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@UCSUSA “Union of Concerned Scientists” seem more concerned with funding frivolous lawsuits

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Excerpts:

Advocacy Group Pays Conference Fees for Mayor to Promote Energy Lawsuits

Santa Cruz mayor will tout lawsuit against Exxon to other mayors

An environmental advocacy group is paying the registration fees for Santa Cruz mayor Martine Watkins (D.) to attend the United States Conference of Mayors Summit in Hawaii later this month, where Watkins will speak in favor of governments suing large energy producers over climate change.

Santa Cruz is one of many California municipal governments that have filed nuisance complaints against companies such as Exxon, BP, and Chevron asking courts to order the creation of “abatement funds” to pay for past and future damages resulting from climate change.

Watkins told the Washington Free Beacon by email last week that the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) “has offered to cover the conference registration cost on my behalf.  I’m using personal funds to cover the remainder of costs.”

UCS later confirmed the transaction was already completed.

…

“I’ve been invited to participate in the Climate Mayors Summit on June 26 in Honolulu as a member of a roundtable exchange, to share information about our climate action work,” Watkins wrote in the local paper Santa Cruz Sentinel.

“Although I’ll be attending as the Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, I will not be using any city funds, resources, or taxpayer dollars. I am personally committed to using this national platform to advocate on behalf of our city, and ultimately, the sustainability of our planet for future generations.”

“I will specifically speak to our lawsuit against the largest fossil fuel corporations seeking to hold them accountable for their reprehensible contributions to climate change.”

The UCS has agitated for exactly these kinds of legal actions.

Documents previously published by Chris Horner of conservative watchdog group Government Accountability and Oversight showed that in 2016, UCS was co-host for a “safe space” meeting at Harvard University including activists, government officials, and lawyers to discuss possible legal actions by governments against energy producers.

Another email, also obtained by Horner, showed that in 2015 UCS was already strategizing along these lines, writing that “we think there’ll likely be a strong basis for encouraging state (e.g. [attorney general]) action forward and, in that context, opportunities for climate scientists to weigh in.”

UCS’s underwriting of program fees for Watkins could possibly violate California ethics laws.

Full story here

state-AG's-offbooks

More shenanigans with State AG’s paying Enviro-lawyers off the books

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Embedded AG fellows raise concerns

Bloomberg nonprofit pays salaries of lawyers working for Dem AGs

Coverage from CommonWealth Magazine by Sarah Betancourt – excerpts:

A NONPROFIT BACKED with money from Michael Bloomberg is paying the salaries of 14 lawyers who are working on environmental and climate change issues for Democratic attorneys general around the country, including Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law, created in 2017 with $6 million in funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, has raised concerns in a handful of states about a private organization funding the pay of employees at a public law enforcement agency.

‘“It looked inappropriate to me, that someone could go to the AG and say, ‘Hey I want to fund two positions to bring lawsuits in an area I’m interested in,”’ said Cameron Macdonald, executive director of the Government Justice Center in New York, a conservative taxpayer watchdog group.

Macdonald filed a complaint with the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, an oversight and compliance agency in New York, but heard nothing back. “This is like a workaround, allowing for AGs offices to bypass their legislatures to get funding for pet projects,” he said.

…

In Massachusetts, Healey’s office is being sued by the nonprofit Energy Policy Advocates in Suffolk Superior Court over unreleased documents pertaining to the fellowships. The group is claiming the state’s public records law covers documents exchanged between Healey’s office and the State Impact Center. The group appears to be seeking the documents in connection with its interest in lawsuits involving Healey and ExxonMobil over climate change.Meet the Author

Healey’s office says the fellows who work in her office are paid $72,450 and $94,500 by the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center. (They don’t show up on state payroll records.)

Full story here

NY_atty_general

Judge Says NY AG May Have to Turn Over Reports About Privately-Funded Lawyers

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Excerpts From InsideSources by Jessica R. Towhey

A New York state Supreme Court judge ruled Wednesday that ExxonMobil may access quarterly reports on a special program in the New York Attorney General’s office funded by a private, outside interest that officials have fought to keep secret.

ExxonMobil is seeking the documents as part of its defense against a years’ long investigation and legal wranglings on the part of New York Attorney General Letitia James that alleges the company misled investors about how climate change regulations could impact its business.

Under state Supreme Court Judge Barry R. Ostrager’s ruling, the Attorney General’s office will turn over the reports to him, and he may decide to provide them to ExxonMobil after review. The reports presumably will show what Special Assistant Attorneys General Matthew Eisenson and Gavin McCabe, who are funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies through the NYU Law School’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, have been working on since joining the office in 2017.

…

The Bloomberg-funded program places lawyers with five to 10 years of experience practicing environmental law into Attorneys’ General offices to “advance progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions,” according to an email obtained by a former fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who has been pursuing information on the program. There are at least seven states, including New York, that participate in the program. The Wall Street Journal called the program “ethically dubious” in a recent editorialand noted that documents being sought by legal observers and ExxonMobil “may reveal a trail of influence peddling.”

…

“Over the years, significant evidence has been disclosed in the public record showing that the New York Attorney General’s investigation of ExxonMobil–and now this lawsuit–were done in close coordination with outside groups that are financially and politically motivated,” said Phil Goldberg, special counsel for Manufacturers’ Accountability Project. “The goal of these private groups is to weaken the energy manufacturing industry, rather than seeking justice. Today’s hearing helped further expose this unfortunate reality to the public, and we continue to urge the Attorney General to adhere to basic principles of transparency that should be required of every public official.”

Full story here

Worcester Telegram covers GAO lawsuit against @MassAGO office

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Excerpts:

Massachusetts AG and Supervisor of Public Records are targets of records lawsuit

By James F. Russell, Correspondent

Posted Jun 12, 2019 at 2:49 PM Updated Jun 12, 2019 at 4:30 PM

BOSTON – A multimillion-dollar fund established by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat with a net worth Forbes.com estimates at $56 billion, is at the center of a lawsuit filed against two Massachusetts Democrats who hold statewide offices.

Approximately $6 million was gifted from a foundation established by Mr. Bloomberg to the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, based at New York University School of Law, The The Washington Post reported in August 2017.

A principal aim of the lawsuit is to shine light on whether Attorney General Maura Healey’s office has accessed private attorneys who would be paid from that fund – instead of the state picking up the tab – regarding environment enforcement actions – and whether such an arrangement is proper. The plaintiff in the case says the complaint was filed to try to force the attorney general to release records about possible arrangements between her office and the Impact Center.

The Impact Center’s website says they “support state attorneys general in defending and promoting clean energy, climate and environmental laws and policies. The non-partisan State Impact Center provides assistance to attorneys general in a number of ways.”

That includes: “Working with interested attorneys general to identify and hire NYU Law Fellows who serve as special assistant attorneys general in state attorney general offices, focusing on clean energy, climate and environmental matters.”

During a March 5 press conference organized by the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, Ms. Healey said, “We are proud to work with the Center. … Our work is about combating climate change. … In the face of efforts to take us backwards, to ruin the health and well-being of the planet, we will continue to see this administration in court,” a reference to the myriad lawsuits she is involved with targeting President Donald Trump’s administration.

Ms. Healey and Secretary of State William F. Galvin are being sued for allegedly failing to uphold the state public records law – Ms. Healey for allegedly not providing public documents, and Mr. Galvin for allegedly not compelling her to do so.

The complaint also alleges their offices worked in tandem to withhold information – what the lawsuit claims were “ex parte” communications.

Citing the active litigation, the Secretary of State’s office declined to comment.

…

It sought, “all opinions. … concluding that a Special Assistant Attorney General, or anything else provided by NYU, does or does not constitute an impermissible gift,” and “all correspondences sent to, from” Ms. Healey’s chief of staff, involving New York University.

Assistant Attorney General Lorraine Tarrow denied the request, stating on Feb. 22 in a letter that the information is “not subject to disclosure. … as they are records specifically exempted … by statute … as they are personnel files … some of these records are privileged attorney-client communications that are likewise protected.”

Mr. Hardin appealed the Tarrow denial to Supervisor of Public Records Rebecca Murray.

In her six-page determination issued on March 15, Ms. Murray wrote: “To deny access. … a records access officer must identify the record, categories of the records, or portions of the record it intends to withhold … Therefore, the AGO (attorney general’s office) must provide additional information regarding the nature of the responsive records.”

…

Suffolk Superior Court ordered the DAs to provide the records, back in November, but the three refused, and appealed the decision.

The case is expected to go before the state Supreme Judicial Court later this year.

Full story HERE

GAO-4

GAO Files Suit Against Department of Interior

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FOIA suit seeks records concerning leaks, coordination of staff with outside parties, possible improper removal of records

For immediate release.

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. (GAO), filed suit against the Department of the Interior on behalf of the public policy transparency group Energy Policy Advocates (EPA). This federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit seeks records relating to the tenure of a senior Interior official who recently departed to work for the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, a body which has ramped up investigations of its new hire’s former employer and colleagues. 

EPA believes the information it seeks may be related to high-profile leaks out of Interior, and to certain aspects of and demands by those subsequent congressional investigations. There has been widespread media and public interest in those matters. 

Chris Horner, who filed suit for GAO, noted that

“Today’s suit comes amid information, already in the public domain, suggesting a larger, coordinated effort under way to prompt investigations into individuals in numerous agencies including Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency.” Horner continued, “That campaign regularly alleges coordination by public officials with outside interests, seemingly to delegitimize all policy actions with which the particular officials are associated. Similarly, the records EPA seeks in this suit are of great public interest.”

That campaign also is occurring amid revelations of activist donors placing their own employees in law enforcement officesat the state level to pursue the donors’ agenda, attorneys general instigating investigations at the urging of plaintiffs’ lawyers, issues which GAO is at the forefront of exposing. Further, activists are ‘doxxing’ and otherwise harassing public employees who dare pursue policy reforms, reflecting a disturbing trend, discouraging qualified citizens with useful experience from entering public service. This proxy war also blocks reforms, with serious policy and legal implications. 

Interior owed EPA responses to these requests in May, after having also afforded itself extensions of time. It has failed to provide any substantive response, prompting today’s suit.


Government Accountability & Oversight is a 501(c)3 non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to transparency in government on matters of energy, environment and law enforcement.

The lawsuit filed today is here:

US-dept-of-interior-lawsuitDownload
GAO-4

GAO Files Suit against MA AG Healey for Refusing to Release Records re Bloomberg-Funded Special Assistant AGs, Tort Bar Instigation of Investigations

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Secretary of State Named as Co-Defendant; Complaint Reveals Ex Parte Communications

Today, with local counsel Tim Cornell of Cornell Dolan, P.C., the public interest law firm Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. (GAO) filed suit against Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey under that state’s public records law on behalf of the nonprofit group Energy Policy Advocates (EPA). The suit seeks to compel the AG to release documents shedding light on the use of law enforcement to advance private interests.

The two matters at issue are AG Healey investigating private parties at the urging of the plaintiffs’ tort bar and environmental activists, and her work with billionaire activist and major Democratic Party donor Michael Bloomberg in his attempt to capture AG offices to pursue his ideological agenda. Since August 2018 Ms. Healey has led the recruiting of AGs for a “State Impact Center” Bloomberg created to hire and place “Special Assistant Attorneys General” (SAAGs), and provide other private resources and counsel, for friendly offices to pursue matters of concern to the donor.

Healey has brought two Bloomberg SAAGs into the Commonwealth’s top legal office, but to date her Office has refused to release records reflecting what it promised Bloomberg’s group in return, such as its “application”. These applications can be revealing — already Virginia’s legislature has acted to ban its AG, Mark Herring, from following through on his written promise to use his office “to advance the agenda represented by” Bloomberg’s group. GAO has filed suit against that Office seeking to obtain records relating to the breathtaking confession. Oregon’s legislative counsel has declared that the scheme violates state law. Maryland’s AG plainly violated state law in appointing its Bloomberg “SAAG”. The public deserves to see AG Healey’s statements made to a major party donor to obtain privately funded prosecutors.

Healey’s office also refuses to produce six pages of emails it acknowledges exist from the critical January – April 2016 period when plaintiffs’ lawyer Matt Pawa was recruiting for “a single sympathetic attorney general” to subpoena private parties’ records, and give the activists’ desired tort litigation campaign a lift. Mr. Pawa clearly found his two AGs in Ms. Healey and then-AG Eric Schneiderman of New York. Recently, the NY OAG similarly refused to let the public see five emails with Pawa from the same period  by implausibly claiming Pawa is a “whistleblower”.

For its part, Healey’s office claims that releasing any details of these six pages of emails, even just the To, From and Date fields, would “impact” its climate investigations and current or planned litigation to the point of derailing it. This claim seems to prove far too much.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Supervisor of Records is statutorily charged with reviewing administrative appeals of public records denials. As the complaint details, the Supervisor owed EPA a fair and transparent appellate process. It has refused to rule on EPA’s appeal for the emails with the tort bar about instigating AG Healey’s “climate” investigations. Emails and other records demonstrate that OAG successfully and repeatedly sought Ms. Murray ought to discuss those emails and OAG’s desire that they not be released for public inspection.

The complaint attaches documents EPA has obtained proving extensive ex parte communications between OAG and the Supervisor on the subject. The Secretary’s refusal to even rule on EPA’s appeal follows its bizarre self-reversal on the same emails, in a similar appeal, in the face of persistent behind the scenes pressure from OAG. OAG in turn relied on that reversal as its basis for denying EPA’s request. EPA details this in its complaint that therefore names both offices as defendants in this action.

The second ruling adverse to OAG occurred while OAG’s records officer, AAG Lorraine Tarrow, was out of town. Upon Ms. Tarrow returning to her Office to find this, the Supervisor of Records suddenly reversed its own thoughtful order which had detailed the appropriate law and precedent requiring release. This seemingly came out of the blue. Emails show that it did not.

Reflecting this culmination of OAG efforts to influence the Supervisor, AAG Tarrow, in an April 11, 2019 email to colleagues forwarding the reversal to colleagues, cryptically wrote of this remarkable turn of events, simply, “Any questions re: the route this determination took and/or the email below, let me know”.

GAO’s Chris Horner, who detailed the available evidence about both the plaintiffs’ and Bloomberg’s climate schemes in his August 2018 paper “Law Enforcement for Rent”, states, “Clearly, both Massachusetts’s and New York’s attorneys general are deeply concerned about the public learning more about how plaintiffs’ lawyers and activists influenced their pursuit of those who oppose a political agenda. It is just as clear that that is what these emails document.”

“I’m proud of the work EPA has already done bringing transparency to Attorneys General Offices across the nation,” said Matthew Hardin, Energy Policy Advocates’ Executive Director. “Now that we’ve been stonewalled in Massachusetts, even to the point of off-books discussions between the OAG and Records Supervisor, I’m glad we were able to team up with the experienced team at Government Accountability & Oversight P.C. to bring suit and shine the disinfectant of sunlight on these matters.”

6.3.19-EPA-v-MA-OAG-and-SofC-Complaint (PDF)Download

Government Accountability & Oversight is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to transparency in public officials’ dealings on matters of energy, environment and law enforcement

Maryland AG Becomes First to Hide Plea for Bloomberg Money from Public

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On Monday afternoon, May 6, 2019, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh filed an Answer in response to an open records lawsuit by Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C., a suit that seeks Frosh’s application to Michael Bloomberg’s “Center for State Impacts” for a privately hired prosecutor to “advanc[e] progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions.”

That Center hired and is paying an attorney $125,000 plus benefits to serve as a “Pro Bono [sic] Special Counsel” in Frosh’s office in pursuit of issues of importance to Bloomberg and his Center. The group was organized for this purpose after the election of Donald Trump dealt the global warming agenda a setback.

As GAO details in its complaint, Frosh actually set the attorney’s six-figure salary before then appointing him a “pro bono” lawyer. 

This is problematic: as affirmed in 2015 in State vs. Westray, under Maryland law “’Pro bono,’ of course, means that not only does the client not need to pay, but also the attorney represents the client without compensation.” 

GAO has subsequently learned that Frosh first appointed the lawyer on January 3, 2018, but without citing to any authority under Maryland law, which apparently does not exist. Then in another letter dated two weeks later — though apparently back-dated, as it was emailed to the lawyer over two months later — Frosh then appointed him citing to the inapplicable “pro bono” provision.

Maryland OAG’s defiance represents a landmark refusal to provide a document that, while surely politically embarrassing and possibly offering legal or ethical peril, is not privileged.

That makes Frosh’s Office the only attorney general’s office to claim, brazenly, that whatever it promised to Bloomberg’s group, it is properly hidden from the public’s view.

Not neighboring Virginia or the District of Columbia or Virginia, not Illinois, New York, Vermont, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington state…

Only Brian Frosh.

Interestingly, last week Frosh’s Office released just under 100 pages of correspondence about this scheme from the GMail account he uses to communicate with Bloomberg’s group, and other Bloomberg consultants.  These show that Brian Frosh was in fact the state attorney general driving this scheme, for Bloomberg’s group, of placing privately funded lawyers in OAGs. 

Frosh gave the pitch in a conference call to the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) members, and served as the “sponsor” in the National Association of Attorneys General. Other emails show Bloomberg’s group praising Frosh’s leadership role in the scheme.

This reality of Frosh’s use of a private account for this purpose — GAO has also learned it is the practice of the Bloomberg group to use AG and OAG officials’ non-official accounts — slipped through in an earlier public records production. That contained an email the AG had forwarded to a colleague, leading to the request that produced these records (Maryland also withheld some unstated number of emails from Frosh’s GMail account as privileged).

Now, Brian Frosh is the one AG who wants to keep whatever it is he promised Bloomberg’s operation free from public scrutiny. The public deserves to know what Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh is trying to hide.

References: (PDF)

Release re: suit vs. Maryland Office o the Attorney General https://climatelitigationwatch.org/gao-complaint-against-maryland-ag-frosh/ 

Froshs heavily redacted Bloomberg Application, 1st withholdingDownload
Froshs heavily redacted Bloomberg Application, 2nd withholdingDownload
MD NYU App productions Side by SideDownload

Complaint w appendices https://climatelitigationwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2019-02-22-Complaint-with-Appendices.pdf 

Video: Law Enforcement For Rent In Maryland https://climatelitigationwatch.org/video-law-enforcement-for-rent-in-maryland/ 

GAO Briefs Virginia Court on Desperate Move by Attorney General Herring to Avoid FOIA Disclosure

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By Chris Horner

Yesterday, Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C., with local counsel Graven Craig, responded to a risible effort (see PDF document here) recently filed by Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring, styled as a “Plea of Nulla Bona”, in a public records suit in the Circuit Court for Richmond (Virginia).

That “artful pleading” came in a state Freedom of Information (FOIA) suit relating to a national scandal, filed by GAO on behalf of Virginia citizen and taxpayer Chris Horner, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). 

Specifically, the suit seeks to obtain what legal analysis could possibly have led Herring’s Office to vow, to a group funded by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg, that the AG has legal authority to accept a Bloomberg-funded “Special Assistant Attorney General “to advance the agenda represented by” Bloomberg’s group.

That agenda is to “advanc[e] progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions”.

Virginia’s legislature recently slapped down OAG’s effort to join Bloomberg’s scheme, in a remarkable application for private resources “to advance the agenda represented by” the donor’s group.

OAG insists it has “no records” preparing or reflecting how it arrived at this outrageous position, despite the remarkable claim also flying in the face of the Virginia State Code, and even the Office’s own Special Counsel Policy.

On January 28, 2019, the Court overruled the AG’s highly questionable, first filing, a Demurrer (Virginia’s version of failure to state a claim), and instructed him “to file an Answer to the Petitioner’s Petition within 21 days of the date of entry of this Order”. On the date that Answer was due, February 18, 2019, the AG defied the Court and refused to do so, instead filing an extraordinary invention it calls a “Plea of Nulla Bona”.

As GAO points out in its brief, a Plea of Nulla Bona is not in fact a thing but was apparently concocted ad hoc to once again avoiding answering Horner’s petition.

As GAO also points out, this may well be related to OAG’s repeated hints that there are documents they would, if pressed, claim as exempt “working papers” but just don’t feel that they should have to identify them. That’s not how FOIA works. It also could be that the Office cannot help its instincts to deny by delay, or to cause the expenditure of ever more taxpayer and private resources in the process.

Regardless of the Virginia AG’s objectives, add this to the list of extraordinary moves by AGs lured into an ethically and legally dubious scheme to advance a major political donor’s agenda using their law enforcement offices. The parties will argue this matter next week in Richmond.

Reference:

2019-04-24 P Brief in Support of Motion to Strike Pleading and Motion for DJ – HornerDownload

GAO

Ten Questions for ‘Climate Industry Entrepreneur of the Year’, Gov. Jay Inslee

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As Washington Gov. Jay Inslee comes to Capitol Hill Tuesday to teach us “lessons from across the nation: state and local action to combat climate change”, public records — including some released here for the first time — offer the public a few eye-opening lessons about what Gov. Jay Inslee has been up to.

Ten Questions for Climate Industry Entrepreneur of the Year, Gov. Jay Inslee

Gov. Inslee, public records demonstrate your remarkable entrepreneurial spirit, unique in the Climate Industry. This manifests itself in, e.g., the serial announcement of ‘groups’ that, while they generally do not in fact exist (they are websites), do somehow have millions of dollars worth of consultants, lawyers and report-writers to promote your ‘leadership’ on a matter you have adopted as your signature issue.  

Sometimes the money is from donors — e.g., the multi-million dollar websites “US Climate Alliance” and Governors Climate Alliance — and sometimes the money is taken from taxpayers — “Pacific Coast Collaborative” and the the campaign to tell the “West Coast Story”. 

Always, however, these enterprises are dedicated to promoting Gov. Jay Inslee’s climate ‘leadership’, with lots of staff, public relations and other and consultants. Indeed, they seem to be dedicated to promoting Jay Inslee, “his climate profile” and his ambitions.

Public records show that you have contracted out your office as a consultant for an environmentalist pressure group, World Resources Institute (WRI), in at least two agreements providing hundreds of thousands of dollars of private underwriting for your use of the Office of the Governor.

These consulting arrangements include for you to use the Office of Governor “to perform those services described” for the client — specifically to “[t]ake forward new and existing policies” among other prescribed climate activism (Contract Number K2154); and, to engage in more advocacy as Governor on “issues and communications related to climate and clean energy policy development” (Contract Number K2575).

Public records also show that your Office is transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in taxpayer money, including apparently a quarter of a million Washington State taxpayer dollars, to pay consultants also to promote your climate advocacy and platform (Contract Number K2191).

This entrepreneurship, unique even in the norm-busting Climate Industry, would be newsworthy in any year. It is particularly so this year. Your honored position, having your own panel before the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee, affirms this.

Given this very deliberate and indeed unprecedented record of “profile-building”, these very same issues for which you have contracted the Governor’s office as a vendor, re-routed taxpayer money, and recruited donor funds to be routed through a non-profit, we have a few important questions, the answers to which should be of great public interest:

  1. Do you see any campaign finance-related or ethics issues with running donor money through a non-profit to develop and promote what turns out to have been your national “profile”?
  2. If not, is there something unique about your relationship with the Hewlett Foundation and United Nations Foundation, which provided these benefits for your climate policy campaigning? (e.g., Contract K2575; also, the US Climate Alliance your staff organized to be run out of the UN Foundation with, so far, at least $1,435,000 from Hewlett Foundation)
  3. Same questions, but about policy groups coordinating these donor efforts with your Office?
  4. Do you see any campaign-finance-related or ethics issues with contracting out one’s public office as a consultant to, e.g., the National Rifle Association, American Petroleum Institute, or National Right to Life, to “take forward new and existing policies” of interest to those non-profits? If not, is there something unique about your relationship with the Hewlett Foundation? (e.g., Contracts K2154, K2575)
  5. Do you see any campaign-finance-related or ethics issues with running taxpayer money through a consultancy to to develop and promote what turns out to have been your national “profile”? (e.g., Contract K2191)?
  6. What is the functional difference between what your US Climate Alliance partner Gov. Andrew Cuomo is under FBI investigation for doing, and what you are doing in redirecting at least a quarter million dollars of Washington State taxpayer money from various agencies’ budgets via Contract K2191? From the public record, the sole distinction appears to be that you are arranging for taxpayer money to pay non-state employees (consultants to promote your climate efforts), as opposed to paying in-office staff (Cuomo).
  7. Do you see it as an appropriate use of tax-exempt status for any non-profit policy group to contract with donors to hire non-staff ‘staff’ for elected officials? To allow donors to finance use of the non-profit’s staff to run an elected official’s advocacy campaign? Or, is there something unique about your relationship with the United Nations Foundation, which contracted with the Hewlett Foundation to finance the hiring of ‘staff’ for, subcontracting its own staff for, and running your “US Climate Alliance” with donor funding?
  8. Do you see it as an appropriate use of tax-exempt status for any activist donor group to directly provide six-figure report-writing services to elected officials, and the public relations services to promote them? Or is there something unique about your relationship with the Hewlett Foundation which provided these benefits for your climate policy campaigning?
  9. That is, do you see any campaign-finance-related or ethics issues with a public office-holder contracting out his office as a consultant by which, e.g., the National Rifle Association, American Petroleum Institute, or National Right to Life, hire, pay for and place an advisor in the elected official’s office?
  10. Your staff informed the Wall Street Journal editorial board that there was “no direct relationship to WA” between Hewlett Foundation money run through WRI and payment for your climate policy advisor, Reed Schuler. Your office copied your Policy Director Keith Phillips on the email. However, numerous public records show Mr. Phillips specifically boasted about Hewlett’s behind-the-scenes involvement in arranging for the placement and payment of your in-office climate policy advisor. Do you stand by the statement that your Office was unaware of the source of the funding, and/or that Hewlett was not in fact the source of activist funding of your policy “staff”?

REFERENCES:

Contracts obtained through FOI:

Contract to underwrite Inslee Gov Office climate comms & issue advocacy

Ross Inslee contract to pay Ross Cascadia & Resource Media

K2154 WRI contract signed (07.13.2017)

GAO

Virginia Governor leaves restrictions against Bloomberg climate meddling with AG office intact in new budget

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GAO previously reported the good news that Virginia’s elected representatives rejected Bloomberg’s money, saying he can’t buy his way into Virginia law enforcement via planting attorneys in the Virginia Attorney General office. AG Mark Herring has asked for Bloomberg’s resources “to advance the agenda represented by” a group created to  “advanc[e] progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions”.  GAO applauded the Virginia General Assembly’s willingness to say “no” to outside special interests trying to use those positions to leverage our judicial system to impose a failed policy agenda.

In the document recently posted on the Virginia General Assembly website titled “Budget Amendments – HB1700 (Governor’s Recommendations)” there is good news; Governor Ralph Northam chose not to challenge (or otherwise draw attention to) that restriction on AG Herring’s Office, meaning it will be in effect once the new fiscal year begins in July.

There is one mention of climate in the Governor’s recommendations and amendments: (emphasis added)

“I am proposing several language-only amendments that undo restrictions the General Assembly has placed on the use of state funding. …Two amendments remove language that would restrict the Commonwealth’s ability to join and use proceeds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an important way for us to address the negative effects of climate change.”

Virginia may or may not succeed in joining and using taxpayer fund to enable RGGI, and its cap-and-trade scheme. This language does add throwing money at the “negative effects of climate change”, on top of demands to address impacts of negative weather — such as increased road maintenance after a severe winter — which in Virginia like elsewhere is now largely attributed to climate change, and human influence.

Sources in the VA legislature report that Governor Northam tinkered with enough items in that budget that it looks like a “veto session” is forthcoming. That discussion to come before July 1st, 2019, when the VA budget is due to become law, will likely re-open certain issues of dispute. 

On the budget, the only votes will be on whether or not to accept the Governor’s line amendments. Anything untouched — like this slap at the AG canoodling with his party’s (and Herring’s) mega-donor Bloomberg — is in and stays in. If Gov. Northam vetoes the entire budget because he don’t agree on one of those changes, that’s new territory. 

GAO will continue to monitor and report on the situation.

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