The Absolute Corruption That Is Starting to Infect Our Courts Over Climate and The NGOs Behind It

By Jason Isaac of CEO/Founder of American Energy Institute.

The climate cartel is stooping to a new low, adding judicial corruption to its list of tactics. A deceptive and well-funded campaign is underway to corruptly influence judges presiding over dozens of climate change lawsuits now before many state courts.

While the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) presents itself as a neutral entity, there’s really no such thing as neutrality in the climate space. CJP’s main objective is to influence judges to penalize fossil fuel producers and further the climate agenda by sending judges biased information on the impacts of climate change. 

The radical climate agenda has progressed through Congress, mostly in the poorly named Inflation Reduction Act, and now they’re moving on to the court system and starting at the state level, where the public eye is less watchful. If they succeed, the consequences could be devastating. Threatening our domestic energy providers ultimately limits every American’s access to affordable, reliable energy and weakens our national security and military readiness. It is the Green New Deal by lawsuit.

As a new report from my organization, American Energy Institute, reflects the CJP has “briefed” more than two thousand judges across the country to date, offering judges an “educational curriculum” that, far from being unbiased educational material, was prepared by those who openly support litigation against the energy industry.  CJP’s 13-module curriculum clearly favors plaintiffs seeking damages from fossil fuel producers and was prepared by anti-energy advisors, amicus-filers, and activist academics.

One such example is Patrick Parenteau, a Professor at Vermont Law School and co-author of the “Judicial Remedies for Climate Disruption” module. News reports refer to him as an informal advisor to climate plaintiffs. Parenteau once told the Stateline news service that oil companies should go bankrupt. Michael Oppenheimer is a Professor at Princeton University who served on CJP’s advisory curriculum committee. Oppenheimer has joined numerous amicus briefs backing climate nuisance plaintiffs including Baltimore, Delaware, Hoboken, Rhode Island, and San Mateo, among others.

Three CJP curriculum modules explicitly endorse Richard Heede’s pro-plaintiff source attribution study “Carbon Majors,” invariably describing it as an “emblematic” and “groundbreaking” study. But Heede’s study was paid for by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which is also bankrolling climate litigation. Heede’s work nowhere discloses that his study was paid for by pro-climate plaintiffs groups that coordinated with the lead plaintiffs’ counsel.

And the CJP is funded by the same left-wing entities financing climate change lawsuits filed in dozens of states and cities. In 2022, the JPB Foundation committed at least $1 million to fund CJP and $1.15 million to the Collective Action Fund (via the New Venture Fund), the entity that pays Sher Edling’s legal fees. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation similarly gave $500,000 to support CJP as well as $150,000 to the Collective Action Fund.  

Put succinctly, the JPB Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation are paying for numerous climate change lawsuits and for an alarming influence-peddling operation directly targeting judges. ClimateWorks, an organization financed by climate activist organizations such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation also gave $1 million to the CJP.  

The CJP does not disclose the identities of the over 2,000 judges who have attended its events or briefings, so the public has no way to determine if their elected judges have participated in or been influenced by its agenda. Most alarmingly, some public sources speak to a partnership between CJP and the Federal Judicial Center. The FJC is the research and education agency of the U.S. courts. 

Fortunately, despite the aggressive propaganda campaign carried out by the CJP, some judges remain unconvinced. On July 11, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Videtta Brown properly ruled that any effort to deal with greenhouse gas emissions falls under the federal Clean Air Act and must be governed by federal, not individual state laws. The judge noted that “[g]lobal pollution-based complaints were never intended by Congress to be handled by individual states,” and she described the litigation as an attempt to circumvent our constitutional system of federalism.

Governors, attorneys general, judicial ethics authorities, and leaders of state oversight committees must take notice and stop the CJP’s blatant efforts to corrupt state judges and force court decisions against America’s energy providers we all rely on. State resources and taxpayer dollars should never be used to advance an overtly political, anti-energy propaganda tour. Judges and their staffs would be well advised to decline information and briefings offered by CJP activists

The Honorable Jason Isaac is the Founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute, a Senior Fellow with Life:Powered at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and a proponent of a high carbon lifestyle. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

Originally published in Real Clear Policy.

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