against ESG in 2020 after mostly ignoring it for years. It was the SEC's move to standardize climate risk disclosure and ESG guidance, to make it auditable and enforceable, to, in effect, finally make ESG real that was the problem. Prior to the Commission's finding in 2020 that inconsistencies and fragmentation in climate-related disclosures had led to just the sort of confusion amongst investors that the SEC was created to address,ESG was just a handy greenwashing tool for polluting companies and industries. It rarely, if ever, caught the attention of these groups.

No surprise to see Milloy and E&E Legal hopping onboard now though: like all of their other efforts, the anti-ESG push has been led and largely funded by coal.Earlier this year, Documented publishedits investigationinto how state treasurers in coal states became the frontline warriors in this fight. Attorneys general in those states have gotten involved now, too.

There's a small group of lone wolf climate denier dudes whose work I follow because it's a pretty decent bellwether of where the climate countermovement is headed next. Milloy is one of them,and his talking points in recent years have cycled through the following themes: climate change is a hoax, Covid (and related mitigation measures) is a hoax, ESG and renewables are a scam, and Americans should be concerned about election integrity. By connecting all of these to conservative identity, operatives like Milloy, and the various groups they work with and for, have managed to breathe new life into ideas thought to be buried in the past, from the notion that CO2 is actually goodfor the planet to the idea that wind turbines are dangerous for birds to plain old garden variety climate denial.

ref climatewire 5/19

https://www.eenews.net/articles/gop-criticizes-its-own-on-climate/?ref=drilled

rep. Matt Gaetz (center), a Florida Republican who accepts that man-made climate change is occurring, is being criticized by conservatives for offering legislation to address global warming. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom

As some Republicans inch toward climate policy for the first time in years, those in the party who reject climate science are getting nervous that a more permanent shift is coming.

And they’re going on the attack against their former allies.

A group called Energy & Environment Action Team recently sent a 16-page pamphlet to every member of Congress encouraging lawmakers to reject all climate policy and connecting concern about global warming to political losses.  In bold letters across the top, the pamphlet stated, "The Plan is … No Plan! Why the GOP shouldn’t do anything on climate."

"There is absolutely no reason for any Republican to offer a plan to ‘combat climate change,’" the pamphlet continued. "Such a plan, if enacted would accomplish nothing good for America or the climate."

A growing number of Republican lawmakers, including some who have disputed climate science for years, are not only now acknowledging global warming but also putting forward climate policies. But some worry that their colleagues are simply shifting to climate action because they have been spooked by the popularity of the Green New Deal.

"If you are planning on running against the Green New Deal, it seems sort of odd to play footsie with key elements of the Green New Deal," said Republican energy lobbyist Mike McKenna, who was on President Trump’s Energy Department transition team.

In March, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) proposed a "Green Real Deal" resolution that acknowledges the reality of climate change and the threat it poses to national security, and seeks to use innovation to combat global warming.Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) called for a bipartisan "New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy"that would increase the share of renewables on the energy grid, boost nuclear power and encourage electric car production.

"Congressman Gaetz and others are going to do what they think is best, but the idea that Republicans are going to outcompete with Democrats with respect to who can have the best government-based solution to anything is ridiculous and profoundly unserious," McKenna said.

While modest in comparison with the ideas put forward by Democrats — none of the Republican proposals would restrict fossil fuel use, for example — such plans have angered groups allied with the GOP for years.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute and other groups opposed to regulations want to increase political pressure on Republicans who are proposing climate action to "educate them and thereby bring them back into line," said Myron Ebell,director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment and head of the Trump EPA transition team.

Ebell said he is particularly concerned that there seems to be a push among House leadership to craft climate policy. He accused House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) of misleading others in the party and said some lawmakers, including Reps. Garret Graves (R-La.) and Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), have been misinformed by advocates on the value of clean energy.

"It’s when conservatives have decided to offer alternatives, they have gotten beat, because in the public’s mind it becomes very difficult to tell the difference between the left’s plan and the right’s plan and then pretty soon they’re compromising it, they’re coming to some sort of middle ground and pretty soon we’ve lost the whole issue," he said.

Ebell added: "It’s pretty clear to anybody who looks at it, there is no middle ground."

A spokesman for Gaetz said the congressman has discussed "the reality of climate change" with Republican lawmakers as well as with Trump. Gaetz, who once proposed eliminating EPA, is optimistic that more Republicans will eventually form their own plans to address climate change, spokesman Luke Ball said. Gaetz doesn’t view those in the party who reject science as a lost cause because the scientific evidence is now so overwhelming that it will push others to act, his spokesman said.

"Gaetz is concerned at the lack of support he has received from members of his own party who continue to deny the science of climate change," Ball said. "He believes history will judge harshly those who refuse to acknowledge this issue or take actionable steps to address it."

Other GOP lawmakers criticized from the right for climate policy were more reluctant to call out their colleagues.

Graves is one of the most visible congressional Republicans when it comes to the issue of global warming. Not only does he serve as the top GOP lawmaker on a new House climate change committee, but Graves has a history of acknowledging the risks of a warmer planet (:{Climatewire:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, March 11).

In a brief Capitol Hill interview, he said he hasn’t encountered noticeable pushback from climate deniers or climate contrarians. But he said he’s still cognizant of the way he must broach the issue with other Republicans.

"What you have to do is to meet people where they are and sort of use verbiage or words that translate to people the right way," Graves said.

"You may not be able to go into some Republican circles and say that, ‘Hey, I’ve got this plan on how we’re going to reduce greenhouse gases in the United States and we’re going to convert everything to renewable energy,’" he said.

But Graves added that the audience could be more receptive "if you come in and start talking about strategies on how we can reduce energy costs by improving efficiency and conservation [or] by bringing new technologies to the table."

Nonetheless, conservatives who oppose climate policy plan to escalate their attacks if members of the party don’t back down.

The recent 16-page brochure attacked a few lawmakers for being concerned about climate change, labeling Gaetz as "one Republican to fall for the climate-baiting guilt-trip." The pamphlet, which misrepresents and distorts climate science, portrays Republicans as politically victorious when they reject climate policy. It blamed the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s loss in the 2008 presidential election on his climate policy.

Steve Milloy, editor of JunkScience.com and the author of the pamphlet, said it’s a signal to Republicans not to get out of line on climate policy. Democrats have united on the other side, he said, and the GOP should also do the same. He blamed Republican actions on climate change on young staffers who don’t yet understand the party’s position. Milloy said he plans to make sure other lawmakers don’t "drift" and warned he would extend his advocacy beyond pamphlets.

"People say all kinds of shit, and if they stop saying it, then OK, but if they persist, well, tougher action will be required," he said. "Then it’s going to be ugly."

The differences between Gaetz’s plan and the Green New Deal backed by progressive Democrats are mere "window-dressing," wrote James Taylor, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, which aims to muddy climate science.

Taylor has said that Republicans risk alienating their base if they craft climate policy. He said that "weak-minded congressional Republicans" who try to respond to the Green New Deal take away the chance to run against it in the 2020 elections.

He has written critically of Gaetz in particular and even referred to him as "Matt Gore" in reference to Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president and environmental activist.

"Gaetz, Alexander, and theirsmall cadre of Republican climate alarmists are seeking to undermine the conservative Republican voter base and Trump on one of his most important policy principles," he wrote."Their betrayal of Trump and the conservative Republican base will almost certainly and justly come back to haunt them."

The fight on the right over climate change isn’t a new one for Alex Flint, who leads the Alliance for Market Solutions, a conservative group that supports carbon taxes.

Earlier this year, Flint criticized climate contrarians for their views and argued that denialism is anathema to conservatism because it ignores the risks of global warming. And "being irresponsible disqualifies anyone from being a true conservative," he wrote at the time (:{Climatewire:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, April 15).

In an interview Thursday, Flint made the case that the rejection of climate science is losing ground with Republicans.

"But we won’t know until after the 2020 elections how rapidly it’s occurring," he said.

==

3/19 watnow checkin, schnare just popped up

https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/15/green-new-deal-trump/

no lnx

BS

WHY WAS LIBERAL BILLIONAIRE TOM STEYER SO QUIET ABOUT HIS SUPPORT FOR THE GREEN NEW DEAL?

5:11 PM 02/15/2019 | ENERGY

Chris White | Energy Reporter

Analysts say they are not surprised that billionaire Tom Steyer is staying mum on the Green New Deal given the plan’s recent stumbles.

Liberal megadonor Steyer is laying low on the Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal as Democratic presidential hopefuls line up behind the plan.

Steyer appears to be focusing on impeaching President Donald Trump over championing Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.

Billionaire Tom Steyer is keeping a low profile with respect to his support for the Democratic Party’s Green New Deal. It’s an unusual position for one of the environmentalist movement’s biggest advocates.

Steyer has stayed mum on an all-encompassing climate resolution that promises to completely remake the American economy. He’s given faint praise for the GND in a tweet and a few sparse press statements, but the Democratic megadonor is instead focusing on impeaching the president.

The climate resolution, which was rolled out by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Feb. 7, calls for “10-year national mobilizations” toward a series of goals aimed at fighting global warming. A separate fact sheet claims the plan would “mobilize every aspect of American society.” Steyer’s relative inaction comes as critics slam the GND’s coming out party.

Ocasio-Cortez’s office provided NPR the GND resolution and its accompanying FAQ document that laid out its goals, namely to “[m]ove America to 100% clean and renewable energy” within 10 years. The FAQ document dump turned into a millstone around Democrat’s proverbial necks.

Among other things, the document claimed that Americans must “upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency,” if they are to rid the country and world of all forms of pollution and greenhouse gases. It also stated that the GND would provide benefits for people “unwilling to work.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s staff was forced to ding the document from the website and clarify the lawmaker’s position. The drama unfolded less than a day after the Feb. 7 rollout of the now-beleaguered deal. Steyer, for his part, issued a tweet on the day of the rollout cheering the New York Democrat’s ambitious play.

[kind of bugeyes?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks to the media about Amazon scrapping its plans to build a new headquarters in Queens, New York, on Capitol Hill February 14, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

“A real solution proposed in Washington? About time!! Let’s make the liars and deniers explain why this doesn’t HAVE to happen,” he told his Twitter followers at the time. Steyer didn’t mention the GND again until several days later when Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts published a statement on his website noting Steyer’s support.

“Our society needs to turn dramatically and immediately towards the shared goals of environmental justice, broad-based prosperity and health. The Green New Deal is that turn,” Steyer said in the Feb. 13 statement. Steyer’s political action group NextGen America has not responded to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Some critics believe it makes sense why the former hedge fund manager is staying mum. Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told TheDCNF that Steyer’s reticence to leap into the fray is probably a smart tactic given the GDN’s controversy.

“I think I would avoid wide circulation, too,” Horner said, adding “that the same people who couldn’t create a healthcare website apparently can’t even properly post to a website.” He often engages in legal battles against attorneys who sue energy companies over climate change.

Other analysts shared similar sentiments. “He’s calculating. It’s not overly popular,” E&E Legal President Craig Richardson told The DCNF, referring to the GND, which received waives of support from various Democratic presidential candidates.

“He’s all in on climate program. It’s a trial balloon, so he’s smart enough not to jump into that right away. It’s really not politically expedient to come all the way out for it,” he said of Steyer’s reticence. Richardson’s group is also on the front lines in battles against anti-oil activists.

Steyer is plowing another $6 million into what some Democratic leaders worry is an ill-fated attempt to impeach the president. He decided not to run against President Donald Trump in January, citing concerns about his business dealings and past fossil fuel investments.

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TAGS : ALEXANDRIA OCASIO CORTEZ DONALD TRUMP TOM STEYER

==

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/climate-change/b/climate-change-blog/posts/litigation-seeking-climate-scientists-emails-for-transparency-has-been-secretly-paid-for-by-the-coal-industry

columbia law

March2015, an Arizona trial court validated the University of Arizona’s denial of massive records requests by Energy & Environment Legal (“E&E Legal”), which sought 13 years of climate scientists’ emails under Arizona open records laws.[1] E&E Legal, formerly named the American Tradition Institute, claimed it wanted these emails for its “transparency project.”[2] The group has been described as having “a core mission of discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations,”[3] and E&E Legal openly admitted its litigation was seeking documents it could use to embarrass researchers.[4] Many in the scientific community applauded the court’s ruling,[5] but E&E Legal was less pleased and it recently appealed the decision.

In its appeal, E&E Legal claims that the trial court misinterpreted Arizona’s open records laws, which balance duties of government transparency with protections deemed in “the best interests of the state.”[6] In particular, E&E Legal claims that the trial court erred by giving deference to the University’s determination, and the court improperly considered whether the University had “abuse[d] its discretion or act[ed] arbitrarily or capriciously” in withholding the emails.[7] Instead, E&E Legal claims, the trial court should have considered both sides’ arguments equally and analyzed them de novo.[8] E&E Legal has asked for a remand to the trial court for reanalysis or, in the alternative, a new analysis by the appellate court.[9]

E&E Legal has been called “a free-market think tank that wants the public to believe human-caused global warming is a scientific fraud,”[10] and its tactics include “filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research.”[11] The group also “has connections with the Koch brothers, Art Pope and other conservative donors seeking to expand their political influence.”[12]

Recent bankruptcy filings by coal producer Alpha Natural Resources (“ANR”), analyzed by The Intercept, also reveal that E&E Legal’s work has been funded by the coal industry.[13] These bankruptcy filings list line item descriptions of ANR contractors and grant recipients, which includes distributions to E&E Legal attorney Christopher Horner, as well the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic (“FMELC”), which operates as litigation counsel for E&E Legal.[14] (FMELC’s business address is also the home ofDavid Schnare, the general counsel for E&E Legal, and FMELC is staffed solely by attorneys who also work for E&E Legal.[15]) A representative from the Union of Concerned Scientists described the ANR money to FMELC and Horner as essentially “funding the harassment of scientists.”[16] Chris Horner was also a featured speaker at the 2015 Coal and Investment Leadership Forum, an invitation-only retreat that brings together coal industry executives, Republican donors, and other “stakeholders.”[17]

Despite the groups’ transparency directives, FEMC director and E&E Legal general counsel David Schnare declined to give reporters additional details on ANR funding, and sent an email “neither confirming nor denying that Horner or his organizations have received funding from the coal giant.”[18] Horner has previously declined to comment on his relationship with coal companies.[19] Schnare told reporters that “nearly all” of their donors “request that we not disclose their names,” and noted that IRS regulations do not require disclosure.[20]

Lauren Kurtz is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which seeks to protect the scientific endeavor. For more information, please visit climatesciencedefensefund.org

==

see schnare518

said to have fought w/ pruitt obn speed of rollback, but seem plenty fast?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/while-coal-ash-kills-americans-the-epa-stands-by

BS

http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/19/i-will-name-names-infighting-at-epa-drives-top-official-to-resign/

...Schnare didn’t go into detail, but said he would soon write about the events that led to his resignation. His comments, however, suggested infighting at EPA between transition officials, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s inner circle and career employees.

“When the time comes I will name names and go into specifics, “ Schnare said. When asked if the details would be “eye-opening,” he responded: “Oh, I think so.”

While Schnare gave few details to TheDCNF aside from agency officials lacking “integrity,” InsideEPA reported he’d become “increasingly frustrated with what he described as endless infighting at the agency.”

Schnare said the White House is looking into the circumstances surrounding his resignation. The EPA did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment.

Reports already suggested tension between President Donald Trump’s political appointees and EPA career staff.

An unnamed career staffer told Politico that EPA employees will “fight actions they deem ill-advised or illegal by quietly providing information of what is happening inside their agencies to advocacy groups and the media.”

A small group of EPA staffers began using encryption apps, like Signal, to communicate in a way that can’t be tracked by the White House. The actions may violate federal records law.

Other government employees may have started “rogue” Twitter accounts to attack the Trump administration over social media, and a former EPA official suggested agency employees would boycott Trump if he ever came to visit the agency.

Schnare’s resignation suggests infighting between EPA transition officials and Pruitt’s inner circle over the direction of the agency. He told InsideEPA Pruitt had frozen out members of the beachhead team placed at the agency by Trump’s transition team. As one of the most experienced members of the transition team, he’s an attorney and environmental scientist who previously worked at EPA for more than 30 years. Most recently, Schnare was general counsel for the Energy & Environment Legal Institute.

He was a key player during the transition and played a substantial role in crafting the administration’s “action plan” to reform the agency.

Schnare said Pruitt never read the transition team’s “action plan” and that the administrator lacks “interest in major policy matters” and an “understanding of how the agency operates,” according to InsideEPA.

All that seemed to change after the Senate confirmed Pruitt in February. Schnare told InsideEPA Pruitt excluded beachhead members from meetings. A source told InsideEPA that was false.

TheDCNF, however, learned Schnare was shut out meetings with top officials shortly before his resignation. Even InsideEPA’s source conceded Schnare may have been “shut out from very senior meetings.”

The White House recommended a 31 percent, or $2.5 billion, cut to EPA’s budget and reducing its workforce by 3,200 employees as part of the administration’s “skinny budget.”

“EPA would primarily support States and Tribes in their important role protecting air, land, and water in the 21st Century,” reads a White House summary of EPA’s budget.

WUWT

BS

eport – emails reveal ‘collusion’ with green activist groups over EPA climate agenda

Anthony Watts / September 15, 2014

NEW REPORT: FOIA’d Emails show outside ‘green’ lobby groups staffed up, collude with Obama EPA, calling rules’ legality into question

For Immediate Release:September 15, 2014 |

Obama’s EPA in collusion with “green” lobby groups — Report details the conflicts of interest, “unalterably closed minds”, internal activism and influence of outside interest groups on the Obama Administration EPA. Documents raise questions re EPA rules legality

Washington, D.C. – The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) released a report todayrevealing and piecing together dozens of emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which lay out in detail EPA’s collusion with senior activists within environmentalist pressure groups, and proving the real thinking about the intent behind and impact of EPA’s “climate” regulations.

Far from the required recusing to avoid the appearance of a conflict, EPA filled its senior political ranks with green pressure group activists, continuing their life’s work and coordinating with former colleagues from their new positions in government. These emails show the groups sharing jokes about EPA assurances that it isn’t waging a war on coal, and gloating about the courts serially siding with EPA as it rewrites federal environmental law. More important, they show the special role and undue influence these relationships provided, the very sort of influence the Obama Administration once disavowed.

“EPA is permitted to regulate; but, not these people, not this way,” said E&E Legal’s Chris Horner who filed the FOIA requests and related litigation which produced most of the emails set forth in the report, which also includes and discusses many emails extracted from EPA by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) adding context to E&E Legal’s findings.

The report details many instances of lobbyists for “green” special interest groups helping steer EPA regulations and permitting decisions, and providing advocacy materials for use by former colleagues now inside the EPA who then dutifully circulate the advocacy materials to colleagues. The collusion ranges from orchestrating public hearings, the EPA and Sierra Club teaming to write a U.S. Senator’s public statement on the shared agenda, and even specifically targeting individual power plants which green groups wanted to prevent under any new EPA standards.

“It’s disturbing,” said Dr. David Schnare, a lawyer and a scientist with decades of experience as an EPA employee, now E&E Legal’s general counsel. “There needs to be a clear line between special interests and government. Current EPA officials are ignoring that line entirely,” he added.

Released emails show the orchestration of EPA’s “climate” agenda, plainly predetermined despite the requirement of open-minded review, including its “endangerment” finding.

E&E Legal’s report singles out dozens of emails, of which it has even more equally illustrative exemplars, from many thousands of documents. These were obtained pursuant to FOIA requests which the report also details EPA delayed and stonewalled until E&E Legal had to litigate to force disclosure, however bridging and often heavily redacted.

These show the improperly close collaboration between certain environmental groups and senior EPA officials, many of whom came to EPA from just such groups. The relationship between Michael Goo, recently head of the EPA Office of Policy and a former Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) lobbyist, and John Coequyt, a top Sierra Club lobbyist, is particularly close, to the point that Coequyt worked to ensure Goo participation in meetings important to Sierra, while Goo ensured his colleagues paid particular attention to Sierra’s concerns and materials.

The emails discussed in the report demonstrate how Coequyt supplied research and advocacy materials directly to individual activists within EPA, even helping EPA keep a score for “internal use” of coal plants to shut down. He advised EPA officials to ensure “zombie” coal plants, i.e. plants that had been planned and may one day be built, remain shelved avoided creating complete logs of their interactions through various means, including, e.g., meeting with Goo at the nearby Marriott Hotel near the EPA headquarters (circumventing detailing their discussions in EPA’s visitor logs, where people most logically would look), and when he was otherwise in the building including for numerous meetings with senior officials Goo facilitated had such a direct pipeline into the Agency that when he was on vacation his Sierra Club team would plead with EPA friends for updates.

In another case, EPA press staff collaborated with a Sierra Club lobbyist to write Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s (D-NH) statement on the “climate” agenda for a “roundtable” event EPA, Sierra Club, and Sen. Shaheen participated in.

In multiple instances, green lobbyists provided EPA with their polling on the shared priorities, were directly involved in deciding where EPA would hold public hearings, and ensuring supportive crowds. Further, EPA repeatedly gave green groups a leg up in preparing comments intended for the administrative record on important regulations. This meant the green groups were able to submit comments ahead of any members of the general public, or other interested parties, even though the comments in question were submitted before the record was open for comment by the general public. EPA employees also submitted special interest group comments directly if those groups failed to do so themselves.

The special relationship goes all the way to the top. Lisa Jackson, aka “Richard Windsor”, used her private Verizon account to email directly, impermissibly off the record, with green lobbyists like Sierra Club Michael Brune, which the public only now knows because she clumsily instructed one lobbyist to contact her there, and forwarded a Brune email to EPA colleagues seeking to “amplify” Brune’s work.

There is evidence of substantial correspondence between current EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and green group leaders, which she references in emails that were obtained, though what she references have not been produced even though they were clearly responsive to E&E Legal’s FOIA requests. Still, it is clear from what has been obtained that she gives green lobby groups a “heads up” to save them from “embarrassment.”

“The exclusion of voices from the process other than those already predisposed to agree with and promote EPA’s agenda, its leadership’s former compatriots in ‘green’ lobbying groups, is the precise and illegal opposite of good governmental practices,” said Craig Richardson, E&E Legal’s Executive Director, “These people are not allowed to regulate this way.”

The report extensively documents these and many more abuses by current EPA leadership and calls for a new process, free from conflicts of interest, worthy of public confidence and legal legitimacy, giving all stakeholders an equal voice in the process. Until that occurs, the EPA regulatory process faces legal challenges and deserves only public distrust.

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization engaged in strategic litigation, policy research, and public education on important energy and environmental issues. Primarily through its petition litigation and transparency practice areas, E&E Legal seeks to correct onerous federal and state policies that hinder the economy, increase the cost of energy, eliminate jobs, and do little or nothing to improve the environment.

The FME Law Clinic provides litigation and research services to qualified clients. We concentrate on cases involving landmark free-market pro-environmental litigation; use of open records and data quality laws to force greater governmental accountability and transparency; and, cases that allow the Clinic to help create the next generation of free market oriented attorneys.

==

http://www.energyandpolicy.org/energy-environment-legal-institute/

Energy & Environment Legal Institute

Chris Horner

Chris Horner of Energy & Environment Legal Institute

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) is a coal funded nonprofit think tank [formerly the American Tradition Institute (ATI)] that engages in litigation and policy research to “hold accountable those who seek destructive government regulation that’s based on agenda-driven policy making, junk science, and hysteria.” The coal funding is revealed in documents filed as part of bankruptcy process by both Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources, two of the largest coal producers in the country.

E&E Legal’s website at one time stated it “is part of a broader network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation,” although that text has now been removed.

E&E Legal’s senior leadership has ties to fossil fuel interests as well: David Schnare, a fossil fuel-funded pundit with connections to the Heartland Institute, State Policy Network, and other front groups; and Chris Horner, a fossil fuel-funded climate denier who works at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The Competitive Enterprise Institute is an advocacy group with ties to tobacco and global warming disinformation campaigns, and that has also been subpoenaed by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The island territory is demanding to see records of the group’s donors and activities involving climate policy since the attorney general is looking into the actions of ExxonMobil’s undermining of the scientific concerns of climate change science.

Recent Posts About Energy & Environment Legal Institute

House Subcommittee on Energy and Power Features Fossil Fuel Front Groups

http://www.energyandpolicy.org/house-subcommittee-on-energy-and-power-features-fossil-fuel-front-groups/

House subcommittee hearing features testimony from people who have received funding from fossil fuel interests and primarily advocate for the continued use of fossil fuels over renewable energy.

On Thursday, July 24, Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power held a hearing entitled “Laboratories of Democracy: The Economic Impacts of State Energy Policies.” The hearing featured testimony from representatives of Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), Manhattan Institute, and Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, all of which have received funding from fossil fuel interests and primarily advocate for the continued use of fossil fuels over renewable energy.

Tom Tantonis the director of science and technology assessment at E&E Legaland the president of T2 & Associates, an energy and technology consulting firm whose clients have included the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Between 2003 and 2007, Tanton was the vice president and senior fellow of the Institute for Energy Research, a Texas-based think tank that has received $307,000 from Exxon Mobil and $175,000 from Koch Industries.....

Confidential Documents Reveal Fossil Fuel-Funded Organizations Coordinating With Local Anti-Wind Groups

2012

http://www.energyandpolicy.org/anti-wind-groups-coordinate-with-fossil-fuel-funded-organizations/

Network of fossil fuel funded organizations secretly coordinated campaign to turn the American public against wind farms

Peabody Energy Funding Climate Change Denial and Anti-Renewable Campaigns

Analysis of bankruptcy court documents reveals Peabody Energy funding climate denial that span trade associations, lobby groups, and industry front groups.

Paul Chesser, Fossil Fuel Pundit, Attacks Tech Industry’s Cleantech Investments

The biography of Paul Chesser includes a long list of fossil fuel-backed front groups that he’s currently involved with, which may explain his blatant anti-renewable energy stance.

Paul Chesser, an anti-clean energy advocate who works for multiple fossil fuel-funded front groups, recently criticized technology companies for their investments in renewable energy. Chesser claims that the companies are still dependent on fossil fuels. But, companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have invested millions of dollars to build new clean energy installations that will help transition the grid to provide more renewable energy. The reality is clear: these big technology companies recognize that clean energy sources are affordable, reliable, and make great business investments, in addition to producing environmental and public health benefits.

In his criticism, Chesser cites Amazon’s recent commitment to purchase wind energy from an installation under construction by Iberdrola Renewables in North Carolina. According toTechCrunch, Amazon estimated the facility would generate 670,000 megawatt hours annually, part of an expansion that will produce about 1.3 million megawatt hours annually for the company (enough power for about 122,000 homes). However, instead of recognizing the effort by tech companies to produce enough power to meet the demand of their data facilities, Chesser cites the fossil fuel-funded Institute for Energy Research to lambast these companies for “misleading claims.”

The biography of Paul Chesser, the author, includes a long list of fossil fuel-backed front groups in which he’s currently involved, which may explain his blatant anti-renewable energy stance. He is a “special correspondent” for the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute is a fossil fuel-funded front group with over $800,000 in contributions from fossil fuel interests that has routinely attacked clean energy policies and the science behind climate change. Chester is also the director of “Climate Strategies Watch,” which is organized by the John Locke Foundation (JLF). JLF is the primary State Policy Network member in North Carolina, and has received funding from the Kochs. Chesser is a “senior fellow” for the Commonwealth Foundation, a member of the State Policy Network in Pennsylvania that has received funding from the Kochs and dark money groupsaffiliated with the Koch political network. He previously ran the American Tradition Institute, now called E&E Legal Institute, that has harassed climate scientists and whose Senior Legal Fellow, Chris Horner, was recently exposed for receiving payments from Alpha Natural Resources, a now bankrupt coal company. And lastly, Chesser contributes to the fossil fuel-funded news websites, American Spectator and JLF’s Carolina Journal.

• Posted in: Front Groups, Renewable Energy Policies, Solar, Wind
• Tagged in: Chris Horner, Commonwealth Foundation, E&E Legal, Heartland Institute, Institute for Energy Research, John Locke Foundation, Koch Brothers,Paul Chesser
• http://www.energyandpolicy.org/paul-chesser-fossil-fuel-pundit-attacks-tech-industry-cleantech-investments/

==

bs wind

Kevon Marti is Founder and Executive Director of the Interstate Informed Citizen Coalition (IICC), which is a non-profit corporation dedicated to raising public awareness of the potential impacts from the construction of industrial wind turbines in Ohio and Michigan.

As director of the IICC, an independent public policy resource to township, county and state officials wrestling with wind energy subsidies, mandates and controversial land use policies associated with wind development, Martis has developed model land use regulations for utility scale wind generation that protect individual land owners from predatory zoning practices employed by the wind industry. These regulations use current zoning law to restore the free market principles of consent and compensation to land use policy in the renewable energy space. He has presented these concepts to regulators and legislators across the Midwest.

In 2014 Martis provided critical testimony to the Ohio legislature leading to enactment of the nation’s first freeze of a Renewable Portfolio Standard. He also played a key role in educating Michigan voters as they rejected a ballot initiative that would have constitutionally mandated Michigan utilities generate 25% of their energy from renewable sources by the year 2025.

Martis also regularly testifies before both the Ohio and Michigan legislatures on energy policy matters. His testimonies on renewable energy mandates and subsidies are valued for their independence, clarity and ability to cut through the fog of lobbyist misinformation.

==

holocaust BS :

http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2012-09-21-Complaint-as-Filed.pdf

sept 2012?]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/landon-t-huffman-ph-d-a8883251

cv xian: https://landonhuffman.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/landon-huffman-cv-website.pdf

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA

ALEXANDRIA DIVISION

THE AMERICAN TRADITION INSTITUTE

ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER

0033 Brook Ford Rd.

Burke, VA 22015

Plaintiffs,

v.

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY, and

LISA P. JACKSON, ADMINISTRATOR

1200 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.

Washington, DC 20460,

Defendants.

Civil Action No. ___

VERIFIED COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

I. Nature of the Action

1. On behalf of its members, the American Tradition Institute (ATI), by and through

counsel, brings this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2201and the Administrative Procedure Act

(“APA”), 5 U.S.C. Part I, Chapter 7, et seq, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency). Pursuant to 5 U.S.C.

§ 702, ATI also files against EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.

2. Plaintiffs ask the Court to find EPA failed to comply with laws controlling human

experimentation and to order the Agency to fully comply. Specifically, through a companion

filing Plaintiffs will seek a Temporary Restraining Order and through this filing seeks a

Preliminary Injunction to immediately halt EPA’s human experimentation which intentionally

[Verified Complaint 2p]

exposes human subjects, including some “more susceptible to the effects of air pollutants” to

“fine particles” such as those “produced by car and coal-fired power plants”, that EPA and its

Administrator have described as “lethal” and for which EPA has concluded there is no exposure

level “below which there is no risk at all.”

Second, Plaintiffs seek declaratory relief finding EPA

has failed to adequately inform project participants that the pollution they will inhale imposes a

risk to their health and that there is no benefit whatever to the participants of the study, as well as

other violations of controlling laws, regulations and policies as described below. Third,

Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief barring any human experimentation by EPA absent an

independent determination that the Agency is in full compliance with human experimentation

laws, regulations and policies.

Fourth, Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief requiring EPA to

withdraw and destroy or excise any publications in any form that are based, even in part, on

results of illegal human experimentation.

Lastly, Plaintiffs seek a stay in implementation of any

rules authorized under the Clean Air Act to control fine particulate matter until such time as the

Agency can review the regulatory basis it used in their promulgation, amend its support

documents and otherwise reevaluate the risks from fine particulate matter to ensure EPA does

not rely in any fashion upon illegal human experimentation.

II. Parties

A. Plaintiffs

3. The American Tradition Institute is a 501(c) (3) organization dedicated to the

advancement of rational, free-market solutions to America's land, energy, and environmental

challenges. It has members throughout the nation, including in Virginia. The Institute and its

Law Center were formed to find and challenge at law governmental actions that violate the core

principles of good science, honest government and the rights of citizens and man. See, Schnare ...

email NSA

http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/CEI_EELI__FME_Law_v_NSA_No-_14-975_Complaint_FILED.pdf

==

http://www.desmogblog.com/energy-environment-legal-institute

Background

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), formerly the American Tradition Institute (ATI), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Washington, DC.  A2011 study by the Institute for Southern Studies reported that E&E legal had connections with “the Koch brothers, Art Pope and other conservative donors seeking to expand their political influence.” [1], [4]

*:{The Guardian:(style="font-style:normal"):}:* has described E&E Legal/the American Tradition Instituteas having “a core mission of discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations,” while E&E Legal has been called “a free-market think tank that wants the public to believe human-caused global warming is a scientific fraud” that uses tactics including “filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research.” [28], [4]

The group's website at one time stated it was part of a “broader network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation.” [4]

E&E's mission statement reads as follows:

“The Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization engaged in strategic litigation, policy research, and public education on important energy and environmental issues. Primarily through its strategic litigation efforts, E&E Legal seeks to address and correct onerous federal and state governmental actions that negatively impact energy and the environment.  E&E Legal advocates responsible resource development, sound science, respect for property rights, and a commitment to markets as it holds accountable those who seek excessive and destructive government regulation that’s based on agenda-driven policy making, junk science, and hysteria.” [1]

E&E Legal has repeatedly requested emails of climate scientists working at state universities including their personal emails and for work not yet completed or ready for publication.  [26]

“When E&E Legal doesn't get everything it asks for, it will typically file a lawsuit and take the scientist and university to court,” the Center for Media and Democracy's*:{ PR Watch:(style="font-style:normal"):}:* writes. [26]

The Union of Concerned Scientists has described the Energy and Environment Legal Institute's tactics as tantamount to the harassment of climate scientists. [27]

American Tradition Institute

The Energy and Environment Legal Institute has undergone a number of name changes and evolutions since it started, and the group was originally based on Colorado. According to Sourcewatch, E&E Legal was originally known as the American Tradition Institute, which was a “sister organization” to the 501(C)(4) organization “American Tradition Partnership” (ATP) or “Western Tradition Partnership” (WTP). All three names were associated with controversy in campaign financing during the 2010 elections. [9]

In September 2013, E&E Legal's Board of Directors voted“to refine its focus primarily to the area of strategic litigation, and to change its name in order to reflect more accurately its work in the legal arena.” [1]

When the Western Trade Partnershipchanged its name to the American Tradition Partnership in 2010, it also announced that it had launched the American Tradition Institute, a think tank it said would be “battling radical environmentalist junk science head on.” [4] 

The *:{Huffington Post :(style="font-style:normal"):}:*reports ATP/WTP and the American Tradition Institute worked to fight laws requiring the disclosure of political contributions by corporations. In 2010, the Montana Commission of Political Practices found that the Western Tradition Partnership had broken state law by failing to report its donors and spending. 

They found that it solicited unlimited contributions to support candidates and then passed them through a “sham organization” called The Coalition for Energy and the Environment that ran attack ads against Democrats. WTP told corporations that it aimed to combat 'radical environmentalists' and 'beat them at their own game' and that their contributions would remain secret.” The state also suggested that WTP/ATP had been involved in corruption and money laundering. [2], [3]

Other Aliases

The Economic Research Institute (ERI), which also records publicly available 990 forms, lists some of the known aliases for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EIN26-4239065): [20]

• American Tradition Institute
• Energy & Environment Legal Institute
• Energy and Environment Legal Institute
• Western Tradition Institute
• Western Tradition Institute Dba American Tradition Institute

George Mason Environmental Law Clinic aka Free Market Environmental Law Clinic (FMELC)

According to the 2012 IRS filing of the George Mason Environment Law Clinic (EIN 4516021963), “The law clinic serves as the attorneys for the American Tradition Institute. The billable hours in these matters is shared by the FME Law Clinic and ATI, the division made on a case by case basis. [34]

Some cases listed on “Ongoing litigation” at the time included:

• ATI v. UVA
• Occoquan Watershet Coalition v. EPA
• ATI V. NASA
• ATI V. Epel
• ATI v. EPA

FMELC's 2014 990 form shows that the Energy and Environment Legal Institute was providing funding for “general support” in the amount of $40,000 that year. [35]

The FMELC was led by the following people: [18]

• :{David W. Schnare:(style="font-weight:normal"):}: — Law Clinic Director and Board Director
• Steven Gold — Board Director
• **:{Michael Thompson:(style="font-weight:normal"):}:**— Board Director
• :{Christopher C. Horner:(style="font-weight:normal"):}: — Litigation Attorney

Stance on Climate Change

An online petition hosted by the American Tradition Institute,an organization which would later become the Energy &Environment Legal Institute, makes the following assertions about climate change: [5]

”[…] the claims of carbon-driven anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are unproven and are, in fact, contested by over 31,000 scientists […]”

”[…] global temperatures have not risen since 2000 and data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration demonstrates that the earth has actually been cooling for the last 4 years […]”

Funding

Coal Industry Funding

While the Energy & Environment Legal Institute does not publicly disclose its donors, 2015 bankruptcy proceedings with Arch Coal, one of the largest coal producers in the United States,listed E&E legal as a creditor.  [26]

*:{The Intercept :(style="font-style:normal"):}:*also identified that Alpha Natural Resources, another coal company, was funding the Free Market Law Clinic, a group closely related to E&E Legal, as well as directly to E&E's lawyer, Chris Horner. [29]

Donors Capital Fund/Donors Trust

Conservative Transparency reports the following donations for that the Energy & Environment Legal Institute received $505,000 in combined contributions from Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Not that not all of the following funding values have been confirmed by DeSmogBlog. [6]

Vew the attached spreadsheet for additional information on :{E&E Legal's funding by year (.xlsx):(style="font-weight:normal"):}:.

Both Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund are responsible for distributing millions of dollars in grants while concealing the original identity of their donors. [6]

American Tradition Partnership

According to a 2010 filing with the IRS (PDF), The American Tradition Institute received $40,000 from its sister group American Tradition Partnership (ATP).

:{Atlas Economic Research Foundation:(style="font-weight:normal"):}:

SourceWatch reports a total of $5,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, while Conservative Transparency listsan **:{additional $15,000:(style="font-weight:normal"):}:** from the group. [7], [8]

Atlas is a Virginia-based think tank that, according to ExxonSecrets, received over $1 million in funding from Exxon Mobil since 1998. Atlas also received $122,300 from the Koch family foundations and $735,000 from the Pope foundation. [9]

:{Vernon K. Krieble Foundation:(style="font-weight:normal"):}:

According to publicly available 990 forms, the Vernon K. Krieble Foundation donated $10,000 to the American Tradition Institute in 2013. [21]

E&E Legal 990 Forms

Energy and Environment Legal Institute 2014 (2)

:{

Energy and Environment Legal Institute 2014

}::{

Energy and Environment Legal Institute 2013

}::{

Energy and Environment Legal Institute 2010

}:4 documents

:{:{Key People:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-weight:normal"):}:

Senior Leadership (2016)[10]

• :{:{David Schnare:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-weight:normal"):}: — General Counsel
• Craig Richardson — Executive Director
• :{:{Tom Tanton :(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-weight:normal"):}:— Director, Science & Technology Assessment

Fellows & Advisors

Past American Tradition Institute (ATI) Staff

ATI's past executive director :{Paul Chesser:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, who WTP/ATP describes as a:{ “noted climate scholar,” is not a scientist:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{. He has edited two weekly conservative newspapers, as well as a variety of fundamentalist websites like The Good Steward.com, Evangelical Press, the Christian Examiner, The Home School Legal Defense Association, and evolution denier Answers in Genesis. :(style="background:#fafafa"):}:[:{24]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{, }::{[4]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Past ATI Board of Directors

Past ATI Staff

Legal Actions

May 10, 2016

The Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI) and the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic :{issued a complaint to Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, asking him to turn over documents discussing climate change deniers. :{[47]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

“The complaint, filed by attorneys for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute and Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, says a request for documents was made on May 10 but not responded to by the extended deadline of May 24 — the longest extension allowable under Vermont law,” 

According to the complaint, the groups seek discussions with Matt Pawa, an environmental lawyer for the Climate Accountability Institute; Lem Srolovic, chief of the New York Attorney General’s Environmental Protection Bureau; Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general; and John Passacantando, former executive director of Greenpeace USA. The requests contain keywords relating to a possible investigation being led by attorneys general of multiple states.”

The EELI's request was in retaliation to :{recent investigations by state attorneys general:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: into how much ExxonMobil knew about climate change while simultaneously denying its existence. :{[48]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

May, 2016

The :{Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI) sued the EPA:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: on behalf of the Western States Trucking Association and Dr. James Enstrom, a retired University of California-Los Angeles epidemiologist who disagrees with the EPA's statements on particulate matter.:{[45]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

According to EELI, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was “stacking a scientific advisory panel on air pollution.”

“The EPA has stacked the panel, which is required by law to be independent and unbiased, with researchers who have received over $190 million in discretionary grants from the EPA,” said :{Steve Milloy:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: in a statement.

“This clearly violates the law and makes a mockery of the notion of ‘independent’ scientific review,” he said.

In June,:{ EELI's request for financial disclosure statements from members of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) was denied:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: because “the harm to the individuals … clearly outweighs the public interest in such disclosure.” :{[46]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Energy & Environment Legal Institute v. Arizona Board of Regents

E&E Legal :{filed multiple requests under Arizona's open records laws for the files of University of Arizona climate scientists Dr. Malcolm Hughes and Dr. Jonathan Overpeck:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, seeking thirteen years of documents – including emails dating back to the 90s, reports the Climate Law Blog. :{[36]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

March, 2016:{

}::{The :(style="background:#fafafa"):}:*:{:{Arizona Capital Times:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}:*:{ writes:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: that the state Court of Appeals overturned the ruling of a trial judge who said that the University of Arizona did not need to disclose 1,700 emails and other records from Jonathan Overpeck and Malcolm Hughes. :{[37]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

While Pima County Superior Court Judge James Marner had said the university did not abuse its discretion in concluding that disclosing the documents would not be in the best interests of the state, appellate Judge Joseph Howard said it was legally irrelevant what university officials thought was appropriate to disclose.  }::{[37]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

While this does not guarantee that E&E Legal would gain access to the documents, it did “[raise] the bar for the university to shield them from disclosure.” }::{[37]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

}:March 24, 2015:{

The Arizona Superior Court for Pima County ruled in favor of the University of Arizona and upheld the University's decision to deny large portions of its open records to E&E Legal. }::{[36]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

The court found that the University could properly protect “prepublication critical analysis, unpublished data, analysis, research, results, drafts, and commentary” as well as prepublication peer review work because the University was justified in concluding that, as is prohibited by Arizona law, “release of [the] information would have an important and harmful effect on the duties of a State agency or officer.” }::{[38]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

The court also noted that the “volume and complexity of the records at issue is daunting,” and the court acknowledged that it spent “[m]any hours” of its own reviewing 90 “technical and esoteric” sample emails – a small fraction compared to the other 1700+ withheld emails – with “at least one [sample email] exceeding 800 pages in length.” }::{[38]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

July 31, 2014:{

In a respondents' opening memorandum dated July 31, 2014, the University of Arizona argued that releasing the emails would harm the scientific process and reduce the competitiveness of Arizona public universities as it would put a damper on correspondence between researchers.  }::{[36]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

}:June 26, 2014:{

In a petitioners' opening brief,  E&E claimed any fear that releasing emails would “chill the creative efforts of faculty” was “unfounded” and it asserted instead that protecting researcher records actually “encourages and rewards misbehavior.” }::{[36]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

}:February, 2013:{

The University stated that the documents contained protected intellectual property and applied Arizona's general records exemption that it was “in the best interests of the state” to withhold the documents according to a letter from the University of Arizona to ATI dated February 5, 2013. }::{[36]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

}:October 9, 2013 (Amended Complaint)

In its Amended Complaint, E&E stated it was conducting a “transparency project,” which it claimed was necessitated in large part by its interpretation of emails released in the so-called “Climategate” hacking.  This was :{despite findings from all official “climategate” investigations that found no misconduct by scientists:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:. :{[36]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:,[39]

E&E Legal v. Colorado (Renewable Energy Standard)

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute has consistently :{challenged the constitutionality of Colorado’s renewable energy standard:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (RES). The standard, passed in November 2004, imposed stricter standards for emissions standards of power plants. :{[14]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

2015:{

E&E Legal has now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to “review this case and explain once and for all when and why extraterritorial regulation is unconstitutional. “The case is titled }:*:{:{Energy & Environment Legal Institute, et al. v. Joshua Epel:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}:*:{.:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:[31]:{

}:2014:{

}::{David Schnare:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, general counsel to the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, said that the RES “is unconstitutional, and it causes more harm to human health and the environment than it prevents.” :{[14]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Heartland Institute Policy Analyst Taylor Smith applauded the EELI’s challenge, saying “It’s great to see E&E Legal is not giving up on this very important issue. Colorado has one of the nation’s most stringent renewable energy mandates, a law that accomplishes little else than shift resources from productive sectors to unproductive ones. Let’s hope the law is found unconstitutional.” :{[14]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

}:April, 2011:{

E&E Legal (under its former name) and one other plaintiff }::{sued the State of Colorado and several officials “over the constitutionality of the state’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES) mandate:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:.” The RES requires the state’s major utilities obtain 30 percent of their power generation from renewable sources by the year 2020. :{[32]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

American Tradition Institute v. University of Virginia et al. (Michael Mann Documents)

April, 2014:{

After the Circuit Court of Prince William County denied the disclosure of certain documents related to Mann, the American Tradition Institute re-opened the case (}::{American Tradition Institute, et al. v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, et al.):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:. It was decided on April 17, 2014 that the original William County court's decision was in the right. :(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{[25]:{

}:May 16, 2011:{

American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center and Virginia Delegate Robert Marshall asked a Prince William County judge, under the Commonwealth’s Freedom of Information Act, to expedite the release of documents withheld by the University of Virginia that pertain to the work of its former environmental sciences assistant professor Dr. Michael Mann. }::{[33]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

}::{According to the ATI's case summary:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, the legal action came after the UVA delayed four months since the original request on January 6.:{[33]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

}:January 6, 2011

Operating as the American Tradition Institute (ATI), The Energy and Environment Legal Institute filed a lawsuit against the University of Virginia and attempted to obtain emails and other documents related to former professor Michael Mann, a world renowned climate scientist. 

The Institute sought to reveal Mann's correspondence in an attempt to prove their accusation that he had manipulated data in order to receive government grants. :{[16]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

American Tradition Institute v. NASA  (James Hansen Documents)

June 21, 2011:{

The American Tradition Institute's Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit in federal district court in the District of Columbia to force NASA to release ethics records for Dr. James Hansen. }::{[30]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

The action followed NASA's denial of ATI's federal Freedom of Information Act request with NASA, seeking records detailing whether and how ‘global warming' activist Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has complied with applicable federal ethics and financial disclosure laws and regulations, and NASA Rules of Behavior. }::{[30]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

This case forced NASA and the U.S. Office of Governmental Ethics to change its policy on release of public documents as well as how NASA and others implement their ethics responsibilities. It has resulted in an ongoing investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Operations. [30]

January 19, 2011

Operating as the American Tradition Institute (ATI), The Energy and Environment Legal Institute filed a federal FOIA request with NASA seeking information on how climate scientist James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies “has complied with applicable federal ethics and financial disclosure laws and regulations, and NASA Rules of Behaviour.”

E&E Legal sued NASA for withholding documents over concerns about Hansen's privacy rights. :{[17]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Other Actions

June 13, 2016

Both the Energy and Environment Legal Institute and the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic were listed as creditors in:{Peabody Energy's 2016 bankruptcy filings:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, reports the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD/PRWatch). :{[41]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

While the :{available bankruptcy documents:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: do not list the scale or dates of funding, they outline Peabody Energy's financial ties to a large network of groups promoting climate change denial. :{[42]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Prominent individuals appearing in the documents include climate deniers :{Willie Soon:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{Richard Lindzen:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{Roy Spencer:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: and :{Richard Berman:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:. The long list of organizations also includes groups such as :{Americans for Prosperity:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{American Legislative Exchange Council:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{CFACT:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{Institute for Energy Research:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{State Policy Network:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, the :{U.S. Chamber of Commerce:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: and dozens more. :{[43]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

*:{:{The Guardian:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}:*:{ also analysed and reported on the Peabody bankruptcy findings:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:: :{[44]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

“These groups collectively are the heart and soul of climate denial,” said Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigation Center, who has spent 20 years tracking funding for climate denial. “It’s the broadest list I have seen of one company funding so many nodes in the denial machine.”

The company’s filings reveal funding for a range of organisations which have fought Barack Obama’s plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and denied the very existence of climate change. […]

Among Peabody’s beneficiaries, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change has insisted – wrongly – that carbon emissions are not a threat but “the elixir of life” while the American Legislative Exchange Council is trying to overturn Environmental Protection Agency rules cutting emissions from power plants. Meanwhile, Americans for Prosperity campaigns against carbon pricing. The Oklahoma chapter was on the list. […]

“The breadth of the groups with financial ties to Peabody is extraordinary. Thinktanks, litigation groups, climate scientists, political organisations, dozens of organisations blocking action on climate all receiving funding from the coal industry,” said Nick Surgey, director of research for the Center for Media and Democracy.

“We expected to see some denial money, but it looks like Peabody is the treasury for a very substantial part of the climate denial movement.”

Notable organizations listed in the initial documents include:

• :{60 Plus Association:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{American Energy Alliance:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Alliance For Energy And Economic Growth:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{American Energy Alliance:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{American Legislative Exchange Council:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Americans For Prosperity:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: Oklahoma
• :{Atlas Economic Research Foundation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Berman And Company, Inc:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Consumer Energy Alliance:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Center For Clean Air Policy:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Center for Energy and Economic Development:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Center For The Study Of Carbon Dioxide And Global Change:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Coalition for Responsible Regulation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Council on State Taxation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{DCI Group AZ, LLC:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Ducks Unlimited:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Energy & Environment Legal Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Edison Electric Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Free Market Environmental Law Clinic:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Frontiers Of Freedom Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{George C. Marshall Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Hill Knowlton Strategies:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Hill Knowlton, Inc:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Hudson Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Hunton & Williams:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Independence Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Institute For Energy Research:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Institute for Liberty:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{National Association of Manufacturers:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{National Black Chamber of Commerce:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{National Conference of State Legislatures:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{National Mining Association:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{National Rural Electric Cooperative Association:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{NextGen Energy Council:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• PACE (May refer to :{Partnership for Affordable Clean Energy:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:)
• :{Science & Public Policy Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Sidley Austin LLP:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{State Policy Network:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Texas Public Policy Foundation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{U.S. Chamber of Commerce:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Western Business Roundtable:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Notable individuals named in the initial documents include the following:

• :{Kelly Forbes Mader:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Heather A. Wilson:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Roy W. Spencer:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Willie Soon:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{Richard Lindzen:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

December 13, 2015:{

Writing as a guest blogger on }:Watts Up With That, CFACT's executive director :{Craig Rucker denounced the latest UN climate change agreement:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:: :{[39]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

“This agreement will not meaningfully alter the temperature of the Earth, even under the U.N.’s own computer models.

:{

“The bad news is that it plants the seeds of a new UN climate regime that left unchecked will swell into a bureaucratic behemoth.”}:

June 16, 2015

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute created a video claiming many environmental policies “will actually harm to most vulnerable among us” and warns Pope Francis not to back environmental policies. The video implies that climate policies are contributing to “energy property” that is “killing Europe's seniors and poor by the tens of thousands.”

Video below:

The video was also promoted in an article headlined, :{“Conservatives Warn Pope That Climate Policies Will Kill Seniors, Poor” in the :(style="background:#fafafa"):}:*:{:{Daily Caller:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}:*. :{[12]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

June, 2015

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute's Attorney at Law Chris Horner was a speaker at the 2015 Coal and Investment Leadership Forum. Those named in the invitation included Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, Tennessee Valley Authority president Bill Johns, and “the owners and chief executives of coal mining and energy companies” including :{Alliance Resource Partners:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{Alpha Natural Resources:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{Consol Energy:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{Drummond Company:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{Arch Coal:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, and :{United Coal Company:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:.

:{According to :(style="background:#fafafa"):}:*:{:{The Guardian:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}:*, the meeting's attendees were “across the board from the energy sector including not only coal industry executives but also some from oil and gas industry, manufacturers and supplies of the energy sector generally as well as leaders of the banking and financial industry that follow and impact the sector.” :{[13]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

May, 2012

The Guardian posted a :{confidential memo:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, prepared by a fellow at the American Tradition Institute (ATI), that made recommendations to build a national PR campaign and non-profit organization dedicated to causing “subversion in message of [wind] industry so that it effectively becomes so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it.” 

Suggestions in the memo included creating “dummy businesses” that would buy anti-wind billboards, and creating a “counter-intelligence branch” to track the wind energy industry. It also suggested spending $750,000 on an organization with paid staff and tax-exempt status that would build opposition to state and federal policies promoting wind power. :{[15]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

2009

:{As reported at the :(style="background:#fafafa"):}:*:{:{Huffington Post:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}:*, “in 2009, the group sued Longmont, CO over their Fair Campaign Practices Act. The city settled and agreed to drop disclosure requirements. In 2010, after the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision,WTP/ATP successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Montana Corrupt Practices Act of 1912, which prohibited independent political expenditures by corporations.” :{[2]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

E&E Legal Contact & Location

As of May, 2016, the :{Energy & Environment Legal Institute listed the following contact address and phone number:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:::{ [40]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

:{E&E Legal Institute

722 12th St., NW, 4th Floor

Washington, D.C. 20005}:

:{Phone: 703-981-5553

Office: }::{Info@eelegal.org:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Related Organizations

Here is a breakdown based on reports by SourceWatch: :{[9]:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, [19]

* According to the 2010 990 for the “Western Tradition Institute,” it was “doing business as” the American Tradition Institute. The Western Tradition Institute also filed a 2010 990 form that did not list the ATI, however they shared the same EIN.

Resources

==

616 news bs

PRESS RELEASE: AZ SUPERIOR COURT ORDERS UOFA TO RELEASE CLIMATE ALARMISTS E-MAILS

posted under: Climategate, Conflict of Interest, E&E Legal v. UofA, Press Releases, Schnare, Suits

For Immediate Release: June 16, 2016 Contact: Craig Richardson Richardson@eelegal.org 703-981-5553 AZ Superior Courts Sides with E&E Legal and Orders UofA to Disclose ‘Climate’ Related Public Records Including Correspondence of Longtime Activists Hughes and Overpeck Washington, DC – On June 14, 2016, the Superior Court of Pima County, Arizona, the Honorable…

une 16, 2016

Contact:{:

Craig Richardson

}::{Richardson@eelegal.org:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{

703-981-5553}:

AZ Superior Courts Sides with E&E Legal and Orders UofA to Disclose ‘Climate’ Related Public Records Including Correspondence of Longtime Activists Hughes and Overpeck

Washington, DC – On June 14, 2016, the Superior Court of Pima County, Arizona, the Honorable Judge James Marner, ordered the University of Arizona to disclose certain “climate” related public records sought by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), correspondence of two U of A academics, Malcolm Hughes and Jonathon Overpack, who featured prominently in the 2009 and 2011 “ClimateGate” releases of public records.

The University had withheld these records, dating from 11 to 15 years ago, from public view since a 2011 Arizona Public Records Law request.  The request deals predominantly with climate change communications and specifically should provide further insight into development of the so-called “hockey stick” graph, activism by university professors using public resources, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The 2009 and 2011 “ClimateGate” releases of public records also were subject to freedom of information laws, and the subject of stonewalled requests prior to being leaked apparently by a whistleblower concerned over those same efforts.  One of these U of A employees was a co-author of a particularly controversial paper at the center of these revelations, with his lead co-author, Michael Mann, describing the activist climate agenda in several emails as “the cause”. The other U of A employee has been at the center of this “cause” by his activism relating to and arising out of his work at the University, using University resources.

As such, these records likely include significant overlap with those withheld for years during the University of Virginia’s decade-long efforts to keep its own involvement in climate alarmism from the public.

Commenting on the decision, Dr. David Schnare, E&E Legal’s General Counsel, and lead counsel in the case, stated: “This is a landmark case that address the joint needs to ensure transparency while preventing harassment of academics. Academics have increasingly become a significant part of the policy-making process, requiring significant transparency in their activities. Judge Marner struck a wise balance.”

Schnare continued, “The decision is a straight-forward and clear factual and legal ruling, the result of deep and thoughtful efforts by Judge Marner to sort through this difficult issue, which are plainly evident in the hearing transcripts.  Those hearings and the briefing in this case helped refine the arguments central to striking the proper balance of scrutiny that comes with public funding, as well as concerns inherent in the transparency which is essential to research, particularly research  that serves as the basis for economically and socially significant policies.”

The Court found that the University did not “specifically identify” any “substantial and/or irreparable private or public harm” that would come from releasing the documents; without such a harm, the legislature’s clear and overriding preference for transparency and public accountability prevailed.

The Court rejected the University’s argument that “release of the requested emails would set a dangerous precedent that would seriously and negatively impact higher education in Arizona and throughout the country.”  The Court did not “ignore the repeated ‘chilling effect” concerns” raised by the University, but concluded that “potential harm is speculative at best, and does not overcome the presumption favoring disclosure of public records containing information about a topic as important and far-reaching as global warming and its potential causes.”

The Court also addressed the University’s arguments regarding protection of academic freedom, holding “they go beyond championing academic freedom and, in effect, promote the creation of an academic privilege exception to [state public records law]. This is a proposition more properly made to the legislature rather than the courts.”  This finding may be the most critical outcome of this case, regardless of the public education that results on this matter of great public interest.

Upon receipt, E&E Legal will begin review of the more than 1,700 emails and other documents, after which it will make them publicly available to all interested in the history of this important period during which academics demonstrated significant influence on the public discussion on global warming and the human influence thereon, and the often highly political “cause” being undertaken by academics, the IPCC and others.

:{The Energy & Environment Legal Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (E&E Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization engaged in strategic litigation, policy research, and public education on important energy and environmental issues. Primarily through its petition litigation and transparency practice areas, E&E Legal seeks to correct onerous federal and state policies that hinder the economy, increase the cost of energy, eliminate jobs, and do little or nothing to improve the environment.

--

Daily Caller: Feds Quietly Consider Reviving EPA’s Human Testing Program

16

JUN

DAILY CALLER: FEDS QUIETLY CONSIDER REVIVING EPA’S HUMAN TESTING PROGRAM

posted under: Media Coverage, Milloy, PM2.5

by Michael Bastasch Daily Caller The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) met five times behind closed doors this past year to discuss the possibility of reviving Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) experiments exposing humans to harmful air pollutants. NAS is examining the findings of a 2014 EPA inspector general reporting, which…

Press Release: E&E Legal Sues Vermont for Stonewalling Public Records Request13

JUN

PRESS RELEASE: E&E LEGAL SUES VERMONT FOR STONEWALLING PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST

posted under: Conflict of Interest, Green Groups, Inquisition, Press Releases, Schnare, Silencing Dissenters, Stonewalling, War on Coal

For Immediate Release: June 13, 2016 Contact: Craig Richardson Richardson@eelegal.org 703-981-5553 E&E Legal Forced to Sue Vermont Attorney General to Release Public Records Related to Conspiracy of AG’s Seeking to Use RICO to Punish and Silence Climate Change ‘Deniers’ Washington, DC – Today the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E…

MasterResource: Wind Siting Rules: Kevon Martis Testimony to the Ohio Power Siting Board9

JUN

MASTERRESOURCE: WIND SITING RULES: KEVON MARTIS TESTIMONY TO THE OHIO POWER SITING BOARD

posted under: Martis, Media Coverage, Testimony, Unreliability of Wind

Posted by Robert Bradley, Jr. MasterResource My name is Kevon Martis. I am the Executive Director of the Interstate Informed Citizens’ Coalition (IICC) of Blissfield MI. I am also a Senior Policy Fellow of the Energy and Environment Legal Institute in Washington DC… Now in my case, an error in…

Daily Caller: Experts: New Bill Could Stop Executive Overreach

8

JUN

DAILY CALLER: EXPERTS: NEW BILL COULD STOP EXECUTIVE OVERREACH

posted under: Conflict of Interest, Horner, Media Coverage

by Kevin Daley The Daily Caller A House panel approved legislation Wednesday that ends a judicial doctrine the Obama administration regularly relies upon when promulgating new rules and regulations. The Separation of Powers Restoration Act (SOPRA) repeals the Chevron doctrine, which requires that courts defer to a federal agency’s interpretation

:{http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/08/experts-new-bill-could-stop-executive-overreach/#ixzz4B7VbmWuN:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

House panel :{approved legislation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: Wednesday that ends a judicial doctrine the Obama administration regularly relies upon when promulgating new rules and regulations.

The Separation of Powers Restoration Act (SOPRA) repeals the Chevron doctrine, which requires that courts defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of the law unless their interpretation is “unreasonable.” Instead, the bill provides that a court should conduct a review of “all relevant questions of law, including the interpretation of constitutional and statutory provisions and rules” when evaluating federal rules and regulations.

:{Elizabeth Slattery:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, welcomes the development.

“This [SOPRA] would really bring back a layer of oversight because that really is something the court should be providing,” Slattery told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “When a rule is injuring a citizen and they’re able to come into court and challenge it, they should get real, meaningful judicial review and not this sort of ‘Well, the agencies interpretation is good enough for government work.'”

:{

Read more: }::{http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/08/experts-new-bill-could-stop-executive-overreach/#ixzz4BrxldgYY:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

--

:{https://projects.propublica.org/represent/bills/114/hr4768:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

:{

==

daily caller bs batasch

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for allegedly stacking a scientific advisory panel on air pollution with researchers who had received more than $190 million in grants from the agency.}:

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (EELI) is suing EPA on behalf of the Western States Trucking Association and Dr. James Enstrom, a retired University of California-Los Angeles epidemiologist who was blacklisted for challenging EPA claims about particulate matter.

“The EPA has stacked the panel, which is required by law to be independent and unbiased, with researchers who have received over $190 million in discretionary grants from the EPA,” said Steve Milloy, an attorney with EELI, in a statement.

“This clearly violates the law and makes a mockery of the notion of ‘independent’ scientific review,” he said.

:{...

EPA relies on a panel of scientific advisers, called the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, to validate the science underlying key clean air regulations pushed by the agency. In this case, }:EELI is asking the court to prevent the EPA from convening a panel tasked with reviewing the science behind agency regulations on fine particulate matter, or PM2.5.

EELI believes the agency has stacked the panel with researchers who will rubber stamp EPA rules regulating PM2.5. EPA also relies on claimed PM2.5 reductions for the majority of health benefits in some of its largest regulations on power plants.

Some 24 of the 26 members of EPA’s PM2.5 panel have gotten or are the current recipients of EPA grants. In total, panel members have gotten more than $190 million from the agency, according to EELI. Milloy says this violates the federal laws requiring such scientific advisory panels be “independent.”

EELI isn’t alone in pointing out potential problems with using scientific advisers financially reliant on EPA. Earlier this year, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe:{:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

74%

sent a letter to the EPA, criticizing the agency for selecting advisers who benefit from federal largesse.

In 2014, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith 

60%

 pointed out that many science panel members were often peer-reviewing regulations based on their own research, corroding the integrity of the peer-review process.

“Not only does the EPA pay researchers to produce controversial research that advances its PM2.5 regulatory agenda, but the agency pays the very same researchers to review their own controversial work,” said Milloy, who also runs the blog JunkScience.com and has been involved in the PM2.5 debate for years.

EPA began regulating PM2.5 in in the early 1990s, and today says there’s no safe level of exposure to the air pollutant. PM2.5 is a “mixture of harmful solid and liquid particles” that is 2.5 microns or less, or “1/30th the thickness of a human hair.” These small particles can get into people’s respiratory system and can harm human health and even lead to death after just short-term exposure, according to EPA.

In 2011, former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Congress that PM2.5 “causes premature death.”

“It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should,” she said. “If we could reduce particulate matter to healthy levels it would have the same impact as finding a cure for cancer in our country.”

The EPA set PM2.5 primary standards at 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air on an annual average basis. Despite the strong warnings, EPA has tested PM2.5 on humans. EPA exposed dozens of human test subjects to PM levels of 600 micrograms per cubic meter — 40 times what the EPA sets as an acceptable outdoor air standard.

EPA not only testes PM2.5 on humans, they also did not fully disclose the risks of death from PM2.5 exposure — a reversal from public warnings about exposure to the pollutant.

EELI points out EPA uses supposed monetary benefits from PM2.5 reductions as the main justification for massive regulations on power plants, including the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, Mercury Air Transport Standard and Clean Power Plan.

“The EPA process for commissioning and evaluating PM2.5 research has been so rigged and so biased for so long that many scientists don’t even try to get nominated for CASAC panels any more,” Milloy said. “

“We will review and respond to the lawsuit,” an EPA spokeswoman told the Daily Caller New Foundation.

==

For Immediate Release:{:

May17, 2016}:

Contact:{:

Craig Richardson

Richardson@eelegal.org

703-981-5553}:

E&E Legal Sues EPA for Stacking ‘Independent’ Science Panel with EPA Grant Recipients;

Watchdog Groups Asks Court to Dissolve EPA Panel

Washington, DC – Last Friday, The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for illegal formation of a key science advisory committee. The committee at issue is the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Particulate Matter Review Panel for 2015-2018 (CASAC PM Panel). E E Legal filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of its members who include theWestern States Trucking Association and Dr. James Enstrom, a Research Fellow and epidemiologist retired from the University of California, Los Angeles.

“The EPA has stacked the panel, which is required by law to be independent and unbiased, with researchers who have received over $190 million in discretionary grants from the EPA,” said Steve Milloy, an attorney and Senior Fellow with E&E Legal. “This clearly violates the law and makes a mockery of the notion of ‘independent’ scientific review,” Milloy added.

“We are asking the court to prevent the EPA from convening the panel until the panel can be formed in a balanced manner in compliance with applicable laws,” said Dr. David Schnare, E&E Legal’s General Counsel and a 33-year veteran of the EPA.

The EPA’s regulation of ambient airborne fine particulate matter, soot or dust in outdoor air also called “PM_2.5” (pronounced Pee-Em-Two-Point-Five”), has been scientifically controversial since the EPA began the process of regulating it in the early 1990s. The EPA claims that any inhalation of PM_2.5 can cause death within hours and that PM_2.5 in outdoor air kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Not only has the EPA hidden from public scrutiny for over 20 years key scientific data that its PM_2.5 regulation relies on, but also the agency stacks the legally required CASAC panel with EPA-paid researchers.

EPA’s claims about the lethality of PM_2.5 have been a primary basis for the agency’s justification of its air quality standards for particulate matter and ozone, as well as regulations key to the Obama administration’s so-called “war on coal”, including the: Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, Mercury Air Transport Standard and Clean Power Plan. State implementation of EPA’s PM_2.5 standards is also quite costly as evidenced by E & E Legal member Western States Trucking Association, whose own members are forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars retrofitting truck engines to comply with California state PM_2.5 emissions requirements as mandated by the EPA.

“Not only does the EPA pay researchers to produce controversial research that advances its PM_2.5 regulatory agenda, but the agency pays the very same researchers to review their own controversial work,” explained Milloy. “Of the 26 members the EPA selected to be on the CASAC PM Panel, 24 of them have been paid or are currently being paid by the EPA a total sum in excess of $190 million,” Milloy observed. “The EPA’s supposedly ‘independent’ review process is entirely rigged to advance EPA’s agenda,” Milloy added.

“Both the Clean Air Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act require that the CASAC PM Panel be independent and unbiased,” Schnare said. “We are asking the court to determine that an EPA advisory panel that operates on a consensus basis but that is 90 percent comprised of highly-paid EPA cronies does not meet the requirements of the law,” Schnare added.

“The EPA process for commissioning and evaluating PM_2.5 research has been so rigged and so biased for so long that many scientists don’t even try to get nominated for CASAC panels any more,” Milloy said. “They’ve simply given up. A case study of this is E & E Legal member and PM_2.5 researcher Jim Enstrom who, in questioning EPA’s PM_2.5 science, has lost professional opportunities because of the extreme biases of the EPA, CASAC and current and former CASAC panel members,” Milloy said. “CASAC is a cabal, not an independent committee,” he added.

“As the EPA is at the very beginning a new round of review of PM_2.5 regulation, as required by the Clean Air Act, our lawsuit is intended to make sure that process is conducted in an independent and unbiased manner as required by the law and expected by the public and Congress,” Schnare concluded.

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization engaged in strategic litigation, policy research, and public education on important energy and environmental issues. Primarily through its petition litigation and transparency practice areas, E&E Legal seeks to correct onerous federal and state policies that hinder the economy, increase the cost of energy, eliminate jobs, and do little or nothing to improve the environment.

==

see hinderaker

:{===

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/03/23/1505265/-EELI-Continues-Wasting-Coal-Money

ongoing efforts of the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI) to harass the EPA were set back on Monday, when a federal appeals court denied EELI's request to file an argument that the EPA illegally colluded with groups.}:

EELI is claiming that the Clean Power Plan is “invalid” because the EPA communicated with green groups like the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council during its creation. The court rejected the filing without explanation, though its decision may be because regulatory agencies frequently talk with stakeholders. Where EELI sees collusion, pretty much everyone else sees standard operating procedures.

Adding insult to injury is a recent revelation that EELI’s Chris Horner has been paid as a “Regulatory Counsel” for the now-bankrupt Alpha Natural Resources, according to Alpha’s bankruptcy documents. Horner received at least $30,600 from Alpha between May 2015 and January 2016. In February, another bankrupt coal company, Arch Coal, was shown to have funded EELI as well with undisclosed sums of money.

Next in line for bankruptcy looks to be Peabody coal, which has warned that it is close to having to file for bankruptcy protection.

We can’t wait to see how much money they’ve wasted on EELI or other fruitless denial efforts.

 ==

http://www.alternet.org/environment/climate-deception-investigations-gain-momentum-exxonmobil-plays-victim

With several state attorneys general now investigating whether ExxonMobil misled its shareholders and the public about climate change risks, it was more than a little ironic when the company recently cried foul.

“Collaboration, collusion, conspiracy,” charged ExxonMobil spokesman Alan Jeffers, “pick a word.” 

Pick a word? How about nonsense? If anyone could be accused of collusion and conspiracy, it’s ExxonMobil. But more on that later. 

What prompted Jeffers’ ludicrous allegation was a meeting that took place on March 29. My colleague Peter Frumhoff, lead climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and environmental attorney Matt Pawa briefed a handful of state attorneys general, including New York’s Eric Schneiderman, who launched an investigation of ExxonMobil last November. Later that day, Schneiderman and 16 other attorneys general joined former Vice President Al Gore at a press conference to declare their support for more aggressive government action on climate change. During the event, AGs from the U.S. Virgin Islands and Massachusetts announced that they, too, would initiate investigations of ExxonMobil. 

On April 15, Reuters broke the story that Frumhoff and Pawa had met behind closed doors with the state prosecutors before the press conference. The news organization had obtained emails disclosing the meeting through an open records request filed by a group called the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal). 

“The previously unknown level of coordination with outside advisers offered a glimpse behind the scenes in an increasingly pitched battle between Exxon and environmental groups,” Reuters reported. “Exxon has said it has been unfairly singled out and that climate activists are conspiring to rally public opinion against it.” 

Unfortunately, not only did the Reuters story fail to adequately identify E&E Legal, it also mischaracterized what amounted to a routine meeting in an ongoing legal investigation.

Confidentiality is standard operating procedure

Reuters described E&E Legal, a small, three-person nonprofit, as a “free-market think tank with ties to the Competitive Enterprise Institute [CEI], whose website says it opposes U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.” What it didn’t mention is that E&E Legal — which could hardly be called a think tank — is at least partly funded by the coal industry and has repeatedly harassed prominent climate scientists, including Katharine Hayhoe and Michael Mann, by filing intrusive open records requests that have tied them up for weeks and wasted hundreds of thousands of public university dollars.

What’s more, the story didn’t explain that the group’s connection with CEI is through CEI staff attorney Chris Horner, who handles E&E Legal’s open records filings. CEI has been peddling lies about climate science on behalf of fossil fuel interests for decades, and Horner is associated with other climate science denier groups as well as the coal industry, a relationship that was recently revealed by coal company bankruptcy filings. 

More important, Reuters failed to clarify that the attorneys general were merely doing their jobs. By their very nature, legal investigations can entail gathering information privately from a wide variety of sources. 

This is a key point. State attorneys general have the authority to meet with anyone they choose — be it a scientist, an environmental lawyer or a corporate official — in the course of an investigation on a confidential basis. In other words, there was no hint of collusion or conspiracy. Meeting privately with experts is part of the legal discovery process. Moreover, in New York — under the state’s Martin Act — the attorney general can initiate a completely confidential investigation of potentially fraudulent practices.

But that didn’t stop FoxNews.com, the Daily Caller, the :{:{Washington Examiner:(style="background:#ffff66"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}: and the :{:{Washington Times:(style="background:#ffff66"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}: — the climate science denial echo chamber — from providing ExxonMobil and E&E Legal a platform to make bogus charges about “collusion” and “conspiracy” in subsequent stories.

ExxonMobil’s disinformation network

Schneiderman’s investigation, and one launched in January by California’s attorney general, followed the release of documents by the Union of Concerned Scientists and reporters at InsideClimate News and Columbia Journalism School revealing that Exxon scientists conducted cutting-edge climate research decades ago and warned top management of the potentially catastrophic risks posed by global warming. Schneiderman’s staff is now reviewing the company’s statements to investors regarding those risks to see if they contradicted what it was hearing from its own scientists. 

The New York AGs office also is taking a close look at ExxonMobil’s support for a network of think tanks and advocacy groups that has been spreading disinformation about climate science for nearly 20 years. Here is where questions about “collusion” and “conspiracy” come into play.

That network was exposed back in 2007 when UCS documented that ExxonMobil had spent at least $16 million between 1998 and 2005 on more than 40 climate science denier groups. The group that got the most money? CEI, which received more than $2 million. Despite the fact that it had no scientists on its staff, CEI established itself as the go-to group to provide “the other side” of a manufactured scientific debate. It is perhaps best remembered for reassuring Americans that global warming is nothing to worry about in a TV commercial extolling the virtues of carbon dioxide. The spot’s unforgettable tagline: “They call it pollution. We call it life.”

ExxonMobil publicly ended its direct support for CEI in 2005, but the company continues to spend millions of dollars annually on denier groups and congressional climate science denier political campaigns. CEI, meanwhile, may have lost ExxonMobil as a benefactor, but according to the most recent available tax records, it is still receiving money from billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, co-owner of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries. 

In any case, it is difficult to determine just where CEI gets its funding these days. Much of it comes from a secretive, pass-through foundation called Donors Trust and its affiliate Donors Capital Fund. Since 2002, the intertwined funds have laundered more than $457 million from anonymous corporations, foundations and individuals and distributed that money to hundreds of anti-regulation groups, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Heartland Institute, and of course, CEI. 

The First Amendment doesn’t protect fraud

:{As one of ExxonMobil’s top climate science denier grantees, CEI now finds itself in the hot seat. U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker not only launched an investigation of ExxonMobil for defrauding investors and the general public, he also subpoenaed communications between ExxonMobil and many of its denier network groups. He specifically asked CEI for all its climate change and energy policy materials, as well as its donor lists, over a 10-year period beginning in 1997.

CEI has filed to quash the subpoena and pushed back in an April 23 op-ed in the }:Washington Post. CEI president Kent Lassman and his general counsel, Sam Kazman, insisted that their organization and ExxonMobil are being unfairly harassed for exercising their First Amendment rights. A week later, the Wall Street Journal editorial board chimed in, calling Walker’s subpoena of CEI documents “a form of harassment” and “a dangerous turn for free speech.” 

But the real issue is not CEI’s or ExxonMobil’s First Amendment rights. CEI, which has been exercising its right to mislead the public about climate change for quite some time, is being investigated to determine the extent to which it functioned as ExxonMobil’s paid surrogate. ExxonMobil, meanwhile, is being investigated to ascertain if it is guilty of fraud. As Attorney General Schneiderman has noted, “The First Amendment, ladies and gentlemen, doesn’t give you the right to commit fraud.”

:{:{}:

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13049/bankruptcy-documents-indicate-arch-coal-funding-climate-denial-legal-group

}:

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), a group best known for filing lawsuits seeking climate scientists' personal emails, has secretly received funding from Arch Coal, one of the largest coal producers in the United States. The funding is revealed in documents recently filed as part of the Arch Coal bankruptcy proceedings which list the coal company's creditors.

The Arch funding is revealed just months after Alpha Natural Resources, another coal company facing bankruptcy, was identified by :{:{The Intercept:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}: as providing funding to a group closely connected to E&E Legal, the Free Market Law Clinic, as well as funding directly to E&E Legal's lawyer, Chris Horner. The two organizations share staff and fellows, often working together to bring lawsuits.

Although E&E Legal is listed as a creditor, the Arch court filing does not provide any other details that would indicate the size of the funding nor when any payment or payments were made.

E&E Legal has developed a niche for filing voluminous requests for the emails of climate scientists working at state universities, including their personal emails and for work not yet completed or ready for publication. When E&E Legal doesn't get everything it asks for, it will typically file a lawsuit and take the scientist and university to court.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has said that E&E Legal's tactics amount to the harassment of climate scientists.

In one such case, E&E Legal requested fully 13 years of emails from climate scientists Dr. Malcolm Hughes and Dr. Jonathan Overpeck based at the University of Arizona. The university and the scientists handed over significant quantities of emails, but withheld thousands of others which they said included "prepublication data and drafts." E&E Legal filed a lawsuit against the scientists and the university. The scientists eventually won their case in the Arizona Superior Court but it is pending review by the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Other leading climate scientists, including Michael Mann, James Hansen, and Katharine Hayhoe have also been subject to lawsuits from E&E Legal.

"The volume and frequency of the requests from EELI are designed to antagonize leading climate scientists, wasting their time in drawn out and frustrating lawsuits. They frankly have better things to do, and that's obviously the point of E&E Legal's campaign" Brendan DeMelle of DeSmogBlog, which tracks and reports on climate change denial groups told CMD by email.

Coal Support For Chris Horner

Chris Horner, E&E Legal Senior Legal Fellow, is the group's lead on its work seeking scientists emails. In 2014, Horner received $110,000 from a group closely tied to E&E Legal, the Free Market Law Clinic, according to the most recently available tax filings for that organization. David Schnare, General Counsel at E&E Legal, is also the Director at the Free Market Law Clinic.

The bankruptcy filings for Alpha Natural Resources, revealed by :{:{The Intercept,:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}: showed direct support from that coal company to Chris Horner personally, as well as to the Free Market Law Clinic.

In 2015, CMD obtained an invitation and other materials from a private and highly secretive annual coal summit, hosted by the CEOs of five coal companies, including both Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources, as well as Alliance Resource Partners, Drummond Company, and United Coal Company. Chris Horner was a speaker at the event, which also included then Republican presidential front runner, Jeb Bush.

After the event, attendees received an email signed by each of the five coal company CEOs which hinted at the coal funding for Horner's work: "As the ‘war on coal' continues, I trust that the commitment we have made to support Chris Horner's work will eventually create great awareness of the illegal tactics being employed to pass laws that are intended to destroy our industry."

That email, suggests that the coal funding of Chris Horner's work may extend even beyond Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources.

"It's very telling to confirm that E&E Legal has received Arch Coal funding since their attacks on climate science and harassment of scientists are just what the coal industry is counting on to survive," Brendan DeMelle of :{:{DeSmogBlog:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::(style="font-style:normal"):}: told CMD.

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute's General Counsel, David Schnare, did not respond to numerous requests to comment for this article.

:{ALEC Exposed:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

:{Energy:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

:{Climate Change:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

:{News:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

==

CPP

Koch-Tied Groups

:{There's King Coal and then there's King Koch. As with many stories involving big corporate interests fighting against environmental regulations, the Kochtopus has spread its tentacles and front groups into the fight against the CPP.

}:Energy and Environment Legal Institute:{

}:Enter the **:{Energy and Environment Legal Institute:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:** (EELI), an anti-clean energy front group formerly known as the **:{American Tradition Institute:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:**, which filed a Petition for Review in October 2015 with the D.C. Appeals Court. EELI **:{maintains close ties:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:** to**:{Koch-funded George Mason University:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:**:{ School of Law.

According to a }:**:{January 2015 piece published by Vice News:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:**, “The Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Lair Foundation, and Doug Lair:{ are all listed as donors” on ATI's 2010 IRS 990 tax form. “The Atlas Economic Research Foundation has been funded in the past partly by Exxon, while Doug Lair is a Montana businessman who sold his petroleum company to one of the Koch brothers back in 1989.”

}:Lee Fang of The Intercept further **:{revealed:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:**, by examining bankruptcy filings of coal mining giant Alpha Natural Resources, that EELI Senior Legal Fellow **:{Chris Horner:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:** received funding from the company.:{

}:Stink Tanks

==

We’re also gearing up for E&E Legal’s appeal in Arizona state court – as mentioned in our previous newsletter, E&E Legal is contesting a recent Arizona decision, which held that the University of Arizona properly protected scientists’ files from E&E Legal’s demands for virtually unfettered access.  E&E Legal has openly admitted it is seeking documents it could use to embarrass researchers. :{

}:Notably, last week E&E Legal was linked to covert funding:{ :(style="background:#ffffff"):}:**:{by the coal industry:(style="background:#ffffff"):}:**– money that goes towards their work “hounding climate change researchers” with meritless legal attacks, including “filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research.” 

--

refs

Have you heard about the group that has :{abused open records laws:(style="background:transparent"):}: to harass climate scientists across the United States? The organization behind :{North Carolina’s ban on using sea level science:(style="background:transparent"):}: to inform coastal planning? The institution :{attacking renewable energy targets:(style="background:transparent"):}:?

These are all activities of the innocuous-sounding Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal). Now, thanks to a :{scoop:(style="background:transparent"):}: by Lee Fang at The Intercept, we now know where some of their money comes from.

It’s the coal industry.

We have known for years that privately funded organizations have attacked climate scientists, both in the US and the UK, to the extent that they had to set up a :{legal defence fund:(style="background:transparent"):}:. But we’ve known little about where their money comes from, beyond efforts to :{connect the dots:(style="background:transparent"):}: between different groups.

Now, the bankruptcy filings of :{Alpha Natural Resources:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:, a large Virginia-based coal company, provide a rare window into the :{list of political and advocacy organizations:(style="background-image:initial;background-attachment:initial;background-size:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial"):}: the company has funded. E&E Legal (formerly known as the American Tradition Institute) is one of them. Other recipients include the Heartland Institute, which :{compared climate scientists to the Unabomber:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:, the :{American Legislative Exchange Council:(style="background:#ffff66"):}: and numerous others.

In the US, companies are usually not required to disclose this kind of spending, so public scrutiny is grossly inadequate. Trade associations and corporate front groups like E&E Legal are willing to do the dirty work that companies don’t want to associate themselves with. A recent :{Union of Concerned Scientists analysis:(style="background:transparent"):}:found that utility and energy companies are often unwilling to support publicly the climate change activities of the trade groups that represent them.

In a :{follow-up article:(style="background-image:initial;background-attachment:initial;background-size:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial"):}:, Fang zeroes in on attorney Chris Horner, who is connected to E&E Legal and a number of other organizations that have sought to undermine public understanding of climate science. According to the filing, Alpha provided money not only to groups with ties to Horner, but also to Horner personally.

===

refs

**:{Giant Coal Company Bankruptcy Reveals Secret Ties to Climate Denial, GOP Dark Money Groups:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:**

Lee Fang

Aug. 25 2015, 10:34 a.m.

Alpha Natural Resources, one of the largest coal companies in America, was a player in major congressional election efforts last year — but you won’t find records of their corporate donations on the Federal Election Commission website or in any public record.

You will, however, find signs of the Virginia-based coal giant’s secret political activities buried in a creditor document filed last Thursday. The recent downturn in coal prices and high debts forced the company to seek bankruptcy protection earlier this month.

The filing lists organizations with which Alpha Natural Resources had any kind of financial transaction, including recipients of grants, creditors and contractors. The filing does not list amounts given or owed by Alpha Natural Resources. A spokesperson for the firm did not respond to a request for comment.

Alpha Natural Resources gave money to an array of nonprofit entities that are not required to report donor information. These groups were pivotal in helping Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives and in electing the new GOP majority in the Senate.

The corporation helped fund the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, a secretive nonprofit group that refused to disclose any donor information during the election last year. The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition was the largest outside campaign entity in the Kentucky senate race, spending over :{$14 million:(style="background:#ffff66"):}: on television and radio commercials to successfully reelect Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in his campaign against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Alpha Natural Resources also helped finance campaign entities associated with the Koch brothers campaign network, including Americans for Prosperity, :{Themis Trust:(style="background:#ffff66"):}: (a campaign data company), and Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a :{clearinghouse:(style="background:#ffff66"):}: used to fund a range of organizations supporting Republican election efforts. The Institute for Energy Research, an advocacy group founded by Charles Koch that lobbies in support of fossil fuel subsidies and against renewable energy policies, had a financial relationship with Alpha Natural Resources.

The company, with operations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming, had once been viewed as a coal industry :{powerhouse:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:. In 2011, Alpha Natural Resources **:{borrowed:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:** $7.1 billion to purchase Massey Energy after 29 employees were killed in Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine.

The creditor filing reveals a number of other revelations about Alpha Natural Resource’s undisclosed political operation. For instance, the company gave money to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association that spent over$35 million during the election last year, largely to benefit GOP candidates. It also donated to Americans Allied for Jobs and Security, a group that spent a :{small amount:(style="background:#ffff66"):}: supporting Republican candidates during the midterm elections.

The company donated to a number of political groups that favor environmental deregulation on the coal industry, including the :{Ripon Society:(style="background:#ffff66"):}:, a foundation to support moderate Republicans; the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, a conservative :{think tank:(style="background:#ffff66"):}: in Virginia; and the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit that works with lobbyists to develop business-friendly template legislation used by state lawmakers. ALEC recently produced template legislation to block states from submitting compliance plans with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, new regulations designed to combat carbon emissions.

The bankruptcy filing lists “Arthur C Brooks C/O AEI 1150 17th St. NW Washington DC,” which appears to be Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that has campaigned against the EPA’s new rules governing carbon emissions from coal power plants. 

Alpha Natural Resources backed the Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based think tank that aggressively works to counter the belief in climate change. The Heartland Institute, which organizes an annual gathering of climate change deniers, gained notoriety in 2012 for sponsoring billboards comparing those who believe in climate change to the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and cult leader Charles Manson.

Bankruptcy filings are providing a rare window into the subterranean world of money in politics. Earlier this year, The Interceptused a bankruptcy filing to reveal secret donations to dark money campaign entities and think tanks made by Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit college with a high rate of student defaults. Many of the beneficiaries of Corinthian Colleges’ secret money helped the school beat back regulations governing the $1.4 billion per year in federally backed student loans the company received.

Just days after his reelection victory, made possible with the support of the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, Sen. McConnell announced that his :{top priority:(style="background:#ffff66"):}: would be to rein in the EPA’s power to regulate coal companies. Alpha Natural Resources considered the EPA rules a top priority as well.

==

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/14/3680340/colorado-renewable-energy-decision/

Colorado’s ambitious renewable energy standard will remain in place thanks to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which on Monday shielded the law from a legal attack by a right-wing litigation group.

Writing for a three-judge panel, U.S. Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch affirmed that the clean energy law does not violate the U.S. Constitution, as the plaintiff Energy and Environment Legal Institute had argued. E&E Legal, formerly called the American Tradition Institute, is a nonprofit that advocates a “free-market approach” to environmentalism. It is the same entity that launched a high-profile lawsuit against climate scientist Michael Mann seeking to view his email communications, an effort which ultimately failed.

The case over Colorado’s renewable energy law was E&E Legal’s second most high-profile case. The group launched the lawsuit back in 2011, arguing that the clean energy standard — which requires utilities to get 30 percent of the electricity they sell to Colorado customers from renewable sources — violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

More specifically, the group said that the law unfairly harmed out-of-state businesses. Colorado relies on other states to get a good portion of its electricity, the group argued, and therefore out-of-state coal producers would be disproportionately harmed.

Judge Gorsuch disagreed, saying that while out-of-state coal producers would likely be hurt, it wasn’t disproportionate. Indeed, financial harm to fossil fuel companies would likely be equal across the board.

“To be sure, fossil fuel producers like [E&E Legal]’s member will be hurt,” Judge Gorsuch wrote. “But as far as we know, all fossil fuel producers in the area served by the grid will be hurt equally and all renewable energy producers in the area will be helped equally. If there’s any disproportionate adverse effect felt by out-of-state producers or any disproportionate advantage enjoyed by in-state producers, it hasn’t been explained to this court.”

Gorsuch also noted that if the mandate raises electricity prices for Colorado residents, that didn’t matter either — because Colorado voters had approved the law in 2004 with “overwhelming support.”

“That’s a cost they are apparently happy to bear,” he wrote.

Colorado is a national leader in clean energy, in part due to the state’s ambitious renewable energy standard. The state is home to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is the federal government’s primary research facility for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

E&E Legal did not respond to ThinkProgress’ requests for comment on Tuesday. But David Schnare of the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, which represented the group, told Law360 that it would likely not appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Either way, Schare reportedly said they were disappointed in the ruling, and that Judge Gorsuch failed to consider many of their points regarding constitutionality.

“They simply ignored our arguments,” he reportedly said. “They did not cite or mention or discuss any of our arguments or our cases. They had ignored the fact that we had undercut their argument and shown it wasn’t a valid point.”

The ruling was a win not only for the law, but for environmental groups looking to promote renewable energy in Colorado. In a statement, the group Conservation Colorado said the ruling would ensure the protection of public health via cleaner air and continued reduction of greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

“Today is a good day for renewable energy in Colorado and our efforts to clean our air and combat climate change,” Carrie Curtiss, Conservation Colorado’s deputy director said. “It is time for the climate deniers and dirty energy lobby to end their frivolous lawsuits and recognize that clean, renewable energy is here to stay.”

==

POSTED ON FEBRUARY 26, 2015 BY **:{STEVEN HAYWARD:(style="background-image:initial;background-attachment:initial;background-size:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial"):}:** IN :{CLIMATE:(style="background-image:initial;background-attachment:initial;background-size:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial"):}:

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD

Our pals at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute issued the following press release today, which I post here in full:

*:{:{For Immediate Release:

}:}:February 26, 2015*

Contact*:{:

Craig Richardson}::{:{

}:}::{Richardson@eelegal.org

703-981-5553}:*

Following Rep. Grijalva Inspiration, E&E Legal Files FOIA Request with the University of Delaware Seeking Records Relating to the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), in conjunction with the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic (FMELC) and the Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI), filed a Delaware Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) with the University of Delaware related to Dr. John Byrne, Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy and Distinguished Professor of Energy and Climate Policy.

Specifically, the FOIA request seeks documents describing the University of Delaware’s policy or policies relating to disclosure applying to Dr. Byrne; records in the University’s possession relating to outside funding, grants, or other contributions made to support Dr. John Byrne’s work at or relating to the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy; records involving Dr. Byrne’s outside funding, including consulting fees, promotional considerations, speaking fees, honoraria, travel expenses, salary and other compensation or monies given to Dr. Byrne which did not originate with the University itself; financial disclosure forms in which Dr. Byrne lists the University of Delaware or the State of Delaware as his affiliation; and records reflecting Dr. Byrne’s total annual compensation for each year at the University of Delaware.

Those who have followed recent news reports may notice that this FOIA request was inspired by and even replicated the request that U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) made to seven universities, including Delaware. In his letters, Congressman Grijalva notes that the “disclosure of a few key pieces of information will establish the impartiality of climate research and policy recommendations published in your institute’s name…[C]onflicts should be clear to stakeholders, including policymakers who use scientific information to make decisions.” Although the University responding to Rep. Grijalva is discretionary, processing FOIA requests from Delaware citizens is not.

“We certainly appreciate Congressman Grijalva’s rhetoric about the importance of disclosure and transparency,” said Chris Horner, E&E Legal Senior Legal Fellow and the attorney who filed the FOIA request on behalf of the three organizations. “His insistence that the Constitution compels him to demand these records — citing to no authority for why the universities should provide them — so moved us that we followed in his footsteps, if in our case by proceeding under Delaware law.”

It is possible that Representative Grijalva assumes that congressional letterhead carries authority to insist such demands be satisfied. Regardless, E&E Legal, FME Law and CRI appreciate the Congressman’s enthusiasm that the University dedicate itself to producing such records.

The groups far more narrowly tailor the period of time covered by their request, otherwise modeled after Rep. Grijalva’s nearly verbatim (also changing of course the party whose records are involved, which we are confident is not material to whether records should be released). The requesters look forward to the University of Delaware taking to heart Rep. Grijalva’s embrace of transparency, and satisfying this request made pursuant to Delaware’s statute which implements the legislature’s determination that, for institutions including the University, “it is vital that citizens have easy access to public records in order that the society remain free and democratic”. FOIA § 10001.

“We have followed Rep. Grijalva’s footsteps for our request, if under actual statutory making our request, unlike the Congressman’s, not discretionary. UDel has provided records in the past to Greenpeace, and we are confident that the State of Delaware will comply with this request,” concludes Horner.

Heh. By the way, learning some fun things about Rep. Grijalva, and his lead “investigator” for this witch hunt, Vic Edgerton, who turns out to be a former Green Party candidate for local office in Connecticut, because, he said at the time, he needed to shine a light on issues Democrats ignore.  Edgerton also previously worked for Keith Ellison, and Dennis Kucinich.  He clearly knows how to pick leading statesmen.

Stay tuned.  More to come

==

:{http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/03/31/arizona-court-upholds-protections-for-scientific-research-and-correspondence/:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

 On March 24, after years of litigation, the Arizona Superior Court, Pima County, ruled in favor of the University of Arizona and its efforts to protect climate scientists’ correspondence and prepublication work.[1] In particular, in Energy & Environment Legal Institute v. Arizona Board of Regents, et al., the court upheld the University’s decision to deny large portions of open records requests by Energy & Environment Legal (known as E&E, and formerly named the American Tradition Institute or ATI), a group that has repeatedly sought to use open records laws to access troves of researchers’ private files.[2] E&E has been described as having “a core mission of discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations” in part through “filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research,” and the group has been linked to the fossil fuel industry, “major conservative players,” and “organizations opposing action on climate change.”[3]

State and federal open records laws promote government transparency by allowing citizens to request administrative records, with exemptions for national security, trade secrets, and similar issues.  But open records laws have also become common tools of those seeking to harass scientists,[4] and open records requests for large swaths of documents (including private emails) have been made on scientists employed by the government or public universities, or who otherwise receive public funding.  The scientists must then review and produce potentially thousands of documents – sometimes in a matter of days, depending on the applicable laws – or marshal a legal response explaining why the requests are invalid.

In the Arizona case, E&E filed multiple requests under Arizona’s open records laws for the files of University of Arizona climate scientists Dr. Malcolm Hughes and Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, seeking thirteen years of documents – including emails dating back to the 90s.  (E&E has also unsuccessfully gone after Dr. Michael Mann’s emails in Virginia,[5] as well as many others.[6])  The University of Arizona produced some documents but denied release of several thousand others.[7]  The University stated the withheld documents contained protected intellectual property, including trade secrets and prepublication data and drafts;it also applied Arizona’s general records exemption that it was “in the best interests of the state” to withhold the documents.[8]  The University argued that releasing the scientists’ files would undermine academic collaboration and chill researcher correspondence – particularly between publicly funded scientists and privately funded ones, who are not at risk of such disclosure.  This in turn would harm the scientific process and reduce the competitiveness of Arizona’s public universities, as researchers would become more reluctant to work at Arizona public universities or with public university scientists.[9]

E&E contested this decision and initiated litigation.  In its Amended Complaint, E&E stated it was conducting a “transparency project,” which it claimed was necessitated in large part by its interpretation of emails released in the so-called “Climategate” hacking.[10]  In particular, E&E claimed that certain hacked emails involving the University of Arizona scientists and others indicated misdeeds worthy of further scrutiny,[11] ignoring that all official investigations related to “Climategate” had shown no misconduct.[12]  E&E also claimed any fear that releasing emails would “chill the creative efforts of faculty” was “unfounded” and it asserted instead that protecting researcher records actually “encourages and rewards misbehavior.”[13]  E&E also acknowledged its requests sought, in part, documents that “embarrass both Professors Hughes and Overpeck and the University.”[14]

The University of Arizona countered that protecting research correspondence and pre-publication work “is necessary to ensure Arizona’s great public universities continue their traditions of excellence in research and scholarship….  E&E’s claim threatens to rupture ordinary and customary expectations of academic confidentiality, and a ruling in favor of E&E will inevitably harm Arizona’s public universities and the scholars working in them.”[15]  The University also stated that E&E was seeking “to attack [researchers’] science, criticize their interactions with each other and publicly assault how they speak about or defend themselves against the increasingly small group of outliers who continue to deny man’s role in global climate change…. E&E request[s] that the Court help it police and control the conduct of climate scientists.”[16]  The University argued that, ultimately, E&E’s “briefs and other public pronouncements reveal a plan to harass scientists whose views do not accord with those of E&E and its allies, or who simply do not play by the rules of etiquette E&E nominated itself to enforce.”[17]

In its March 24 decision, the Pima County Court analyzed whether the University of Arizona had committed an abuse of discretion in denying E&E’s records requests, and it sided with the University.  The court found that the University could properly protect “prepublication critical analysis, unpublished data, analysis, research, results, drafts, and commentary” as well as prepublication peer review work because the University was justified in concluding that, as is prohibited by Arizona law, “release of [the] information would have an important and harmful effect on the duties of a State agency or officer.”[18]  The court also noted that the “volume and complexity of the records at issue is daunting,” and the court acknowledged that it spent “[m]any hours” of its own reviewing 90 “technical and esoteric” sample emails – a small fraction compared to the other 1700+ withheld emails – with “at least one [sample email] exceeding 800 pages in length.”[19]

Despite losing in court, E&E was still able to create considerable damage through this litigation:  the scientists had to pull and go through their records from the late 90s on, including hundreds of thousands of pages of emails and attachments.[20]  Dr. Hughes said it took him over ten weeks to go through the massive number of documents E&E was seeking, taking him away from his research for a full summer (the time that he would normally use to focus on his research because he teaches during the academic year).[21]  The University and the public court system also spent a substantial amount of time and money during the years of litigation.

Nonetheless, this recent Arizona decision is a significant victory.  Combined with the 2014 Virginia Supreme Court decision in Dr. Mann’s case – which held that releasing faculty files could cause “harm to university-wide research efforts, damage to faculty recruitment and retention, undermining of faculty expectations of privacy and confidentiality and impairment of free thought and expression”[22] – the decision bolsters the consensus among courts that abusive records requests are not a permissible use of open records laws and only harm the scientific endeavor.  Unfortunately, this growing consensus has not yet stopped groups like E&E, which is committed to “peppering universities around the country” with open records requests[23] – including another one dated February 27, 2015, seeking additional records concerning the same two University of Arizona scientists.[24]

For more information on attacks on scientists, please visit http://climatesciencedefensefund.org

Lauren Kurtz is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which previously assisted with the representation of Dr. Mann in his Virginia open records litigation.

[1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/science-and-democracy/19966054.pdf

[2] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-cope-when-activists-ask-for-climate-scientists-personal-emails/

[3] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/09/climate-change-american-tradition-insitute

[4] http://www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/protecting-scientists-harassment/freedom-bully-how-laws#.VRdv7Eu0HKE

[5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/04/17/va-supreme-court-rules-for-u-va-in-global-warming-foia-case/

[6] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-cope-when-activists-ask-for-climate-scientists-personal-emails/

[7] Petitioners’ Opening Brief dated June 26, 2014.  Cited court filings are available from the author upon request.  See also Amended Complaint dated October 9, 2013.

[8] Letter from the University of Arizona to ATI (now known as E&E) dated February 5, 2013.

[9] Respondents’ Opening Memorandum dated July 31, 2014.

[10] http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html#.VRiv1ku0HKF

[11] Amended Complaint dated October 9, 2013.

[12] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uk-police-close-climategate/

[13] Petitioners’ Opening Brief dated June 26, 2014.

[14] Petitioners’ Opening Brief dated June 26, 2014.

[15] Respondents’ Opening Memorandum dated July 31, 2014.

[16] Respondents’ Final Reply dated September 19, 2014.

[17] Respondents’ Final Reply dated September 19, 2014.

[18] https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/science-and-democracy/19966054.pdf

[19] https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/science-and-democracy/19966054.pdf

[20] Respondents’ Opening Memorandum dated July 31, 2014.

[21] Conversation with author.

[22] http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1130934.pdf

[23] http://eelegal.org/?p=2958

[24] http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/EELI-FME-Law-AORA-Research-Funding-Conflicts-request-U-of-A.pdf

REQUEST UNDER THE ARIZONA PUBLIC RECORDS LAW February 27, 2015 Office of the Custodian of Public Records University of Arizona 1030 North Mountain P.O. Box 210134 Tucson, AZ 85721-0134 VIA CERTIFIED MAIL Dear Custodian of Records: The Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, together with the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, as co-requesters, respectfully submit this request for public records ("Request") pursuant to Title 39, Chapter 1 of the Arizona Revised Statutes and Chapter 6 from the Arizona Agency Handbook. For purposes of this Request, “records” encompasses, “all books, papers, maps, photographs or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, including prints or copies of such items produced or reproduced on film or electronic media.” A.R.S. §41-1350. Please produce copies of records responsive to the following Request: 1. All documents describing the University of Arizona’s policy or policies relating to disclosure that apply to faculty members Jonathan Overpack and/or Malcolm Hughes; 2. All records in the University’s possession relating to outside funding, grants, or other contributions made to support Jonathan Overpack’s or Malcolm Hughes’ work at or relating to the University of Arizona; 3. Please provide all records reflecting Jonathan Overpack and Malcolm Hughes’ sources of external funding. For purposes of this request, “outside funding” includes, but is in no way limited to, consulting fees, promotional considerations, speaking fees, honoraria, travel expenses, salary and other compensation or monies given to these two faculty members which did not originate with the University itself. Please include records reflecting: a. The source of funding; b. The amount of funding; c. The reason for receiving the funding;; d. For grants, a description of the research proposal and copy of the funded grant; e. Communications regarding the funding. 1 3. Please provide all financial disclosure forms in which Jonathan Overpack and/or Malcolm Hughes list the University of Arizona or the State of Arizona as their affiliation; 4. Records reflecting Jonathan Overpack’s and Malcolm Hughes’s total annual compensation for each year at the University of Arizona. Records responsive to ## 1-3 above will be dated from January 1, 2013 through the date you process this request. Records responsive to #4 will be dated from January 1, 2007 to the present. Release of these records is very much in the public interest. A recent New York Times article highlighted relevant issues, which the congressman representing Tucson, Rep. Raul 1 Grijalva,asserts prompted him to send a similar request for records from your sister school, Arizona State University, regarding Dr. Robert Balling, an ASU faculty member performing work related to that of Profs. Hughes and Overpeck. 2 With all of the attention your congressman’s move has already gathered, it seems reasonable to assume therefore that this request reads quite familiarly to you. The sole distinctions between our request and the requests Rep. Grijalva made to several universities including ASU are, first, that we far more narrowly tailor our request (it otherwise replicates Rep. Grijalva’s near verbatim); second, our request is made pursuant to statutory authority, implementing the legislature’s determination that access to public records is in the best interests of the State of Arizona. We incorporate by reference Rep. Grijalva’s assertions of the importance to the public interest that information of this nature be available regarding those who inform this important issue. This is made more true in the case of those working at taxpayer-funded institutions. 

Posted in Litigation, State Law - See more at: http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/03/31/arizona-court-upholds-protections-for-scientific-research-and-correspondence/#sthash.3qjYTdi4.dpuf

 ==

 Climate Science Legal Defense Fund!:{

}: :{

}:The past month saw an important victory for protecting climate scientists: in a bellwether decision, an Arizona state court upheld safeguards for climate scientists facing legal attacks. For years, E&E Legal (formerly named ATI) has been “filingnuisance suits to disrupt important academic research,” including litigation to access huge swaths of researcher records through open records laws. But on March 24, a court validated the University of Arizona’s decision to deny E&E’s sweeping open records requests for troves of climate scientists’ private files. (E&E / ATI’s other open records attacks include a Virginia lawsuit for years of Dr. Michael Mann’s files – a case we assisted with and which the Virginia Supreme Court denied last year.):{

}: :{

}:In the Arizona litigation, the university determined that E&E only wanted the records so it could “attack [researchers’] science, criticize their interactions with each other and publicly assault how they speak about or defend themselves against the increasingly small group of outliers who continue to deny man’s role in global climate change.” The university denied release of the records to E&E because the “release of [the] information would have an important and harmful effect on the duties of a State agency or office,” as prohibited by Arizona law. The Arizona court found that the university was warranted in protecting the scientists’ emails. The scientists were represented by attorneys for the university, and we were actively engaged in this litigation, including attending the court hearing for this decision. For more on this case, please read our post on the Columbia Climate Law Blog.:{

}: :{

}:This is a significant win, but the battle to protect climate scientists against legal harassment is far from over. We frequently hear from climate scientists who are dealing with abusive open records requests and other legal attacks, and we provided assistance to several new scientists this past month.

Upcoming event: On May 7, CSLDF will host talks at Columbia Law School about fighting back against legal attacks on climate scientists. Michael Gerrard, Peter Fontaine, and Naomi Oreskes are scheduled to speak, and the event is open to attorneys from all fields. :{

 }:

===

===

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute

he Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) (formerly the American Tradition Institute (ATI)) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in Washington, DC; and formerly also headquartered in Colorado. According to its website, "In September 2013, E&E Legal’s Board of Directors voted to to refine its focus primarily to the area of strategic litigation, and to change its name in order to reflect more accurately its work in the legal arena."[[1]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-About_2014-1) The name "American Tradition Institute" and that of its 501(c)(4) partner organization "American Tradition Partnership"/":{Western Tradition Partnership:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:" (ATP/WTP) are prominently associated with a controversy over campaign finance during the 2010 elections. According to the Huffington Post, "During the 2010 elections, the Montana Commission of Political Practices found that the organization broke state campaign laws by failing to register as a political committee or report its donors and spending. The state suggested WTP/ATP was involved in corruption and money laundering."[[2]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-HuffPo-2)

According to its mission statement, E&E Legal is "engaged in strategic litigation, policy research, and public education on important energy and environmental issues" and "seeks to address and correct onerous federal and state governmental actions that negatively impact energy and the environment. E&E Legal advocates responsible resource development, sound science, respect for property rights, and a commitment to markets as it holds accountable those who seek excessive and destructive government regulation that’s based on agenda-driven policy making, junk science, and hysteria."[[1]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-About_2014-1)

The group's website at one time stated that it "is part of a broader network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation." The group has "connections with the :{Koch brothers:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, :{Art Pope:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: and other conservative donors seeking to expand their political influence," reported the Institute for Southern Studies in October 2011.[[3]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-iss-3)

In 2011, E&E Legal (then ATI) sued the University of Virginia to get access to the emails of climatologist :{Michael Mann:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:.

Contents

   :{:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:[:{hide:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{] }:

• :{1 Backgrou:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{nd:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{2 Activities:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• • :{2.1 Subverting Wind Power:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{2.2 2011 Colorado Lawsuit Over Renewable Energy Standard Mandate:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{2.3 2011 Michael Mann E-mails:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{2.4 2009 Colorado Campaign: Corporate Money and Disclosures:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• :{3 Disciplinary Actions:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• • :{3.1 2010 Montana Ruling:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• :{4 Funding and IRS Status:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{5 Partnership with George Mason University School of Law:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{6 Personnel:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• • :{6.1 Board Members:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{6.2 Staff:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• :{7 Core Financials:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{8 Contact Details:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• :{9 Articles and Resources:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• • :{9.1 Related SourceWatch Articles:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{9.2 External Resources:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{9.3 External Articles:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{9.4 References:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Background

When ATI was formed in 2009/2010, it sprung from a :{501(c)(4):(style="background:#fafafa"):}: group called the :{Western Tradition Partnership:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, which was formed in Colorado in 2008.

"The :{Western Tradition Partnership:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (WTP)...[was] a political advocacy group backed primarily by the energy industry. It was first registered as a Colorado nonprofit [501(c)(4)] in 2008 by Scott Shires, a Republican operative who pleaded guilty that same year to fraudulently obtaining federal grants to develop alternative fuels."[[4]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-hpotto-4)

"In 2010 WTP changed its name to American Tradition Partnership (ATP), and announced that it had launched the American Tradition Institute, a :{501(c)(3):(style="background:#fafafa"):}: think tank that would be "battling radical environmentalist junk science head on." The "junk science" ATP seems most concerned with is what the US National Academy of Sciences says should now be regarded as "settled facts" -- that the Earth is warming and humans are the likely cause."[[4]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-hpotto-4)

Activities

Subverting Wind Power

On May 8, 2012, the Guardian posted a confidential memo prepared by a fellow of then-ATI that advises how to build a national movement of wind farm protesters. Among its main recommendations, the proposal calls for a national PR campaign aimed at causing "subversion in message of [wind] industry so that it effectively becomes so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it." It suggests setting up "dummy businesses" to buy anti-wind billboards, and creating a "counter-intelligence branch" to track the wind energy industry. It also calls for spending $750,000 to create an organization with paid staff and tax-exempt status dedicated to building public opposition to state and federal government policies encouraging the wind energy industry.

The proposal was discussed at a meeting of self-styled 'wind warriors' from across the country in Washington DC in February 2012. Participants included members of conservative groups such as:{Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: and :{Tea Party Patriots:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:.

The proposal was reviewed by :{John Droz:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: Jr., a senior fellow at ATI, for discussion at the Washington meeting, which he also organised. ATI's executive director, :{Tom Tanton:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, told the Guardian that Droz had acted alone on the memo, although he remains a fellow at ATI. Droz is a longtime opponent of wind farms, arguing that the technology has not yet been proven and that wind technology should not receive government support. He claims 10,000 subscribers to his anti-wind-power email newsletter. In a telephone interview, Droz said the Washington strategy session was his own initiative, and that neither he nor any of the participants had been paid for attending the session.[[5]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-5)

2011 Colorado Lawsuit Over Renewable Energy Standard Mandate

On April 4, 2011, then-ATI, the American Tradition Partnership and plaintiff Rod Lueck sued the State of Colorado and several officials over the constitutionality of the state’s Renewable Energy Standard mandate. The RES requires the state’s major utilities (mainly Xcel Energy) to obtain 30 percent of their power generation from renewable sources by the year 2020.

The group also released a [2011 report](http://www.atinstitute.org/study-ohio’s-alternative-energy-mandates-will-keep-its-economy-in-a-slump/) with :{Beacon Hill Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: in favor of repealing Ohio's Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, arguing that renewable energy would drive up electricity costs and hurt the state economy. The repeal did not move forward.

2011 Michael Mann E-mails

In 2011, then-ATI issued a :{FOIA:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::{ request to the University of Virginia for emails sent by climate scientist Michael Mann during his tenure at that university. On May 25, 2011, an agreement was reached in which UVA agreed to release 9000 documents to ATI within 90 days.:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:[*:{citation needed:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:*:{]}:

But on November 2, 2011, a Virginia county circuit judge issued a procedural ruling[[6]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-6) that was "a huge setback for ATI":

"The court allowed that there was reason for UVA to reopen the protective order before the court. The original protective order would have allowed ATI to review the emails themselves. That court order is now invalid. ATI will not see the exempt emails. ...Now, a neutral party will be able to see the emails, not ATI. The neutral party must be agreed upon by all parties...", Scott Mandia reported Michael Mann saying.[[7]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-7), [[8]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-8)

What had changed? University of Virginia court filings[[9]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-9)[[10]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-10) had argued that ATI publicity and actions of ATI principals :{David W. Schnare:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: and :{Christopher Horner:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: - who were both the attorneys and the petitioners in this case - had raised questions about whether with these dual roles they could be trusted to abide by the previous ruling's requirement to keep the content of the exempt emails private.[[11]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-11) :{See :(style="background:#fafafa"):}:*[*:{Schnare:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:*:{'s SourceWatch page for his response.]}:*

In July 2012, the Guardian reported that ATI had begun seeking the release of scientists' communications with specific journalists -- the first time the media was being drawn into FOIA requests concerning climate science. The list of news organizations includes the New York Times, the Associated Press, Frontline, and the Guardian.[[12]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-12)

2009 Colorado Campaign: Corporate Money and Disclosures

"In 2009, the group sued Longmont, CO over their Fair Campaign Practices Act. The city settled and agreed to drop disclosure requirements. In 2010, after the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, WTP/ATP successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Montana Corrupt Practices Act of 1912, which prohibited independent political expenditures by corporations."[[4]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-hpotto-4)

Disciplinary Actions

2010 Montana Ruling

"During the 2010 elections, the Montana Commission of Political Practices found that the organization broke state campaign laws by failing to register as a political committee or report its donors and spending. The state suggested WTP/ATP was involved in corruption and money laundering. They found that it solicited unlimited contributions to support candidates and then passed them through a "sham organization," the Bozeman-based political action committee The Coalition for Energy and the Environment that ran attack ads against Democrats. WTP told corporations that it aimed to combat "radical environmentalists" and "beat them at their own game" and that their contributions would remain secret."[[4]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-hpotto-4)

Funding and IRS Status

American Tradition Institute was the dba name of the Western Tradition Institute 501(c)(3). Guidestar lists it as EIN #264239065, ruling date 07/2009. The IRS still reports the group with that EIN as being called the "Western Tradition Institute" as of March 2014, despite two intervening name changes.[[13]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-13)

E&E Legal does not fully disclose its funders. However, the following list of its 2010 funders revealed by the :{Institute for Southern Studies:(style="background:#fafafa"):}::[[14]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-14)

• :{American Tradition Partnership:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (ATP, ATI's sister organization): $40,000
• :{Atlas Economic Research Foundation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:: 5,000
• :{Doug Lair:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:: $5,000
• :{Lair Family Foundation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:: $135,000

The :{Atlas Economic Research Foundation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: -- which received over $1 million in funding from Exxon Mobil between 1998 and 2011; $122,300 from the Koch foundations between 1997 and 2008; and $735,000 from the Pope Foundation between 1997 and 2008[[15]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-15)

According to ATI's 2010 IRS Form 990, its personnel are all volunteers; whether some[[16]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-16) are paid by ATI's sister 501(c)(4), :{Western Tradition Partnership:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, is unknown, as that group did not file a return with the IRS that year.[[17]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-17) The group's 2012 Form 990 (which still, despite being filed in November 2013, lists the group as ATI despite the group's website stating that it had changed its name in September 2013) still lists no compensated employees, and "other salaries and wages" of only $8,830 for the year.[[18]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-2012_990-18)

There are two versions of its 2010 IRS Form 990 online, an original return by Scott Shires available on Guidestar and an amended return by another preparer available at the Institute for Southern Studies. The original return shows 30 volunteers and 1 independent director where the amended return shows 3 volunteers and 3 independent directors (although only one is named), and there are also other differences.

The ATI website's About page says that "ATI accepts no government grants, and our financial backing has to date primarily derived from a broad and growing base of grassroots contributors."[[19]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-19) In 2010, $140k of its $186k of funding reportedly came from Doug Lair (whose family sold Lair Petroleum to William Koch in 1989)[[3]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-iss-3) and the Lair Family Foundation. (The remainder was $1k from memberships, $40k from the :{American Tradition Partnership:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, and $5k from :{Atlas Economic Research Foundation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:).[[20]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-20)

Partnership with George Mason University School of Law

As of 2012, the George Mason Environmental Law Clinic (GMELC) at :{George Mason University:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: served as the attorneys for then-ATI, according to GMELC's 2012 IRS filing.[[21]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-GMELC_2012_990-21) The clinic was led by the following people:

• :{David W. Schnare:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Law Clinic Director and Board Director
• :{Steven Gold:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Board Director
• :{Michael Thompson:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Board Director
• :{Christopher C. Horner:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Litigation Attorney

As of May 2013, the billable hours for then-ATI cases were shared between ATI and GMELC, with the division being made on a case-by-case basis.[[21]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-GMELC_2012_990-21)

GMELC is now known as the "Free Market Environmental Law Clinic" (FME Law). According to its website, "the Directors of FME Law engaged in a friendly and supportive discussion with the Dean of the George Mason University School of Law and recognized that the clinic could better perform its function by servicing multiple law schools as a stand-alone clinic. The Board thus directed a name change to reflect this broadened purpose. Until completion of the legal transition to its new name, the Clinic is doing business as the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic but must retain its original name for banking and tax purposes." It goes on to explain, "It remains in close cooperation with George Mason University’s School of Law and provides both academic courses and clinical opportunities for GMU Law students and is expanding its externship program to other law schools that have a doctrinal focus on law and economics."[[22]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-22)

Personnel

Board Members

As of March 2014, the group's website references a "five member Board of Directors,"[[1]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-About_2014-1) and :{Greg Walcher:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: is listed as a board member,[[23]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-Fellows-23) but no other board members are listed. But as of the November 2013 filing of its 2012 IRS Form 990, the following makes up its five-member board:[[18]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-2012_990-18)

• :{David W. Schnare:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Treasurer
• Nick Spyros, Chairman
• Dennis Champion, Director
• :{Greg Walcher:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Director
• :{Geoff Goble:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Director

As of June 2013:[[24]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-staff-24)

• Nick Spyros
• Dennis Champion

Former board members include:[[25]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-atiwho-25)

• Dan Reed
• John Reed

Staff

As of March 2014:[[26]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-26)[[23]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-Fellows-23)

• Dr. **:{David W. Schnare:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:**, General Counsel
• **:{Christopher C. Horner:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:**, Senior Legal Fellow
• Tom Tanton, Director, Science & Technology Assessment
• Craig Richardson, Executive Director
• Amy Oliver Cooke (energy policy expert and blogger for the :{Independence Institute:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Colorado's :{State Policy Network:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: :{pressure group:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:), Senior Media Fellow
• **:{Steve Milloy:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:** (founder and publisher of **:{JunkScience.com:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:**), Senior Policy Fellow
• Jenna Ashley Robinson (Director of Outreach at the :{John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: and former E.A. Morris Fellowship Assistant at the :{John Locke Foundation:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, North Carolina's:{SPN member:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:), Senior Policy Fellow
• George Taylor (founder of :{Palmetto Energy Research:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:), Senior Policy Fellow
• :{Greg Walcher:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (President, :{Natural Resources Group:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:; former head of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources; former President, :{Club 20:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:), Board Member and Senior Policy Fellow

Former staff include:[[25]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-atiwho-25)

• :{Paul Chesser:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:, Executive Director
• Mark Newgent, Associate Research Fellow

Core Financials

2012:[[18]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-2012_990-18)

• Total Revenue: $553,953
• Total Expenses: $407,810
• Net Assets: $159,927

2011:[[27]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-27)

• Total Revenue: $319,580
• Total Expenses: $422,148
• Net Assets: $13,784

2010:[[28]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-2010_990-28)

• Total Revenue: $186,000
• Total Expenses: $70,140
• Net Assets: $116, 352

2009:[[28]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_%26_Environment_Legal_Institute#cite_note-2010_990-28)

• Total Revenue: $10,000
• Total Expenses: $9,508
• Net Assets: $492

Contact Details

:{722 12th St., NW, 4th Floor

Washington, D.C. 20005

Phone: (202) 785-8301

Email: Info AT eelegal.org

Web: }:http://eelegal.org/:{

Twitter: }:@EELegal:{

Facebook: }:https://www.facebook.com/Energy.Environment.Legal

Former Contact Details:

:{2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, #186

Washington, D.C. 20006}:

:{1601 Blake Street, Suit 310

Denver, CO 80202}:

:{E-mail: info AT atinstitute.org

Facebook: }:http://www.facebook.com/AmericanTraditionInstitute:{

Twitter: }:http://twitter.com/ATIEnergyEnvrmt

Articles and Resources

Related SourceWatch Articles

• :{Western Tradition Partnership:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

External Resources

American Tradition Institute website (http://www.atinstitute.org - not to be confused with the :{American Tradition Partnership:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: website at http://www.americantradition.org)

External Articles

• Sue Sturgis, "SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Who's behind the 'information attacks' on climate scientists?" Facing South, Oct. 31, 2011

References

1. ↑ :{Jump up to:1.0:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{1.1:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{1.2:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Energy & Environment Legal Institute, About, organizational website, accessed March 2014.
2. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Shawn Lawrence Otto, Climate Scientist Wins A Round for America, Huffington Post, November 1, 2011.
3. ↑ :{Jump up to:3.0:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{3.1:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Sue Sturgis (2011-10-31). SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Who's behind the 'information attacks' on climate scientists? -. The Institute for Southern Studies. Retrieved on 2011-11-01.
4. ↑ :{Jump up to:4.0:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{4.1:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{4.2:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{4.3:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Shawn Lawrence Otto (2011-11-01). Climate Scientist Wins A Round for America. Huffington Post. Retrieved on 2011-11-02.
5. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Suzanne Goldberg, "Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy: Confidential memo seen by Guardian calls for climate change sceptics to turn American public against solar and wind power," The Guardian, May 8, 2012.
6. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Rick Piltz (2011-11-02). Favorable Virginia court procedural ruling in Michael Mann v. global warming denialist email raid. Climate Science Watch. Retrieved on 2011-11-09.
7. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Michael Mann (2011-11-02). Mike Mann’s Thank You Letter to Supporters. Global Warming: Man or Myth. Retrieved on 2011-11-02.
8. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Geoff Mohan (2011-11-02). Judge restricts release of emails among climate scientists. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 2011-11-02. “A county Circuit judge in Virginia has sided with the University of Virginia's effort to restrict the release of personal emails from one of its former faculty members. The decision late Wednesday would allow the university to alter an agreement it had reached with the American Tradition Institute, which was seeking communications between Michael Mann, a physicist and climate scientist, and other scientists from 1999 to 2005, when Mann was employed by the university. The American Tradition Institute, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Colorado, is a nonprofit policy research and education group that has close ties to energy interests that have opposed climate legislation, including the Koch Brothers.”
9. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: ATI v. UVA, support memorandum
10. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: ATI v. UVA, Kast affidavit
11. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Timeline: Legal Harassment of Climate Scientist Michael Mann. Union of Concerned Scientists. Retrieved on 2011-11-03. “October 18: UVA files a petition with the court to alter the protective order, agreeing that it would be inappropriate to disclose exempt emails to ATI. In a supporting memorandum and a more extensive affidavit, UVA attorney Richard Kast outlines two concerns: first, regarding statements that ATI attorneys made on their website and in the press, and second, regarding how ATI attorney :{David Schnare:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: represented his employment with the United States Environmental Protection Agency.”
12. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Suzanne Goldenberg, "Rightwing US thinktank uses FoI laws to pursue climate scientists," The Guardian, July 10, 2012.
13. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Exempt Organizations Select Check, government agency website, accessed March 10, 2014.
14. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: American Tradition Institute, 2010 Form 990, organizational annual IRS filing obtained by the Institute for Southern Studies, October 17, 2011.
15. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Atlas Economic Research Foundation, 2011 Form 990, organizational annual IRS filing, November 1, 2012.
16. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: (David Schnare replied that he's not.)
17. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Guidestar.org, 2011-12-02
18. ↑ :{Jump up to:18.0:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{18.1:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{18.2:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: American Tradition Institute, 2012 Form 990, organizational annual IRS filing, November 21, 2013.
19. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: About. American Tradition Institute. Retrieved on 2011-11-05.
20. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Institute for Southern Studies, ATI 2010 990
21. ↑ :{Jump up to:21.0:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{21.1:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: George Mason Environmental Law Clinic, 2012 Form 990, organizational annual IRS filing, May 11, 2013.
22. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, Donations, organizational website, accessed March 11, 2014.
23. ↑ :{Jump up to:23.0:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{23.1:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: American Tradition Institute, Fellows & Advisors, organizational website, accessed March 10, 2014.
24. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: American Tradition Institute, "Senior Staff & Board", organizational website, accessed June 2013
25. ↑ :{Jump up to:25.0:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{25.1:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: Staff & Board of Directors. American Tradition Institute. Retrieved on 2011-11-05.
26. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: American Tradition Institute, Senior Leadership, organizational website, accessed March 10, 2014.
27. :{Jump up↑:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: American Tradition Institute, 2011 Form 990, organizational annual IRS filing, November 15, 2012.
28. ↑ :{Jump up to:28.0:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: :{28.1:(style="background:#ffffff"):}: American Tradition Institute, 2010 Form 990, organizational annual IRS filing, May 25, 2011.

==

FOIA

Federal Agencies

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

BACK TO TOP

Certain Agency Correspondence Regarding CCS, OMB and Cost:

• December 9, 2014 Release:

• • :{CCS Response 1 (Redacted):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 1a (Redacted):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS response 2 (Redacted):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 3:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 4 (Redacted):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 4a (Redacted):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 4b (Redacted):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 4C:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 5 (Redacted):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 6:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{CCS Response 6a:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Comments re: Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New Stationary Sources

• March 18, 2014: :{Initial Comments:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• May 9, 2014: :{Supplemental Comments:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Selenium Regulation to Stop Mining

• April 1, 2014: :{Suit to Compel Production:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 5, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

American Lung Association (ALA) & Sierra Club

• April 18, 2015: :{Final Vaughn Index:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• Spring 2015: :{E-mails showing switch to “asthma” as key “selling point” for EPA/green agenda:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• February 18, 2015:  :{ALA Boxer Kerry Polling E-mails:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• February 18, 2015: :{NRDC Sponsored Poll Re: EPA Regs:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: EPA, Green groups on Keystone XL Pipeline:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: CCS permit need, SO2 rollout:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: Collaboration on public hearings:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: Doing each others homework:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: EPA coming to greens to brief:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: General re closeness: alignment:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: Green groups as priority partners:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: More on CCS SO2 GHGS:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: Must kill coal productions:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: Partners on CAIR: transport:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 23, 2013: :{Released Document: Sierra Barron Goo:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• February 28, 2013: :{Released Documents re: FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• January 27, 2013: :{Complaint for Declaratory Relief Filing:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 19, 2012: :{Final Appeal and Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• October 12, 2012: :{Notice of Denial of FOIA Fee Waiver Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• August 29, 2012::{ Chris Horner Sierra Club & ALA Appeal Affidavit:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• August 29, 2012: :{Appeal of Denial of Fee Waiver Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (ALA)

• August 29, 2012: :{Appeal of Denial of Fee Waiver Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (Sierra Club)

• April 2, 2012: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (ALA)

• April 2, 2012: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}: (Sierra Club)

Raw Released Documents:

• January 14, 2014: :{Documents Released – Redacted (Set 1):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• January 14, 2014: :{Documents Released – Redacted (Set 2):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• December 16, 2013: :{Documents Released – Redacted (Set 1):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• December 16, 2013: :{Documents Released – Redacted (Set 2):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• October 1, 2013: :{Documents Released – Final Redacted (Set 1):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• October 1, 2013: :{Documents Released – Final Redacted (Set 2):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• September 3, 2013: :{Documents Released – Final (Set 1):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• September 3, 2013: :{Documents Released – Final (Set 2):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• August 1, 2013: :{Documents Released – Redacted:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• July 19, 2013: :{Documents Released:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• May 31, 2013: :{Documents Released – Final (Set 1):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• May 31, 2013: :{Documents Released – Final (Set 2):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
• May 31, 2013: :{Documents Released – Final (Set 3):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Agency Records Regarding Certain Indian Tribes

• October 14, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Organizing for America Campaign

• August 22, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Audio/Video Recordings of teleconferences held with Gina McCarthy, NRDC, Earth Justice & others

•  July 10, 2013: :{FOIA Request Number 1:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• August 19, 2013: :{FOIA Request Number 2:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Dimock, PA e-communications

• July 25, 2013::{ FOIA Request: Fetzer, Rupert, DiDonato Records:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• July 25, 2013::{ FOIA Request: Robert Sussman Dimock Records:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• July 29, 2013: :{Press Release: FOIA Requests Probe Re-Elect Factors Behind Fracking Reversal:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Pond, Passmore correspondence involving Margaret Palmer

• July 24, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

 Northwest Export Terminal

• July 16, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Employees Working for Federal Employee Union(s)

• July 10, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Battelle & Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA)

• April 25, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• April 25, 2013: :{Press Release: FOIA Request Seeks Discussions of Alleged Shakedown of Private Contractor:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION:{

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}:

• February 12, 2015: :{Suit to Compel Production of 12/29/14 FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• December 29, 2014: :{FOIA Request for Certain Records Related to SEC’s Interaction with Investor-Activist Groups:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION (FERC):{

BACK TO TOP

}:

FERC-Constellation

• September 12, 2014: :{Senators Barrasso and Colins Letter to DOE’s Inspector General:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• October 23, 2014: :{FERC Response Letter to Senator Barrasso:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• April 15, 2015: :{E&E Legal/FME Law FOIA Request to DOE’s IG Re: Senators Barrasso and Collins Original Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• April 15, 2015: :{Vaughn Index that Accompanied E&E Legal/FME Law’s FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Jon Wellinghoff or Norman Bay E-mails related to “Constellation” and “Exelon” Merger

• June 23, 2014: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• February 9, 2015: :{FERC Respons Letter:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• February 9, 2015: :{FERC Released Documents:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Certain Records Regarding Filling Job Posting for Director, Office of Enforcement

• October 2, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (TVA):{

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Certain Records Relating to the President’s Climate Action Plan

• August 4, 2014: :{Summons in Civil Action (lawsuit filed):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• August 4, 2014: :{Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• June 24, 2014: :{Appeal of Partial Denial/Withholdings TVA FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• May 23, 2014: :{TVA Cover Letter Re: Responsive Records:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• May 23, 2014: :{Responsive Records Released by TVA:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• May 2, 2014: :{TVA Response to 4/15/14 FOIA Requests:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• April 15, 2014: :{FOIA Request re: TVA Responses to FOIA Requests regarding Granting Fee Waivers:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• April 15, 2014: :{FOIA Request Re: TVA Responses to Requests re: Tax-Exempt Status Information:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• April 8, 2014: :{TVA Initial Response to FOIA:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• March 24, 2014: :{FOIA Request re: President’s Action Plan:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY:{

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Lisa Jackson EPA-related e-mail, Verizon account

• August 16, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• June 9, 2014: :{Suit to Compel Production:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE:{

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Campaign by Organizing for America (OFA)

• August 22, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY:{

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Campaign by Organizing for America (OFA)

• August 22, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR:{

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Employees Working for Federal Employees Union

• July 18, 2013: :{FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY:{

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Kemper County Energy Facility

• November 24, 2014: :{FOIA Request Relating to Particular Documents Related to any cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA):(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• January 5, 2015: :{Suit to Compel Production :(style="background:#fafafa"):}:(Ultimately withdrawn due to DOE’s release of certain documents)

• January 5, 2015: :{DOE Production re: 11/24/14 FOIA:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• January 6, 2015: :{Follow-up FOIA Request re: copies of all Progress (or Status) Report(s), Special Status Report(s), and Scientific/Technical Report(s) made by the Southern Company:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

Work Related E-mails from Jonathan Silver’s Personal Account

• June 7, 2012::{ FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• June 27, 2012: :{DOE Partial Response to FOIA Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• August 30, 2012: :{Press Release: Appeal of DOE Stonewalling of FOIA’ed E-mails:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

State Agencies and Institutions

NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

• July 10, 2014: :{Public Records Request for Documents Related to Dennis Gruelle:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPA

• April 2, 2014: :{FOIA Request for records concerning Dr. Donald J.Wuebbles, the Harry E. Preble Professor of Atmospheric Science:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

NEW YORK OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

• NY OAG Production Responses (which commenced in June 2014):

• • :{Responsive documents pages 1-2062:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{Responsive documents pages 2063-4733:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{Responsive documents pages 4734-6407:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:
  • :{Responsive documents pages 6408-8861:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• June 17, 2014: :{1st FOIL production cover letter:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• February 19, 2014: :{NY OAG Acknowledgement Letter re: FOIL Request:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• February 11, 2014: :{New York Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request re: e-mails between certain environmental pressure groups and NY OAG officials:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

• January 21, 2014: :{Texas Public Information Act Request – Document Destruction Records:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

• February 3, 2014: :{Texas Public Information Act Request II – Document Destruction Records:(style="background:#fafafa"):}:

WASHINGTON STATE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR