America’s Energy Independence Threatened By “Dark Money” Lawfare
Left-leaning nonprofits worry the Trump administration is going to commit “lawfare” against them. Whatever one thinks of the administration’s tactics, the concern is ironic because Team Trump didn’t invent lawfare, and the Left has long practiced it, most famously against Trump himself. Amazingly, the federal government even subsidizes an environmental group whose contribution to climate lawfare is to secretly lobby judges destined to rule on that lawfare.
The Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project has worked surreptitiously to shape the opinions of judges themselves, in hopes that those judges will hand down more favorable opinions. The Institute has quietly been leaving its mark on thousands of judges across America, raising eyebrows but little more.
Federal support for the Project’s parent organization is even stranger when one recalls the lavish funding of left-wing “dark money” groups to push their climate agenda. Prime donor examples include the New Venture Fund run by Arabella Advisors and the more innocent-sounding Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, which contributed $7 million between 2018 and 2020 to this “green” crusade.
The Project brags that thousands of American jurists have participated in its training, which reportedly tries to “manipulate judges.” The group, for example, has hosted judicial retreats and facilitated training “modules,” allegedly to merely “help” educate judges on issues that arise in climate cases.
The actual goal of the Climate Judiciary Project becomes clear when you discover the instructors for the curriculum are drawn largely from witnesses and amicus brief filers who support the environmental extremist side of climate lawfare. The Climate Judiciary Project is trying to influence both litigators and the judges before whom they appear to soften the ground for future climate litigation. No wonder the House Judiciary Committee recently launched an investigation into this meddling with judges.
The project’s parent group has received nearly $15 million in federal grants and contracts since 2008, mostly from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For these federal awards, the group issues technical support materials, assembles working groups, and provides “specialized policy expertise” for government officials. For the Trump administration, these grants amount to funding its own domestic political opposition. This federal funding also amounts to a meaningful share of the Environmental Law Institute’s bottom line, effectively subsidizing more overt activism like its Climate Judiciary Project.
The Project is a player in a broader influence operation. Groups like the Center for Climate Integrity and allied law firms are urging city councils and state attorneys general across the country to file climate lawsuits against oil and gas companies. These cases are designed to gum up operations and cost millions of dollars, potentially harming everyone who buys energy because those expenses roll downhill.
Beyond distorting our law and politics, this climate lawfare inflicts another harm on America: it suppresses production of reliable energy sources like natural gas in favor of weather-dependent windmills and solar panels.
Should taxpayer dollars underwrite a campaign designed to undercut energy independence fueled by reliable sources like natural gas, even though most Americans want natural gas production expanded? Around two dozen state attorneys general, outraged that the EPA is funding this special interest and its agenda, have written to demand that its tax dollars be cut off.
Beyond spiking energy prices for American families, climate lawfare also threatens to undermine U.S. energy dominance, ceding ground to Russia and Iran. The U.S. has already seen how an energy landscape beholden to hostile countries throws a wrench in the geopolitical balance.
For example, even as Western governments try to force Vladimir Putin out of Ukraine, the European Union continues to purchase natural gas from Russia because its own domestic production has been gutted by bad environmental policies. In fact, in 2024, the EU bloc spent more money on Russian energy than the value of financial aid given to Ukraine the same year. Translation: the West is shooting itself in the foot.
The Trump administration is working to put America First when it comes to energy, an agenda that will benefit working families and the broader free world. But the effort is falling prey to climate activism burrowing itself deep into the court system. Congress should, at the very least, shine a spotlight on this scheme and ensure taxpayer dollars are not supporting national self-sabotage.
