Sher Edling law
attacked by not epa and EID
horner --> rw murdoch echo
see climate lawsuits
see city lawsuits
see legal suppression
crc attack politico -->
April 28, 2026 Mr. Vic Sher Partner Sher Edling, LLP. 100 Montgomery St #1410 San Francisco, CA 94104
Dear Mr. Sher: The Committee on the Judiciary is investigating allegations of improper attempts by the Environmental Law Institute (“ELI”) and its Climate Judiciary Project (“CJP”) to influence federal judges.
1 ELI has stated that “CJP does not participate in litigation, provide support for or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule on any issue or in any case.”2 However, evidence has emerged that raises questions about whether ELI, CJP, or one of its affiliates have coordinated with your law firm, Sher Edling LLP, on climate-related litigation, lectures for judges, or other activities aimed at predisposing judges to side with plaintiffs in climate-related cases. Over the past decade, your law firm has filed several lawsuits against oil and gas companies alleging that they are responsible for harms from adverse weather. 3 At the same time, ELI established the CJP as a “first-of-its-kind resource” with the goal of providing “judges and the judiciary with reliable, up-to-date information . . . about the legal and scientific issues in the climate litigation of today and tomorrow.”4 The CJP, which claims to give “neutral, objective....
gmail 10 25
CCI
Center for Climate Integrity on Big Oil’s Climate Deception | Center for Climate Integrity
no lnx pix
his week, we’re talking about how Big Oil is still deceiving the public about its role in the climate crisis while trying to stick communities with the ever-increasing bill.
In this issue:
A massive rate hike for California’s insurer of last resort ⬇️
Actually, Big Oil companies are not partners in the energy transition ⬇️
Maryland communities are fighting for their day in court ⬇️
Let's get into it.
Here's the Latest
Oil and gas majors contribute marginally to the creation of renewable energy, a new study found. Like, 1% or less in some cases — and they still have the audacity to claim to be partners in the energy transition.
California’s insurer of last resort is seeking a 36% average rate hike following a $4 billion loss from catastrophic and deadly wildfires. This is just the latest example of rising climate-driven insurance costs falling on everyday Americans instead of the Big Oil companies fueling the climate crisis.
Big Oil and its political allies are still trying to stop dozens of communities from putting the companies on trial for climate deception. While fossil fuel companies are urging the Supreme Court to intervene, industry backers are also lobbying Congress for a legal shield against accountability. "They have no shame," University of Vermont law professor Pat Parenteau told AFP about the move.
Minnesotans deserve their day in court against Big Oil, Minnesota Representative Larry Kraft said in a recent op-ed. Rep. Kraft applauded the state’s ongoing climate deception lawsuit and called on his state's congressional delegation to oppose a legal shield for Big Oil.
“No industry should be above the law, especially one that spent decades lying to the public. Say no to a legal shield for Big Oil.”
Minnesota Representative Larry Kraft
Evidence of Deception
Scientists and executives at fossil fuel companies knew more than 50 years ago that burning fossil fuels would raise global temperatures and could lead to "catastrophic" consequences — and we have the documents to prove it.
Explore the evidence of Big Oil’s deception, unearthed by journalists, researchers, and officials, on CCI’s website.
READ THE DOCS
Dig Deeper
Maryland Supreme Court weighs future of local climate deception lawsuits
Maryland communities are fighting to have their day in court with Big Oil companies. Last week, the Maryland Supreme Court heard arguments for why Baltimore, Annapolis, and Anne Arundel County should have the opportunity to move their climate deception cases forward in court.
“[The Big Oil companies] have an obligation to give warnings commensurate with the risk,” Vic Sher, a lawyer representing the communities, said. “None of them have ever given any warnings. In fact, the essence of the complaint is that they actively sought to undermine the science, the scientists, and the knowledge about this to minimize the effects or say that it isn’t real or doesn’t need addressing or there is no immediacy to it.”
Legal experts have urged the Maryland Supreme Court to reverse lower court decisions siding with the oil companies and allow the cases to move forward to trial where Maryland communities can present evidence of Big Oil’s lies to a jury.
READ THE BLOG
On The Record
TAP INTO THE CLIMATE ACCOUNTABILITY CONVERSATION
The fossil fuel companies want the courts to believe they are being sued for their greenhouse gas emissions. They are not. They are being sued for their deception, and for failing to warn consumers about the climate dangers associated with their products. Now, the Supreme Court of Maryland has an opportunity to weigh in and protect the rights of Marylanders to go to court and seek recovery for that conduct."
Former federal judge and Baltimore city solicitor Andre Davis in the Baltimore Sun.
Legal Action Against Big Oil
The Department of Justice wants to stop Michigan’s planned climate deception lawsuit against Big Oil before it’s even filed. Michigan filed a motion to dismiss the DOJ’s case on the basis that the state’s lawsuit doesn’t exist yet, and the Justice Department responded by asking the court to deny the state’s motion.
Big Oil and its allies are once again urging the U.S. Supreme Court to stop climate deception lawsuits against the companies before they reach trial. The Supreme Court has turned down requests to review cases against Big Oil five times since 2021, but now the companies are asking the justices to review a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that allowed Boulder’s lawsuit against ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to proceed toward trial.
More than 100 House Republicans are supporting Big Oil’s call for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in Boulder’s case. Their amicus brief falsely claims that Boulder’s case aims to control national energy policy — an argument one judge in the case previously dismissed as “arguing against a case the Local Governments did not plead."
ICYMI
(IN CASE YOU MISSED IT)
🎤 CCI Director of Special Investigations Kert Davies appeared on a recent episode of Drilled, discussing how the fossil fuel industry sabotages climate action.
🙄 Big Oil’s cheerleaders are amplifying calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn lower court decisions in favor of communities. Among those cheerleaders is John Yoo, a former George W. Bush administration official whose Wikipedia page has an entire section dedicated to “war crimes accusations."
♲ “Almost any solution that is based on the idea that plastics can widely be recycled just isn’t really going to work,” CCI’s Davis Allen told CalMatters as “advanced recycling” continues to be pushed as a plastic waste solution.
Check out this post ⬇️
Explore the internal documents on our website that show how Exxon (and other fossil fuel companies) deliberately sowed doubt to undermine scientific evidence on our website.
VIEW THE DOCS
Subsidizing Big Oil
The U.S. government will now provide more than $34 billion a year to the fossil fuel industry in subsidies — but Chris Wright, the country’s top energy official, is claiming that those subsidies… don’t exist.
Emily San
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horner cruz comer?:
Jean-Paul P. Cart Antonia I. Stabile Venable LLP 101 California Street, Suite 3800 San Francisco, CA 94111 Email: JPCart@Venable.com AIStabile@Venable.com Attys for Respondent, The Regents of the University of California
HORNER DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF PETITION DOCS_LA:351773.1 38333/008 1 James K.T. Hunter (State Bar No. 73369) 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard, 13th Floor Los Angeles, California 90067 Telephone: (310) 277-6910 Facsimile: (310) 201-0760 E-mail: jhunter@pszjlaw.com Attorney for Petitioner Energy Policy Advocates SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – CENTRAL DISTRICT ENERGY POLICY ADVOCATES, Petitioner, v. THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Respondent.
Case No. 22STCP03214 DECLARATION OF CHRISTOPHER HORNER IN SUPPORT OF PETITION FOR WRIT Trial Date: December 14, 2023 (Reserved) Time: 9:30 a.m. Place: Dept. 85 Petition filed: August 30, 2022 I, Christopher Horner, declare: INTRODUCTION 1. I make this declaration in support of the Petition for Writ filed by Petitioner Energy Policy Advocates (“EPA”) in the above-captioned proceeding against Respondent The Regents of the University of California (“Regents”). In this Declaration, I address the Regents’ response to the California Public Records Act (“CPRA”) request at issue in this matter dated August 2, 2021 (the “8/2/21 CPRA Request”)1 , and also set forth my opinions based on my experience with open records requests in California and nationwide, particularly as they relate to energy, environmental policy, and the global warming debate
...
- Please describe the nature of UCLA’s Environmental Law Clinic’s work for Sher Edling,
the years during which that assistance was provided, and the specific cases that members of
that clinic worked on. Please also identify any expenses for that work that Sher Edling
reimbursed and any donations the firm or its partners have made to UCLA School of Law
since 2017.
- Please provide a list of every person and entity, excluding clients and vendors, that
provided Sher Edling with any amount of money. For each person or entity listed, please
include the following information: (a) the amount of the money provided; (b) the date the
money was provided; (c) the purpose for which the money was directed to be used; and (d)
the manner in which that money was provided, i.e., through a grant, litigation funding
agreement, or some other contract or agreement. If the funding was provided pursuant to a
written agreement, please provide a copy of that agreement.
Sincerely,
---
Ted Cruz James Comer
Ranking Member Chairman
Committee on Commerce, Science, Committee on Oversight and
and Transportation Accountability
---
exxon-texas-courts-critics-climate-crimes
guard uk
exxonMobil is attempting to use an unusual Texas law to target and intimidate its critics, claiming that lawsuits against the company over its long history of downplaying and denying the climate crisis violate the US constitution’s guarantees of free speech.
The US’s largest oil firm is asking the Texas supreme court to allow it to use the law, known as rule 202, to pursue legal action against more than a dozen California municipal officials. Exxon claims that in filing lawsuits against the company over its role in the climate crisis, the officials are orchestrating a conspiracy against the firm’s first amendment rights.
A US small-town mayor sued the oil industry. Then Exxon went after him
Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/16/imperial-beach-california-exxon-mobil-climate-crisis)
The oil giant also makes the curious claim that legal action in the California courts is an infringement of the sovereignty of Texas, where the company is headquartered.
Eight California cities and counties have accused Exxon and other oil firms of breaking state laws by misrepresenting and burying evidence, including from its own scientists, of the threat posed by rising temperatures. The municipalities are seeking billions of dollars in compensation for damage caused by wildfires, flooding and other extreme weather events, and to meet the cost of building new infrastructure to prepare for the consequences of rising global temperatures.
Rule 202 in effect allows corporations to go on a fishing expedition for incriminating evidence. They are able to question individuals under oath and demand access to documents even before any legal action is filed against them.
Exxon wants to use the provision to force the California officials to travel to Texas to be questioned by the firm’s lawyers about what the company describes as “lawfare” – the misuse of the legal system for political ends.
Exxon claims in a petition to the Texas supreme court that it is entitled to question the officials in order to collect evidence of “potential violations of ExxonMobil’s rights in Texas to exercise its first amendment privileges” to say what it likes about climate science.
“The potential defendants’ lawfare is aimed at chilling the speech of not just ExxonMobil, but of other prominent members of the Texas energy sector on issues of public debate, in this case, climate change,” the company claims in its petition.
The oil giant’s critics say Exxon’s attempt to use claims of free speech to curtail the first amendment rights of others follows a pattern of harassment toward those who challenge the company’s claims about the climate crisis.
Patrick Parenteau, a law professor and former director of the Environmental Law Center at Vermont law school, has described the company’s move as “intimidation” intended to make “it cost a lot and be painful to take on Exxon” whether or not the company wins its case.
Greg Abbott made the unusual move of writing to the state supreme court to advocate on the behalf of Exxon. Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
In a highly unusual move, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has written to the all-Republican court – half of whose members he appointed – in support of Exxon. He accused the California litigants of attempting “to suppress the speech of eighteen Texas-based energy companies on the subject of climate and energy policies”.
“When out-of-state officials try to project their power across our border, as respondents have done by broadly targeting the speech of an industry crucial to Texas, they cannot use personal jurisdiction to scamper out of our courts and retreat across state lines,” Abbott wrote.
In backing its claim, Exxon’s petition to the Texas supreme court gives the example of the Oakland city attorney, Barbara Parker, who in 2017 “issued a press release seeking to stifle the speech of the Texas energy sector or, as she likes to refer to it, ‘BIG OIL’”.
The press release said: “It is past time to debate or question the reality of global warming … Just like BIG TOBACCO, BIG OIL knew the truth long ago and peddled misinformation to con their customers and the American public.”
Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price
Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-oil-and-gas-environment)
The company also names the then San Francisco city attorney, Dennis Herrera, because he accused fossil fuel companies of launching a “disinformation campaign to deny and discredit” the reality of global heating, and pledged to hold the companies responsible “to account”.
Exxon has, in addition, targeted an environmental lawyer in Boston, Matthew Pawa, who represents some of the California municipalities. The firm describes him as “an outspoken advocate of misusing government power to limit free speech” and alleges that Pawa “recruited” the California cities and counties to sue Exxon.
“Those lawsuits are an affront to the first amendment,” the company claims.
Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor and co-author of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, said Exxon had a long history of attempting to bully its critics into silence.
“Now that the arguments have moved into the legal sphere, this feels to me like an extension of the sort of harassment, bullying and intimidation that we’ve seen in the scientific sphere for the last two decades,” she said.
Oreskes said that the legal strategy is also part of a broader public relations campaign to paint the company as a victim of radical environmentalists and opportunistic politicians when Exxon argues that it should be heralded for its efforts to combat the climate crisis.
“Exxon Mobil has for a long time now tried to make themselves out to be the victim, as if somehow they’re the innocent party here,” she said.
The Texas supreme court is considering the case after a lower court backed Exxon’s attempts to use rule 202 against the California officials. The ruling was later overturned on appeal.
The appeal court sympathised with Exxon by acknowledging “an impulse to safeguard an industry that is vital to Texas’s economic well-being” and saying that “lawfare is an ugly tool by which to seek the environmental policy changes” pursued by California municipalities. But the appeal court said the defendants did not have sufficient direct connection to Texas for the case to be heard in the state.
Exxon has ‘a track record of promoting half truths, misrepresentations and in some cases outright lies’
Naomi Oreskes
Exxon has tried to head off climate litigation before with lawsuits claiming that the attorney generals of Massachusetts and New York were violating the company’s rights by investigating it. Those moves were blocked by the Massachusetts supreme court and by a federal court.
If the Texas supreme court allows its rule 202 bid to proceed, Exxon might expect a more sympathetic hearing for its claims in a state court system that has shown deference to big oil.
Exxon is facing a barrage of other lawsuits across the US. A number accuse the company and other fossil fuel firms of breaching consumer protection laws by propagating misinformation about climate science.
Oreskes said Exxon went further than most other oil companies in seeking to hide the evidence of its own scientists collected about global heating and in running a disinformation campaign.
“They’re pushing their freedom of speech as an issue because more than any other company, it’s been proven by people like me and others that they have a track record of promoting half truths, misrepresentations and in some cases outright lies in the public sphere,” she said.
“This is so well documented that unless they can come up with some strategy to defend it, they’re in potentially pretty serious trouble.”
This story is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate story
a US small-town mayor sued the oil industry. Then Exxon went after him
This article is more than 2 years old
The mayor of Imperial Beach, California, says big oil wants him to drop the lawsuit demanding the industry pay for the climate crisis
Chris McGreal in Imperial Beach, California
Sat 16 Oct 2021
Serge Dedina is a surfer, environmentalist and mayor of Imperial Beach, a small working-class city on the California coast.
He is also, if the fossil fuel industry is to be believed, at the heart of a conspiracy to shake down big oil for hundreds of millions of dollars.
ExxonMobil and its allies have accused Dedina of colluding with other public officials across California to extort money from the fossil-fuel industry. Lawyers even searched his phone and computer for evidence he plotted with officials from Santa Cruz, a city located nearly 500 miles north of Imperial Beach.
The problem is, Dedina had never heard of a Santa Cruz conspiracy. Few people had.
“The only thing from Santa Cruz on my phone was videos of my kids surfing there,” Dedina said. “I love the fact that some lawyer in a really expensive suit, sitting in some horrible office trying to find evidence that we were in some kind of conspiracy with Santa Cruz, had to look at videos of my kids surfing.”
That’s where the laughter stopped.
The lawyers found no evidence to back up their claim. But that did not stop the industry from continuing to use its legal muscle to try to intimidate Dedina, who leads one of the poorest small cities in the region.
The mayor became a target after Imperial Beach filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and more than 30 other fossil-fuel companies demanding they pay the huge costs of defending the city from rising seas caused by the climate crisis.
Homes along the final stretch of Imperial Beach coast before reaching the border with Mexico. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian
Imperial Beach’s lawsuit alleges the oil giants committed fraud by covering up research showing that burning fossil fuels destroys the environment. The industry then lied about the evidence for climate change for decades, deliberately delaying efforts to curb carbon emissions.
The city’s lawsuit was among the first of a wave of litigation filed by two dozen municipalities and states across the US that could cost the fossil-fuel industry billions of dollars in compensation for the environmental devastation and the deception.
Dedina says his minority majority community of about 27,000 cannot begin to afford the tens of millions of dollars it will cost to keep at bay the waters bordering three sides of his financially strapped city. Th.. have turned Imperial Beach into an island.
One assessment calculated that, without expensive mitigation measures, rising sea levels will eventually swamp some of the city’s neighbourhoods, routinely flood its two schools and overwhelm its drainage system.
Imperial Beach’s annual budget is $20m. Exxon’s chief executive, Darren Woods, was paid more than $15m last year.
“We don’t have a pot to piss in in this city. So why not go after the oil companies?” he said. “The lawsuit is a pragmatic approach to making the people that caused sea level rise pay for the impacts it has on our city.”
That’s not how Exxon, the US’s largest oil company, saw it. Its lawyers noted that Imperial Beach filed its case in July 2017, at the same time as two California counties, Marin and San Mateo. The county and city of Santa Cruz followed six months later with similar suits seeking compensation to cope with increasing wildfires and drought caused by global heating.
Exxon alleged that the sudden burst of litigation, and the fact that the municipalities shared a law firm specialising in environmental cases, Sher Edling, was evidence of collusion.
Exxon filed lawsuits claiming the municipalities conspired to extort money from the company by following a strategy developed during an environmental conference at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, 25 miles north of Imperial Beach, nine years ago.
The meeting, organised by the Climate Accountability Institute and the Union of Concerned Scientists, produceda report outlining how legal strategies used by US states against the tobacco industry in the 1990s could be applied to cases against fossil fuel companies.
Dedina was also targeted by one of the US’s biggest business groups at the forefront of industry resistance to increased regulation to reduce greenhouse gases, the National Association of Manufacturers, and a rightwing thinktank, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute.
Mayor Dedina looks out to sea. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian
The manufacturing trade group was behind the efforts to obtain data from Dedina’s phone and documents in 2018. In its public disclosure request to the mayor’s office, NAM called Imperial Beach’s lawsuit “litigation based on political or ideological objections more appropriately addressed through the political process”.
Exxon is attempting to use a Texas law that allows corporations to go on a fishing expedition for incriminating evidence by questioning individuals under oath even before any legal action is filed against them. The company is trying to force Dedina, two other members of Imperial Beach’s government, and officials from other jurisdictions, to submit to questioning on the grounds they were joined in a conspiracy against the oil industry.
“A collection of special interests and opportunistic politicians are abusing law enforcement authority and legal process to impose their viewpoint on climate change,”the oil firm claimed. “ExxonMobil finds itself directly in that conspiracy’s crosshairs.”
[
How cities and states could finally hold fossil fuel companies accountable
Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-fossil-fuels-cities-states-interactive)
A Texas district judge approved the request to depose Dedina, but then a court of appeals overturned the decision last year. The state supreme court is considering whether to take up the case.
The target on Dedina is part of a wider pattern of retaliation against those suing Exxon and other oil companies.
In an unusual move in 2016, Exxon persuaded a Texas judge to order the attorney general of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, to travel to Dallas to be deposed about her motives for investigating the company for alleged fraud for suppressing evidence on climate change. The judge also ordered that New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, be “available” in Dallas on the same day in case Exxon wanted to question him about a similar investigation.
Healey accused Exxon of trying to “squash the prerogative of state attorneys general to do their jobs”. The judge reversed the deposition order a month later and Healey filed a lawsuit against the company in 2019, which is still awaiting trial.
But similar tactics persuaded the US Virgin Islands attorney general to shut down his investigation of the oil giant.
Patrick Parenteau, a law professor and former director of the Environmental Law Center at Vermont law school, said the attempt to question Dedina and other officials is part of a broader strategy by the oil industry to counter lawsuits with its own litigation.
“These cases are frivolous and vexatious. Intimidation is the goal. Just making it cost a lot and be painful to take on Exxon. They think that if they make the case painful enough, Imperial Beach will quit,” he said.
The city’s lawsuit claims it faces a ‘significant and dangerous sea-level rise’. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian
If the intent is to kill off the litigation against the oil industry, it’s not working. Officials from other municipalities have called Exxon’s move “repugnant”, “a sham” and “outrageous”, and have vowed to press on with their lawsuits.
Dedina described the action as a “bullying tactic” by the oil industry to avoid accountability.
“The only conspiracy is [that] a bunch of suits and fossil-fuel companies decided to pollute the earth and make climate change worse, and then lie about it,” he said. “They make more money than our entire city has in a year.”
The city’s lawsuit claims it faces a “significant and dangerous sea-level rise” through the rest of this century that threatens its existence. Imperial Beachcommissioned an analysis of its vulnerability to rising sea levels which concluded that nearly 700 homes and businesses were threatened at a cost of more than $100m. It said that flooding will hit about 40% of the city’s roads, including some that will be under water for long periods. Two elementary schools will have to be moved. The city’s beach, regarded as one of the best sites for surfing on the California coast, is being eroded by about a foot a year.
Imperial Beach sits at the southern end of San Diego bay. Under one worst-case scenario, the bay could merge with the Tijuana River estuary to the south and permanently submerge much of the city’s housing and roads.
A view of the Tijuana River estuary. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian
The city has received some help with creating natural climate barriers. The Fish and Wildlife Service restored 400 acres of wetland next to the city as a national wildlife refuge which also acts as a barrier to flooding, and is expected to restore other wetlands together with the Port of San Diego. A grant is paying for improved equipment to warn of floods.
But that still leaves the huge costs of building new schools and drainage systems, and adapting other infrastructure. Dedina said that without the oil companies stumping up, it won’t happen.
“People ask, how did you go against the world’s largest fossil fuel companies? Isn’t that scary? No. What’s scary is coastal flooding and the idea that whole cities would be under water,” said the mayor.
“Honestly, bring it on. I can’t wait to make our case. I can’t wait to take the fight to them because we have nothing to lose.”
===
MIA for a while? 8 22
interesting update /case study/ cross section ~ BBB?
coastal elite = hollywood celeb eco-hypocite gore pvt jet
coastal US elie --> davos global elite pvt jets?
mma 8 22
on August 16, Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the single biggest climate package in history, into law. With its historic investments in clean energy, the IRA is widely considered a surprise win for Democrats ahead of November’s midterm elections, despite major fossil fuel concessions in the bill that will expand drilling and ultimately harm vulnerable communities.
While some oil and gas companies went so far as to publicly celebrate the legislation, Republicans and right-wing media mobilized against it.Now, in an attempt to distract from the realization of one of President Joe Biden’s key campaign promises, right-wing media are capitalizing on a tried and true tactic — trying to discredit the climate movement, and government climate action as a whole, by vilifying certain wealthy advocates for their personal consumption habits.
On August 15, FoxNews.com published emails suggesting that theLeonardo DiCaprio Foundation may have helped fund state and local lawsuits against oil and gas companies that seek to hold them accountable for climate change impacts, which occurred as a result of the industry lying about the consequences of burning fossil fuels. This should come as no surprise, given that DiCaprio has long been an advocate for climate action and a donor to climate-related causes.
In 2017, his foundation awarded $20 million in grants to 100 environmental organizations, a small fraction of which went to the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptation. The fund “supports precedent-setting legal actions to hold major corporations accountable for costs associated with the effects on climate of their pollutants,” and was associated with the Resource Legacy Fund, an environmental conservation and grant-making 501(c)(3) organization. Fox alleges that the emails prove the money went through the fund to support Sher Edling, the law firm representing the cities and local governments suing big oil. It’s unclear how much DiCaprio donated to Resource Legacy Fund, but Fox labeled it a “dark money” group in the August 15 piece, suggesting that both DiCaprio and the law firm were unethically forcing taxpayers to cover lawsuits, which would force an industry Fox constantly champions to pay up for decades of deception. The Washington Examiner, Daily Caller, and New York Post all picked up the story.
Fox attempts to tie big oil lawsuits to liberal elitism
Fox News picked up the story, contrasting DiCaprio’s activism, which they framed as deceptive, with his carbon-intensive lifestyle. On Hannity, host Sean Hannity claimed the lawsuits further justified right-wing media’s fixation on DiCaprio: “The climate litigation and Dicaprio's arrangements specifically raises a whole host of legal and ethical concerns, but hypocrisy and bad optics are nothing new for this climate activist.”
On Outnumbered, co-host Kayleigh McEnany recalled DiCaprio’s “apocalyptic quote” from his 2016 Oscars speech on the urgency of climate action while discussing the lawsuits. "He doesn't act” as if climate change is an existential threat, McEnany said, “It has not kept him from traveling across the world ongas-guzzling private jets.”
Jesse Watters Primetime featured Brian Claypool, a lawyer and frequent
guest, who told correspondent Christina Coleman that it was “ironic that Leonardo DiCaprio and his foundation is funding a law firm to sue big oil companies for alleged deception when he him very self is deceiving the public on where these charitable contributions are going.”
During the August 16 episode of The Five, co-host Dana Perino even suggested DiCaprio's donation was “behind the collusion and price gouging of increasing gas prices on Americans,” because oil companies pass on the costs of hiring a legal team to consumers. (Meanwhile, these companies have seen record-breaking profits.)
In general, climate activists on the left have not been shy to criticize the use of private jets by the rich. After the release of DiCaprio’s climate change-themed movie Don’t Look Up, climate journalist Molly Taft wrote in Earther:
"Whenever DiCaprio is in the news for his climate charity work, a right-wing outlet always smugly runs a piece about his private jet use. While these critiques are in bad faith, they do point out their own inconvenient truth that DiCaprio is part of the sliver of rich people who could actually make a real carbon dent if they changed up their lifestyles or gave away more of their money … The actions DiCaprio is promoting as part of Don’t Look Up fail to properly confront power. Celebrity activism is inherently a strange, slippery slope."
Right-wing media appoints climate spokespeople and projects fossil fuel corruption onto the climate movement
It is naive to think that those elevating the story are really concerned about taxpayers, especially when extreme weather driven by climate change costs taxpayers billions every year. Similar lawsuits against oil companies have been moving through courts for years now, and many are currently pending, embroiled in disagreements over whether there is state or federal jurisdiction. According to PBS, “some recent federal court decisions show support for state jurisdiction” in similar climate suits. On August 17, a federal appeals court panel said that two of these two lawsuits belong in state courts, which is considered a win for plaintiffs. One of the plaintiffs is being represented by the law firm Sher Edling.
The same people attacking the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation have brazenly supported fossil fuel industry corruption. According to Daily Kos, Chris Horner, the person who gave FoxNews.com the emails, “is better known forgetting paid by fossil fuel companies to target climate scientists with baseless or frivolous and harassing or vexatious FOIA lawsuits demanding they release their emails in an attempt to rerun the Climategate disinfo playbook.”
Michael Krauss, a George Mason University law professor who Fox quoted extensively in the piece on DiCaprio, has previously gone after Steven Donziger, a human rights lawyer who was confined to one thousand days of house arrest after winning a $9.5 billion lawsuit against Chevron after the company deliberately contaminated the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest and poisoned the Indigenous communities that live there. Krauss called Chevron, which spilled 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater and 17 million gallons of crude oil into open, unlined pits, “courageous” for its “persistence” in “defending itself against Donziger,” after it launched a massive smear campaign against him. Notably, George Mason University accepted an estimated $50 million from Koch foundations between 2005 and 2015.
Leonardo DiCaprio is not and has never been an accurate representation of who is the most concerned about climate change, and it is deeply misleading to portray him as such. Nonetheless, Fox keeps attempting to appoint politicians like John Kerry and wealthy celebrities like Prince Harry, Thom Yorke, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as the face of the climate movement, obscuring the role of the activists on the ground who have worked tirelessly to pass legislation like the IRA and the millions of people around the world harmed by climate change and environmental injustice.
According to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from June, Black and Hispanic Americans and women are among the groups most likely to be “strongly concerned about the impact of climate change on them personally and about how their personal choices affect the climate.”
When things don’t go your way, blame far-left infiltration or a teenager
Right-wing media’s fixation on “dark money” and celebrity activism is not new. When Republicans face scrutiny, they try to paint Democrats as beholden to radical, hypocritical elites who are out of touch with real Americans. On August 16, FoxNews.com also published an article attempting to frame Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry's office as radical because some officials who work there have previously worked for other large environmental organizations.
Additionally, the article quotes Myron Ebell, who calls large green groups and those affiliated with them the “climate aristocracy.” Ebell, a noted climate denier who led Trump’s EPA transition team, is the director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) Center for Energy and Environment. Chris Horner was also a CEI fellow, and the organization has filed briefs and launched campaigns defending the oil companies being targeted by the lawsuits discussed above, and has also received funding from the industry.
related
Fox's attacks on John Kerry shows how specious the network’s argument against climate action really is
02/05/21
In 160 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Fox networks mentioned the Green New Deal 564 times
08/08/22
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolds, right-wing media is pinning the blame on Greta Thunberg and climate activists
03/08/22
===
ref 1 kos (ref 2 old aLpha bankrupt 2015?]
IN the US legal system, a "nuisance" isn't just an annoyance, it's a term of art used to describe either the use of one's own property in a manner that interferes with another's use of theirs ("private nuisance"), or doing something that hurts the community writ large ("public nuisance").
_{For example}_, a private nuisance might be like a neighbor's dog that barks 24/7 or cigarette smoke that drifts up into your child's bedroom, while a public nuisance would be if a company dumps toxic waste into a river. The dozens of _{lawsuits against fossil fuel companies}_ on the grounds that the carbon pollution from their product represents a public nuisance that's raising sea levels, worsening extreme weather and otherwise hurting public health, are known as "climate nuisance" suits. The climate is the subject of the public nuisance lawsuits. If you're talking to someone who knows all about it, you'd refer to them as "climate nuisance" lawsuits.
...?
we say all this, because a story that Fox News ran this week (by _{dedicated climate disinfo guy}_ Thomas Catenacci) accuses _{Leonardo DiCaprio of funding climate nuisance lawsuits}_. The Catenacci story, republished _{at the NY Post}_ and picked up _{by the Washington Examiner}_ tries real hard to turn some emails to and from academics talking about climate lawsuits into a scandal by calling a funding recipient a "dark money group," (despite the story coming from a dark money group and _{former tobacco lawyer now funded by the fossil fuel industry}_). But the person who apparently _{replaced Catenacci}_ at the Daily Caller clearly needs an explainer.
Kay Smythe, "news and commentary writer" at the Daily Caller, headlined her copy+paste version of Catenacci's story as: "_{REPORT: Leo DiCaprio Used Dark Money To Annoy People With Climate Lawsuits.}_"
The Caller's staff apparently either itself thinks, or wants its readers to think, that the point of these lawsuits isn't to hold companies accountable to clean up and repay the public for the damage caused by their pollution, but is instead just annoying them with "nuisance climate-related lawsuits," using the term in the colloquial sense instead of the accurate legal sense it's being used in the FOIA'd academic emails that form the basis of the attempted hatchet job.
In their zeal to look clever, the Daily Caller confused the term "nuisance" for "_{vexatious}_" or "frivolous". For Smythe and any non-legalese-speakers in the audience, here's a sentence using the terms accurately: Chris Horner, who fed this story to Catenacci about the emails referencing the DiCaprio foundation support climate nuisance lawsuits holding fossil fuel companies accountable, is better known for_{ getting paid by fossil fuel companies}_ to target climate scientists with baseless or frivolous and harassing or vexatiousFOIA lawsuits demanding they release their emails in an attempt to rerun the Climategate disinfo playbook.
Given that the Daily Caller is less known for hiring smart reporters than it is for _{repeatedly}_ _{hiring}_ _{racist}_ _{white nationalists}_, we can't say we're surprised.
But since they were just copying the work of Catenacci without actually adding anything of value, it is impressive that they nonetheless found a way to make the sad little story of DiCaprio actually doing something decent with his money even more asinine!
===
fox HORNER CALLER
no lnx docs
Leonardo DiCaprio's non-profit foundation awarded grants to a dark money group which, in turn, funneled money to a law firm spearheading climate nuisance lawsuits nationwide, according to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Correspondence between Dan Emmett, a major philanthropist, and Ann Carlson — a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) climate professor — in 2017 revealed that the two worked with law firm Sher Edling to raise money for its efforts to sue oil companies over alleged climate change deception on behalf of state and local governments, according to the emails obtained by watchdog group Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) and shared with Fox News Digital.
In their emails, Emmett and Carlson discuss how Chuck Savitt,Sher Edling'sdirector of strategic client relationships, had sought Emmett's support and had already received support from Terry Tamminen in his role as the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation's CEO, a title he held between 2016 and 2019. When the emails were exchanged, Carlson, who is now a senior Biden administration official, served as co-director of the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment, the advisory board which Emmett still chairs.
"Chuck Savitt who is heading this new organization behind the lawsuits has been seeking our support," Emmett wrote to Carlson on July 22, 2017. "Terry Tamminen in his new role with the DiCaprio Foundation has been a key supporter."
[CLIMATE ACTIVISTS EMBRACE EXTREME TACTICS, VIOLENCE AS DEADLINE TO 'SAVE THE PLANET' DRAWS NEAR
doc.
Emmett mentions to Carlson that the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation has been a "key supporter" of Sher Edling's litigation. (Government Accountability & Oversight)
Emmett also forwarded a message Savitt sent him three days earlier on July 19, 2022 asking for his support, according to the records. Savitt mentioned in that email that Sher Edling's first lawsuits were filed with the support of the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptation, a fund managed at the time by dark money group Resources Legacy Fund (RLF).
"Wanted to let you know that we filed the first three lawsuits supported by the Collective Action Fund on Monday," Savitt had told Emmett. "These precedent setting cases call on 37 of the world's leading fossil fuel companies to take responsibility for the devastating damage sea level rise - caused by their greenhouse gas emissions - is having on coastal communities."
Savitt also offered to set up a meeting between Emmett and Vic Sher, a partner at Sher Edling.
The email correspondence took place two months before the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation publicly announced it would contribute $20 million in grants to various climate and conservation causes. The group's announcement, which has since been deleted but remains archived, included a grant to the RLF "to support precedent-setting legal actions to hold major corporations in the fossil fuel industry liable," closely mirroring Savitt's language.
[ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS KEEP PUSHING EXTREME MEASURES AMID GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS
"These grantees are active on the ground, protecting our oceans, forests and endangered species for future generations – and tackling the urgent, existential challenges of climate change," DiCaprio said at the time.
Tamminen added that the organization believed it needed "to do as much as we can now, before it is too late." The announcement didn't mention Sher Edling.
[Vic Sher, a partner at law firm Sher Edling, speaks about the climate litigation he is involved in during a virtual panel in December. (American Museum of Tort Law/YouTube)
In February 2018, months after the initial email exchange, Emmett told Carlson that she could mention to other prospective donors that he and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation were now "serious supporters" of Sher Edling's ongoing litigation. The suggestion came after Carlson asked whether she should ask New York philanthropist Andy Sabin to support the effort.
"You can tell him Terry's organization and I are both serious supporters, that you are an advisor, that the science is there, that it could do more for the environment than just about anything going on if it succeeds," Emmett said in the email Carlson.
In addition to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and the Emmett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and JPB Foundation have contributed to the Collective Action Fund since 2017.
[TRIAL LAWYERS BENEFITING FROM LUCRATIVE PUBLIC CONTRACTS MAKE 99% OF DONATIONS TO DEMOCRATS, REPORT FINDS
Sher Edling's website states that the firm is specifically dedicated to representing "states, cities, public agencies, and businesses in high-impact, high-value environmental cases." Since its initial cases in July 2017 — filed on behalf of a city and two counties in California — Sher Edling has sued major oil companies on behalf of Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, Honolulu and several local governments across the country, alleging the companies have deceived the public about climate change.
Most of the cases are ongoing with two, involving San Francisco and Oakland, Calfornia, on appeal before a federal panel.
doc:
Dan Emmett emails Ann Carlson, saying she can mention to prospective donors that he and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, at the time led by CEO Terry Tamminen, are "serious supporters" of Sher Edling's litigation. (Government Accountability & Oversight)
"Obviously, the donors created — including DiCaprio — several purported arms' lengths,"Chris Horner, a lawyer who represented GAO in the case involving the emails, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
"This model used a couple of pass-throughs, by which DiCaprio and, it appears, Dan Emmett and others could run things, including DiCaprio's foundation and Resources Legacy Fund, and they're not seen as financing the assault," Horner added.
Overall, the RLF contributed more than $5.2 million to Sher Edling between 2017 and 2020, according to the group's tax filings during that period.The organization doesn't disclose its donors and declined to confirm who it previously received money from to fund Sher Edling's litigation.
[KAMALA HARRIS NEVER 'SUED EXXON MOBIL,' DESPITE HER CLAIM ON CNN: REPORTS
"From 2017 to 2020, Sher Edling received grants from RLF to pursue charitable activities to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the accuracy of information they had disseminated to consumers and the public about the role their products played in causing climate change," an RLF spokesperson Mark Kleinman told Fox News Digital in an email.
"RLF receives support from many funding entities, and its board of directors and staff make all decisions as to where the funding goes," the spokesperson continued.
Sher Edling declined to comment.
Leonardo DiCaprio is pictured during a film premiere on July 22, 2019. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Experts have previously raised concerns regarding the source of Sher Edling's funding for its climate litigation.
Michael Krauss, a law professor emeritus at George Mason University,noted in a 2020 Forbes article the arrangement in which Sher Edling receives a payout from localities it represents if its cases are successful while, at the same time, it receives funding from tax-exempt groups, thereby removing some risk involved with taking on such cases.
"Can a non-profit funnel donations to a for-profit law firm that has already determined a different form of compensation?" Kraus wrote. "May a law firm, which could be fabulously enriched on a contingent basis, ethically accept funding that is paid whether or not the client prevails?"
"If legislation through litigation is bad, what to make of legislation through litigation subsidized by taxpayers through charitable donations? We don’t have all the answers to these questions yet," he continued. "I think we deserve them."
[CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Emmett, Tamminen, Sabin and the Earth Alliance, an organization that subsumed the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 2019, didn't respond to requests for comment.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer at Fox News Digital
---
ref 2 lnx docs
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/leonardo-dicaprio-funneled-grants-dark-money-group-fund-climate-nuisance-lawsuits-emails-show
===
https://www.courthousenews.com/big-oil-must-face-california-city-and-county-lawsuits-over-climate-change/
cn seems legit
sAN FRANCISCO (CN) — The Ninth Circuit affirmed Tuesday that lawsuits seeking to hold the world’s largest energy companies financially liable for climate change and the rising sea levels that threaten California’s coastal communities should stay in state court, setting the stage for a legal offensive comparable to one that won multibillion-dollar awards against Big Tobacco.
The rulingcomes after a three-judge panel took a second look at a jurisdictional dispute between the energy companies and four municipalities after being ordered to do so by the U.S. Supreme Court.
San Mateo County, Marin County and the cities of Santa Cruz and Imperial Beach in San Diego County sued Chevron, BP and three dozen other oil, gas and coal companies in separate state courts in July 2017, claiming the fuel companies created a public nuisance by hiding for nearly 50 years that fossil fuel consumption was heating and damaging the earth.
After the cases were removed to federal court, the local governments fought to remand them to state court, arguing state law claims of public nuisance should be decided by California’s judicial system.
The energy giants objected, insisting the claims are governed by federal law because they implicate “uniquely federal interests,” including matters of interstate and international commerce and environmental policy.
In March 2018, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria remanded the cases to their respective state courts.
A unanimous three-judge Ninth Circuit panel upheld Chhabria’s ruling two years later, finding the federal court lacks jurisdiction to consider state law claims. Writing for the majority, U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta, a George W. Bush appointee, rejected the oil companies’ argument that because they provided fuel to the U.S. government through service contracts, they were “acting under” a federal officer’s directions.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted the energy companies’ petition for certiorari and sent the cases back to the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its ruling in light of the high court’s 2021 decision in BP p.l.c. v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, where it held that a federal appeals court can review a federal judge’s entire remand order. In that case, the city of Baltimore sued 26 oil companies for creating the greenhouse gases responsible for rising sea levels.
But Ikuta and her fellow panelists, U.S. Circuit Judges Morgan Christen and Kenneth Lee, declined to change their minds, sticking to the long-standing principle that federal courts should narrowly limit their reach to protect the jurisdiction of state courts.
“Our adherence to this doctrine does not change merely because plaintiffs raise novel and sweeping causes of action,” she wrote. “We therefore reject the broad interpretations of removal jurisdiction urged on us by the energy companies and affirm the district court’s remand order.”
The panel also rejected the argument that the energy companies’ conduct occurred on federal land and must be governed by federal law. The judges found that while some of the companies operated on federal land, such as the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve run by Chevron predecessor Standard Oil, the companies fail to account for how much of their conduct took place on federal enclaves. “The connection between conduct on federal enclaves and the counties’ alleged injuries is too attenuated and remote to establish that the counties’ cause of action is governed by the federal law applicable to any federal enclave,” Ikuta wrote.
The companies had also argued that the cases should stay in federal court because a portion of their fossil-fuel extraction took place on the Outer Continental Shelf, which falls under federal jurisdiction. “We reject this argument, because the connection between such conduct and the injuries alleged by the plaintiffs here is too attenuated to give rise to jurisdiction,” Ikuta wrote, reasoning that the counties’ lawsuit claim only local injuries, and focus on the companies’ “concerted campaign” to hide the harmful effects of fossil fuels from the public. “These allegations do not refer to actions taken on the Outer Continental Shelf,” she wrote.
The cities and counties praised the opinion as “clear and reasoned” in a statement.
“We appreciate the panel’s thorough review of this matter and are eager to return to the state courts where we filed our cases more than four years ago,” the plaintiffs said an email sent through the law firmSher Edling LLP.“It is time to go to trial to hold these defendants accountable for deceiving consumers about the dangers associated with the use of their products, and to protect our taxpayers from having to bear the enormous costs resulting from that deception.”
The same Ninth Circuit panel found U.S. District Judge William Alsup lacked jurisdiction when he dismissed similar lawsuits brought by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland. The judges remanded the cases to Alsup so he can reconsider if alternative grounds justify keeping the two lawsuits in federal court, though their ruling Tuesday means those cases will likely end up in state court as well.
In an email, BP head of corporate communications Megan Baldino said the company could not speak about pending litigation. Chevron spokesman Braden Reddallsaid in an email that the company “respectfully disagrees” with the panel’s decision.
“Plaintiffs’ claims are based on allegations about worldwide carbon emissions and address global climate change — national and international issues that can be governed only by federal, not state, law. The court acknowledges that cases such as this one “raise novel and sweeping causes of action,'” Reddall said, noting that like Alsup, the Second Circuit had dismissed nearly identical claims as “sprawling” and overly ambitious. “Although the court has decided that plaintiffs’ claims for now can proceed past this preliminary stage, Chevron looks forward to additional challenges that should put an early end to this meritless lawsuit.”
===
===
realclear invest links to EID?!
no docs
https://eidclimate.org/failure-to-disclose-new-report-exposes-academics-with-financial-ties-to-law-firms/
no lnx see realclear invest
FAILURE TO DISCLOSE: NEW REPORT EXPOSES ACADEMICS WITH FINANCIAL TIES TO LAW FIRMS
MAY 24, 2021| WILLIAM ALLISON
Just a week after the bombshell admission that a Harvard academic is working under a retainer agreement with a top plaintiffs’ attorney firm without any previous disclosure,a new report puts the spotlight on this practice happening at universities across the country.
:{
}:
The report, “Private Funders, Public Institutions: ‘Climate’ Litigation and a Crisis of Integrity,” published by [NOT THE REAL] Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. (GAO), uncovers the coordination taking place between public officials, activist organizations, wealthy donors, and university faculty to bring climate change-related cases against energy companies, with a specific focus on the lawsuit filed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in June 2020.
Why the Naomi Oreskes-Sher Edling Retainer Presents Multiple Conflicts of Interest
The GAO report’s release couldn’t have come at a more apt time. Earlier this month, news broke that Harvard professor and longtime climate litigation activist Naomi Oreskes is on retainer with Sher Edling, LLP, the environmental plaintiffs’ law firm representing the majority of municipalities and states, including Minnesota, that have filed climate change lawsuits against the energy industry in recent years.
When Oreskes and fellow Harvard researcher Geoffrey Supran released a new study focused on climate change communications (that was just as flawed as their previous work), they did not seem prepared for the news that Oreskes is on retainer with Sher Edling to break. Notably, this wasn’t disclosed via a game of telephone, either, but Oreskes herself said so while under oath in a recent deposition.
It now appears that Oreskes sought to redefine her business relationship with Sher Edling after it hit the press, as she and Supran provided several different explanations to reporters when asked about her retainer disclosure. While Oreskes may be uncertain about the nature of her involvement with Sher Edling and its implications, others are not.
Academics took to Twitter to point out that this relationship should absolutely been disclosed:
A significant (an undisclosed) conflict of interesthttps://t.co/IPX2PgtsJ8
— Judith Curry(@curryja) May 14, 2021
Shot ‘n Chaser
LEFT – Authors of new paper about Exxon-Mobil complicity in downplaying climate states they have no relevant financial ties
RIGHT – Same author disclosing in a recent deposition (Mann vs CEI) that she is on retainer for a law firm suing Exxon-Mobil
This is fine pic.twitter.com/UGTxjAPizf
— Roger Pielke Jr.(@RogerPielkeJr) May 14, 2021
The Academic-Activist Behind the Curtain in Minnesota
The report shows that Oreskes is far from the only academic who is working directly with top attorneys involved in the climate litigation campaign.
In Minnesota, the report outlines the critical role that University of Minnesota law professor Alexandra Klassplayed in orchestratingAttorney General Ellison’s lawsuit. In April 2019, she signed a memo titled “Potential Lawsuit against Fossil Fuel Companies for Minnesota Climate Change Damages” to be shared with the newly sworn-in Ellison.
Newly released documents in the report show that Klass was approached by anoutside activist groupthat provided funding for her students to write the memo, reviewed by other attorneys supporting climate litigation, and backed by theRockefeller network that has manufactured entire national litigation campaign.
None of this involvement by Klass was ever disclosed to the public, whether when moderating a forum on campus with Ellison, providing quotes in local newspapers, or in podcasts discussing the lawsuit.
Highlighting emails obtained through public records requests, the report shows that in late 2018, Klass was approached by Michael Noble, executive director of local activist group Fresh Energy about enlisting her help with potential litigation in Minnesota. In conversations with Klass, Noble spoke of a “big idea” and sent along climate pleadings from previously filed cases, and that he was looking for Klass’s “reaction (and hopefully enthusiasm).”
Roughly one month later, in December 2018, Noble asked if Klass wanted “to do a phone call with the lawyers advising the Rockefeller family fund” (sic) and the climate case was off to the metaphorical races.
Image via GAO
By early 2019, Klass had a contract through Fresh Energy to hire several law students to assist her in drafting the legal memo focused on a potential Minnesota climate change lawsuit that was eventually sent to Ellison.
Image via GAO]
In October 2019, Klass helped to host a panel discussion at the University of Minnesota Law School on “the legal and scientific case for recovering climate change damages in Minnesota from fossil fuel companies” which featured both Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Sher Edling’s Vic Sher, whose law firm now represents Minnesota in its climate change deception case.
At the time, the event was framed as an academic discussion. But what the public didn’t know was that Klass had already written a memo to Ellison earlier that year laying out the proposed legal theories that could back a climate change-focused lawsuit targeting the energy industry. Furthermore, the event was coordinated by Sam Duggan – one of the students who helped write the memo.
Despite her direct involvement in the drafting of the lawsuit, Klass has continued to present herself as an impartial expert on Minnesota state law. When Ellison initially filed his climate case last summer, Klass was quoted in news stories, including coverage from the Minneapolis Star Tribune as a professor of environmental law and thus, a neutral third-party expert. To date, she has not publicly spoken about her lack of disclosure regarding her involvement in helping put the idea of climate litigation in front of Ellison.
Efforts to keep government actions hidden from the public has even extended to Ellison’s office.Earlier this year, Ellison wrote an op-ed in the Star Tribune touting his office’s transparency, but the hiring of two Bloomberg-funded Special Assistant Attorneys General from another university – the NYU Law School’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center – raises serious questions. Ellison’s claim that these SAAGs “report to me and no one else,” and thus solely loyalty is to Minnesota taxpayers, is hard to believe when the job description for a similar position with the New York Attorney General explained:
“Fellows hosted by the OAG as special assistants will have responsibilities that include… preparing periodic reports of activities and progress for the State Impact Center.”
The Group in the Middle of It All? The Rockefellers
To the surprise of no one who has is even remotely familiar with the climate litigation campaign, the Rockefellers are one of the common threads between Oreskes and Klass.
The Rockefeller Family Fund supported all three of Oreskes’ major studies focused on the energy industry,and if there was any doubt that the wealthy foundation that supports climate litigation wouldn’t have any subjective effect on this research, then let Oreskes herself explain how the source of a researcher’s funding can lead to unconscious bias.
As Oreskes stated in published a letter she co-authored in 2015:
“But the issue is deeper than one of obeying rules; the important question is why those rules are necessary. The answer is that even if we think of ourselves as honest, objective, and independent, scientific evidence demonstrates that our research can be influenced by the sources of our funding… Many of us are reluctant to accept this funding because it seems to imply that our colleagues—including individuals we may know and respect—have been corrupted. Corruption exists, but the funding effect may more often be the result of unconscious bias.” (emphasis added)
In Minnesota, the Rockefeller Family Fund has been just as active. The group, and its director Lee Wasserman in particular, put the idea of a climate lawsuit in front of Michael Noble right after Ellison was elected in November 2018, as the report shows:
Image via GAO]
In turn, Noble then went to Klass where he explained the Rockefeller Family Fund’s role in supporting a climate lawsuit in Minnesota:
Images via GAO]
The “lawyers advising Rockefeller family fund” that Noble mentions is the Center for Climate Integrity, an activist group that’s supporting climate lawsuits across the country and which has received more than $3 million from the Rockefeller Family Fund. The group was also a sponsor of the 2019 panel that Ellison and Klass attended, and two senior officials from the group, Judith Enck andAlyssa Johl, provided feedback on Klass’s memo:
Images via GAO
With the memo prepared, Noble then went about bringing all the threads togethers by arranging a meeting of the key players, including Klass and officials with the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Center for Climate Integrity:
Finally, shortly after Ellison introduced the lawsuit, Noble couldn’t help but tout his own work when he admitted on a public webinar that he and the Rockefeller-funded Center for Center for Climate Integrity convinced the attorney general to file the case.
West Coast Edition
The coordination among academics and law firms is indeed happening from coast to coast, includingAnn Carlson, the UCLA Law professortaking a leave of absence to serve in the Biden Administration.
Previously, Carlson has worked as a consultant with Sher Edling, the same firm that has Naomi Oreskes on retainer. Carlson also appeared on a panel discussion on climate litigation alongside Vic Sher at the University of Hawai’i Richardson School of Law in May 2019, just ten months before the City & County of Honolulu filed its own climate lawsuit.
The report outlines Carlson’s work at theUCLA Law School and the financial support she received:
“Consider another relevant example, revealed in a recent public-record production obtained from UCLA Law School by Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. That production of documents revealed certain details of how donors named Dan Emmett and Ralph and Shirley Shapiro gave a combined $1.5 million to a ‘Carlson discretionary fund’ which, according to the Shapiros’ instruction, is ‘to be used at the discretion of Professor Ann Carlson… in her sole discretion as she deems appropriate.’” (emphasis added)
Conclusion
As Energy In Depth as shown for years, the Rockefellers have manufactured the entire climate litigation campaign and their work hasn’t slowed down.
This new paper from Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. uncovers the role that academics have played in supporting these lawsuits with Minnesota the latest example of the lack of disclosure between government officials, activist groups, and college professors.
Added on top of the bombshell news that Harvard professorNaomi Oreskes is on retainer with a top plaintiffs firm, this nationally coordinated campaign becomes more interconnected by the day.
===
==
REF SEP complaint
CLIMATE LAWSUIT PROMOTERS DINGED FOR FLOUTING STATE LAWS
AUGUST 22, 2019 | SPENCER WALRATH
THE ORGANIZATION BEHIND CLIMATE LIABILITY NEWS (CLN), A DARK MONEY ANTI-OIL AND GAS ACTIVIST WEBSITE SET UP TO PROMOTE CLIMATE LAWSUITS, MAY BE VIOLATING MARYLAND STATE LAW, ACCORDING TO THE :{DAILY CALLER}:. A COMPLAINT FILED BY ATTORNEY CLETA MITCHELL ALLEGES THAT CLN’S PARENT ORGANIZATION FAILED TO REGISTER WITH ITS HOME STATE AND ASKS STATE OFFICIALS TO INVESTIGATE THE ORGANIZATION AND CONSIDER FINING THE GROUP AND ITS DIRECTORS FOR VIOLATING STATE LAW.
Climate Liability News is a project of Climate Communications and Law (CCL), a non-profit incorporated in Washington, D.C., onApril 26, 2017. The complaint provides evidence that CCL’s corporate status was revoked by D.C. as of May 19, 2019, but says CCL filed to have its status reinstated earlier this month after the revocation was brought to its attention.
Though CCL is incorporated in D.C., its business address is located in Frederick, Maryland, and a November 2018 filing with the IRS states that it conducts business in Maryland. Mitchell notes in her complaint:
“Maryland law requires all business entities, including non-stock corporations, doing business in the state of Maryland to register with the Department of Assessments and Taxation…Any corporation formed under the laws of a jurisdiction other than Maryland must register as a foreign business in the state of Maryland prior to doing any interstate or foreign business in Maryland…No such registration has been filed by Climate Communications & Law.” (emphasis added)
The complaint calls on the Maryland Secretary of State and the Director of the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation tofine CCL for failing to register and to “initiate proceedings for misdemeanor violations of Maryland law against the individual directors of the organization, Kert Davies, Richard Wiles, and Alyssa Johl,” which could result in individual fines.
Davies, Wiles, and Johl are all central figures of the climate liability campaign against energy companies through CCL and affiliated groups. Davies, for instance, runs the shadowyClimate Investigations Center and has spent over 20 years digging through energy company files in hopes of finding evidence of something that could lead to legal action. Davies also participated in the infamous January 2016 strategy session hosted by the Rockefellers where activists laid out their plans to expand the #ExxonKnew controversy into legal action against the broader oil and gas sector.
Wiles and Johl are the leaders of the Center for Climate Integrity, another shadowy group that has engaged in a massive PR campaign to promote climate liability litigation. The Rockefeller-funded group has hosted panels promoting the lawsuits, released a report designed to pressure coastal cities into suing energy companies, purchased billboards advocating for climate litigation, and produced a podcast to amplify activists (including Kert Davies).
Wiles also hired a lobbyist in Florida to arrange meetings between public officials and the lawyers seeking additional plaintiffs for their climate lawsuits. The lobbyist told Ft. Lauderdale city officials that his client, Wiles, “was trying to collaborate with” the lawyers representing other cities in their climate liability lawsuits, according to emails obtained by the :{Florida Record}:. Neither Wiles nor any representatives of his organizations are recorded attending any of the meetings arranged by the lobbyist. The lobbyist did not reply to the Florida Record’s multiple requests for comment on the discrepancy of being hired by one group to lobby for another.
The complaint against CCL is not the first evidence that has surfaced of climate litigation activists appearing to sidestep state laws. The *Washington Free Beacon* reported last year that a representative of Sher Edling, a law firm representing multiple plaintiffs in climate liability lawsuits against energy producers, asked Miami Beach officials to move their conversations offline, specifically to prevent their communications from being made public.
Emails obtained [FOIA? FEES?] by the Free Beacon show Sher Edling’s Charles Savitt emailing two Miami Beach officials to schedule an appointment, adding, “Given state law, let’s talk rather than me send you anything.” That email was followed by an even more explicit message: “Given public records laws it is much better for us to talk on the phone.”
===
===
https://www.sheredling.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Center-for-Climate-Integrity-Amicus.pdf 404
wb: https://www.sheredling.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Center-for-Climate-Integrity-Amicus.pdf ??
Nos. 18-15499, 18-15502, 18-15503, 18-16376
United States Court Of Appeals
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
COUNTY OF SAN MATEO,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
CHEVRON CORPORATION, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants
No. 18-15499
No. 17-cv-4929-VC
N.D. Cal., San Francisco
Hon. Vince Chhabria
COUNTY OF IMPERIAL BEACH,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
CHEVRON CORPORATION, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants
No. 18-15502
No. 17-cv-4934-VC
N.D. Cal., San Francisco
Hon. Vince Chhabria
COUNTY OF MARIN,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
CHEVRON CORPORATION, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants
No. 18-15503
No. 17-cv-4935-VC
N.D. Cal., San Francisco
Hon. Vince Chhabria
COUNTY OF SANTA CRUZ, et al.,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
CHEVRON CORPORATION, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants
No. 18-16376
Nos. 18-cv-00450-VC;
18-cv-00458-VC;
18-cv-00732-VC
N.D. Cal., San Francisco
Hon. Vince Chhabria
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE ROBERT BRULE, CENTER FOR
CLIMATE INTEGRITY, JUSTIN FARRELL, BENJAMIN
FRANTA, STEPHAN LEWANDOWSKY, NAOMI ORESKES, and
GEOFFREY SUPRAN
:{
}:
IN SUPPORT OF APPELLEES AND AFFIRMANCE
DANIEL P. MENSHER
ALISON S. GAFFNEY
KELLER ROHRBACK L.L.P.
1201 THIRD AVENUE, SUITE 3200
SEATTLE, WA 98101-3052
Tel: (206) 623-1900
Counsel for Amici Curiae...
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https://www.sheredling.com/cases/climate-cases/
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Sher Edling represents cities, counties, and states in lawsuits to hold fossil fuel industry defendants accountable for their decades-long campaigns of deception about the science of climate change and the role their products play in causing it, as well as their failure to take steps to avoid the harm they knew would arise from the use their products or even to warn anyone about it. Sher Edling’s team has a successful track record of holding fossil fuel companies accountable for actions that harm people and the planet. In addition to representing public agencies across the country, Sher Edling represents the West Coast’s largest commercial fishing trade association. For more information, see Sher Edling’s qualifications, and click through the links below for filings from each case.
Additional background:
Climate Damage & Deception Case Status: States
Climate Damage & Deception Case Status: Local Governments
Sourced timeline of what the fossil fuel industry knew, and when they knew it
Fact sheet – city, county & state lawsuits
Dungeness crabs, global warming & accountability
Cases
State of Delaware
State of Minnesota
State of Rhode Island
Washington, District of Columbia
City of Baltimore, MD
City of Charleston, SC
City of Richmond, CA
City of Santa Cruz, CA
City of Imperial Beach, CA
City and County of San Francisco, CA*
City of Oakland, CA*
City of Annapolis, MD
City and County of Honolulu, HI
City of New York, NY
* on appeal to 9th Circuit
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