The billionaire-funded climate litigation campaign against American energy companies has accomplished little in the near decade since its start, with the cases mired in procedural issues and setbacks along the way. Recognizing this, it appears the leaders of the Rockefeller foundations – the central strategists and financial backers of the lawsuits – have decided to hedge their lawfare bets and pursue
Read More...The City of Chicago today announced a climate lawsuit against oil companies, making it the latest city to dedicate taxpayer resources towards a billionaire-backed lawfare campaign that, to date, has only lost on the merits. The lawsuit is supported by familiar faces. The city is being represented by San Francisco-based plaintiffs’ firm Sher Edling, LLP, the law firm serving
Read More...California’s hostile energy policies have led to the highest prices at the pump in the nation, rolling blackouts, increased foreign imports to keep the state running, and as seen in news this week, made investments in oil and gas production and refining increasingly risky. Just last month California Attorney General Rob Bonta traveled to COP28
Read More...We are heading into the twelfth year of the national litigation campaign against America’s energy industry – but you wouldn’t know it from looking at it. Despite this decade of assaults from activists, the lawsuits have failed to deliver a penny of the millions of dollars in damages government officials claim to be seeking, and
Read More...New financial statements reveal that anti-energy activists, the groups that fund them, and the politicians whom the control all continue to profit from the very same industries they routinely demonize. In 2014, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) – a backer of anti-Keystone XL pipeline and nationwide fossil fuel divestment campaigns – pledged to divest the
Read More...California politicians apparently want to discuss the state’s climate lawsuit anywhere but in California itself. First, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the lawsuit with a New York Times exclusive followed by a Times interview at Climate Week NYC. Then, Newsom couldn’t help himself from declaring California to be the energy industry’s new “foe” during last Thursday’s Red State vs. Blue State Debate, where
Read More...This week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) joined Senate Republicans in voting to strip the salary of embattled National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) Acting Administrator Ann Carlson. On Tuesday, the Senate voted on an amendment to a spending bill that would defund Carlson’s position as Acting Administrator, a role that Republicans in the Senate claim
Read More...Last October, New Jersey’s brand-new Attorney General Matt Platkin filed a climate lawsuit following years of activist pressure in the state. Platkin quickly retained Sher Edling, the law firm representing nearly two dozen plaintiffs in climate lawsuits on a contingency fee basis, while simultaneously accepting outside funds from billionaires and Hollywood stars. Although the contingency fee arrangements in
Read More...When NPR’s Rockefeller-funded Climate Desk article “broke” the news on a new report this week, it took absolutely no time at all to connect the dots to the usual anti-fossil fuel crew behind the effort. A closer look at the report – and reporting – reveals a classic “who’s who” of the funders, activists, and
Read More...As senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to probe Sher Edling’s financing and consulting relationships, new evidence suggests yet another “advisor” has closer ties to the firm than previously revealed. New information reveals that University of Vermont Law professor emeritus Pat Parenteau, a longtime commenter on climate litigation in the media, has worked directly with Sher
Read More...Four years after the climate lawsuit pushed by the New York Attorney General’s office was dealt a comprehensive defeat, California is putting forward its own case based on the same debunked theory that completely fell apart for Eric Schneiderman all those years ago – ironically, on New York’s turf and apparently ignorant that the Empire
Read More...In a wide-ranging, nearly four-hour hearing this Wednesday, members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform took a deep dive into the shadowy third-party litigation financing industry and the ethical issues that arise when well-funded activists manipulate the civil justice system. While some members of the Committee framed this potentially ethically-challenged financing method as providing
Read More...This Wednesday, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability will hold a hearing to shine a light on the lack of oversight and ethics rules that allow billionaires to push political agendas through the civil justice system with little to no transparency. For a case study of how shadowy nonprofits and foreign billionaires influence litigation, and
Read More...A wealthy national anti-fossil fuel organization that recruits municipal and state plaintiffs to file lawsuits against energy companies for the effects of climate change now appears to have its sights on Pennsylvania, America’s second largest natural gas producing state. The effort to encourage local officials to sue American energy companies will surely be a tough
Read More...The reviews on the climate lawsuit filed last month by Multnomah County, Oregon are in, and they aren’t pretty. The lawsuit, which attempts to blame a number of energy companies for the effects of the 2021 heat dome extreme weather event that hit Portland and the surrounding region, has been met with significant skepticism from across the
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