A left-wing “environmental justice” group is indoctrinating judges on climate-related issues that may appear in cases before their courts, according to a new congressional report.
Titled “How Radical Environmental Special Interests Manipulate the Federal Judiciary,” the interim staff report released Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee shows how the leftist Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and its Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) seek to influence federal and state judges on so-called “climate science” in future related litigation. As reported by the Capital Research Center, ELI is heavily bankrolled by the Democrats’ dark money network.
“The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and its Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) falsely claim to provide federal and state judges with unbiased information about climate science so that judges may make more informed decisions when presiding over climate-related cases,” the report reads. “This targeted influence campaign undermines the American tradition of unbiased neutrality by predisposing federal and state judges in favor of plaintiffs alleging injuries from the manufacturing, marketing, or sale of fossil-fuel products.”
The analysis highlights various ELI and CJP activities it contends are aimed at “indoctrinat[ing]” judges into the left’s climate ideology.
This includes CJP’s alleged efforts to present “educational” seminars “that are designed to predispose judges to rule in favor of radical environmentalists.” The report notably describes CJP founder Paul Hanle’s comments from a transcribed interview with the committee, in which he said “that many judges do not believe that climate change is human-caused,” and that “CJP seminars have the express purpose of ‘educating’ judges that climate change is ‘real’ and is caused by humans.”
“In private emails to aligned academics, Dr. Hanle bragged about CJP’s success in persuading judges to accept unsettled matters of climate science and even admitted that CJP’s efforts would ‘make a great difference in the final outcome of cases,’” the committee analysis reads.
The report also discloses documents the committee says “show that CJP lacks a formal conflict-of-interest policy to ensure that authors and presenters at its seminars are not also participating in active climate litigation before the judges in attendance.” The analysis contends that the left-wing project alternatively performs “internal reviews conducted by its founder and senior staff to assess the neutrality of potential presenters and identify potential conflicts.”
“Although CJP states that it selects curriculum authors, presenters, and Advisory Committee members based on expertise, professional standing, objectivity, and presentation skills, the entity does not evaluate or disclose participants’ affiliations with climate litigants, advocacy organizations, or ongoing climate litigation,” the report reads.
The report additionally outlines the ongoing controversy surrounding the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) and the National Academies of Science’s most recent Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. While supposed to provide objective guidance to federal judges on scientific matters before them, it was discovered earlier this year that the manual included a climate science chapter littered with references to left-wing climate activists.
Backlash to the guide’s inclusion ultimately prompted the FJC and the National Academies to retract it from the manual earlier this year. This included pushback from President Trump, who instructed federal suspension and debarment officials to “review” the situation following The Federalist’s reporting on the subject.
The House Judiciary Committee’s report comes days before the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments in Suncor v. Boulder. The case deals with Boulder, Colorado’s state-based lawfare against several oil companies over what the former claims are “climate change”-related harms resulting from the latter’s activities.
