Climate justice group has deep ties to judges and experts involved in litigation amid claims of impartiality

FIRST ON FOX: A controversial legal advocacy organization funded by left-wing nonprofits continues to work with judges and experts involved in climate change litigation despite publicly downplaying the extent of those connections.

“CJP does not engage in litigation, support or coordinate with any litigants, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case,” wrote Jordan Diamond, president of the Institute’s Climate Justice Project. Environmental Law recent letter in The Wall Street Journal in response to criticism of the project.

The Washington, DC-based Environmental Law Institute (ELI) created the Climate Litigation Project (CJP) in 2018, establishing a first-of-its-kind resource to provide “reliable and up-to-date information” on climate change litigation . according to the group. The scope of the project has extended to several state and federal courts, including the powerful courts of appeals, and reaches several cities and states. pursue high-profile litigation against the oil industry.

A review by Fox News Digital shows that several expert CJP lawyers and judges have close ties to the curriculum and are deeply involved in climate litigation.

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Michael Oppenheimer, professor at Princeton University contributed to CJP curriculum and presented “Evidence of Change: Judging Climate Litigation” with CJP’s Sandra Nichols Thiam at the 2022 Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference on July 20, 2022.

Oppenheimer has a long history of presenting climate-related data short friends from 2019 to 2022 in litigation in several states.

Robin Kundis Craig, a professor at the University of Utah School of Law, wrote a module for CJP in 2022 and has also filed several amicus briefs showing that she is active in court cases.

An example occurred in 2023, when Craig appears in an order granting the lawyers’ request to file an amicus brief, which was signed by Judge Mark Recktenwald, who, Fox News Digital previously informedhe quietly revealed last year that he presented for an April course in collaboration with the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Justice Project.

Recktenwald co-presented at a December 2022 National Judicial College webinar sponsored by CJP, “Hurricanes in a Changing Climate and Related Litigation.” In 2023, he co-presented with Professor Robert DeConto at a National Judicial College seminar, “Rising Seas and Litigation: What Judges Need to Know about Warming-Driven Sea-Level Rise.”

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In October 2023, the Supreme Court of Hawaii in Recktenwald denied an appeal of oil companies to launch Honolulu climate disinformation suit.

Craig also filed an amicus brief in Hawaii state court in July 2022, where Judge Jeffrey Crabtree signed an order allowing the brief to be filed. Crabtree is a member of the National Judicial College’s Curriculum Development Committee, which creates curricula for “Essential environmental law for the judiciary”.

“Don’t underestimate the importance of the role of state court judges in environmental law,” the resume states indicates the website.

Ann Carlson, who joined the Biden administration in 2021served on ELI’s board of directors for years while also “providing pro bono consulting” for Sher Edling, an environmental law firm representing multiple jurisdictions, in litigation against oil companies, financial disclosures showed. Sher Edling’s attorney, Michael Burger, has also participated in several ELI events, and Sher Edling’s former attorney, Meredith Wilensky, was previously an ELI Public Interest Law Fellow.

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Burger is the executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and an ELI presenter who has filed amicus briefs in support of plaintiffs in climate cases in the United States.

UCLA’s Emmett Institute for Climate Change and the Environment hosted a talk in October 2017 with Sher Edling’s Vic Sher, “Suing for Climate Change Damages: The First Wave of Climate Lawsuits.” Ann Carlson moderated this discussion.

John Dernbach, who is listed as an expert on the CJP website, filed an amicus brief in 2019 as part of a legal scholars brief in support of the plaintiffs in City of Oakland v BP.

“Judges attending Climate Judicial Project events are told they are walking into a left-wing lobby shop,” American Energy Institute President Jason Isaac told Fox News Digital. “Under the guise of ‘judicial education’, CJP uses activist academics to give climate change lawsuits a leg up in plaintiffs’ favor. This kind of politics underscores that climate change lawsuits themselves are an attack left to our quality of life.

“The Supreme Court will have a chance early next year to hear a case asking whether blue states and far-left mayors like Brandon Johnson can sue energy providers over climate change. We hope the court take the case and end the Green New Deal law.”

Fox News Digital previously informed that since its foundation more than five years ago, the project has developed 13 curricular modules and hosted 42 acts, and more than 1,700 judges have participated in its activities. In addition, several judges serve as advisors to CJP, which may have an impact on its curriculum and modules.

“So-called ‘climate change lawsuits,’ lawsuits that claim private companies should be held monetarily responsible for damage to public infrastructure allegedly caused by climate change, have exploded in the past five years,” said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. he wrote in a letter at the Environmental Law Institute earlier this year.

“In conjunction with this unprecedented litigation, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) launched a ‘world-class effort’ to provide judges with ‘education about climate science, the impacts of climate change and the ways in which it is emerging climate science”. to the law.’ It appears that ELI’s purpose in providing this ‘education,’ however, may be to influence judges to side with plaintiffs in climate change cases.”

The letter went on to label Carlson as “one of the architects of the program” and requested “information that would allow the Committee to assess the efforts of both Ms. Carlson and ELI to influence the federal judiciary in its resolution of litigation climatic”.

Cruz alleged that “ELI intends to achieve through the courts what it cannot legislate: a radical environmental agenda.”

“To help judges make these ‘appropriate’ decisions, the Project developed ‘Climate Science and Law for Judges’ (the curriculum). Although the ELI claims that the project is ‘neutral’ and “objective,” the curriculum reads like a playbook for judges to rule in favor of plaintiffs in artificial climate change cases against traditional energy companies: it includes courses that “show how climate science is based on scientists long-established” disciplines” and “exploring the human-caused (global) warming component” such as “causal links between emissions” and “changes in climate”.

A report from the American Energy Institute earlier this year alleges CJP “hides its association with plaintiffs because they know that such ties create judicial ethics issues.”

AEI says that Sandra Nichols Thiam, ELI vice president and director of judicial education, acknowledged this in a 2023 press statement, saying, “If we even appeared to be biased or if there was a whiff of bias, we could not do what we’re doing.”

“Overall, it appears that CJP made the thinnest disclosures possible to create the appearance of rectitude,” AEI states. “But their admissions confirm that the CJP exists to facilitate informal and ex parte contacts between judges and climate activists under the guise of judicial education. And secrecy remains essential to its operation, the purpose of which, as said Thiam, is to develop “a body of law that supports climate action”.

AEI, a self-described group “dedicated to promoting policies that ensure America’s energy security and economic prosperity,” says CJP’s work is “an attack on the rule of law.”

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“In America, the powerful are not allowed to persuade and manipulate judges before their cases are heard,” the report states.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, an ELI spokesperson said: “CJP does not engage in litigation, support or coordinate with any litigating party, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case. Our courses provide judges with access to evidence-based information on climate science and trends in the law.

“Of course, subject matter experts are welcome to provide their expertise to CJP programs while providing the same expertise separately and independently in another setting unrelated to the CJP program. It is customary and encouraged that judges participate in continuous training that exposes them to experience in a wide variety of disciplines.”

Thomas Catenacci of Fox News Digital contributed to this report