Left-Wing Dark Money Giant Funds Dem Lawsuits Against Oil Companies—and Trainings for Judges on How To Handle Those Cases
The New Venture Fund (NVF), a behemoth left-wing dark money charity, wired $2.3 million last year to the law firm that dozens of Democratic prosecutors have contracted to spearhead high-stakes climate litigation against oil companies, according to its latest tax filings. At the same time, it bankrolled a group that advises judges on how to handle those cases.
The NVF’s support for the San Francisco-based Sher Edling isn’t new—in fact, it has funneled nearly $11 million to the firm through a nondescript fund it has fiscally sponsored since 2021. In its latest tax filings, however, the NVF also reported donating $1.3 million to the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), a D.C.-based legal nonprofit that trains judges on how to handle the very type of litigation Sher Edling is pursuing on behalf of Democratic states and cities.
It’s the first time the NVF has contributed to the ELI and it signals the latest escalation in the fund’s efforts to target the oil industry through the judicial system. It also raises ethics questions about whether the fund is attempting to stack the deck by funding both the lawyers leading the cases—which are aimed at bankrupting America’s largest oil companies—and trainings that could sway judges to side with those lawyers.
Since its founding in 2016, Sher Edling has received more than $16 million from the NVF-sponsored fund and has simultaneously taken up lawsuits against the oil industry on behalf of at least nine Democrat-run states and more than a dozen Democrat-run cities, which are collectively home to a quarter of the U.S. population.
The lawsuits accuse oil companies of causing global warming, deceiving the public about the harms of fossil fuels, and, therefore, bearing responsibility for damages stemming from extreme weather events.
Sher Edling filed one such lawsuit on behalf of the city and county of Honolulu in 2020 in an attempt to force Sunoco, ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP—among others—to pay for the cost of damages stemming from coastal erosion, tropical storms, and flooding in the state. In late 2023, Hawaii’s highest court handed Sher Edling a significant victory in the case, with Hawaii supreme court chief justice Mark Recktenwald ruling the case may proceed and that the court would not “unduly limit Hawaii’s ability to use its police powers to protect its citizens.”
As the case pended before the high court months earlier, though, Recktenwald participated in an ELI seminar and presented a course titled, “Rising Seas and Litigation: What Judges Need to Know About Warming-Driven Sea Level Rise.” Recktenwald participated in a separate ELI seminar related to climate litigation in December 2022.
It remains unclear whether other judges who have presided over Sher Edling’s cases have participated in the ELI—the group doesn’t disclose the names of participants and is tight-lipped about its activities. But the institute states on its website that more than 2,000 judges have participated in its events and trainings.
The group recently scrubbed the names of judges who it had worked with and who had heaped praise on it from its website. “I am welcomely absorbing everything that has been brought to us and I look forward to carrying that forward and paying it forward,” Indiana state appellate court judge Sam Scheele wrote in a now-deleted testimonial.
The deletions came after a Fox News report in July revealed an online forum the ELI created for judges to communicate about issues related to climate litigation. Participating judges used the forum to discuss the latest climate studies, state court cases, and upcoming environmental events. The institute removed the forum in August.
The ELI has argued its activities are nonpartisan and are not designed to sway judges’ opinions. Critics, though, have noted its funding largely comes from large left-wing foundations and that its own publicly available materials present biased arguments.
For example, one document in its curriculum definitively states “the level of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, arising mostly from fossil fuels and industry, will be the most important determinant of climate risks and impacts.” Another document outlines in detail how prosecutors, like those in the Sher Edling cases, can ensure their arguments against oil companies prevail in court. And a third argues a “business-as-usual” approach to fighting global warming would be “catastrophic.”
“[The ELI] has established a de facto monopoly on climate-related instruction for the judiciary,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) remarked during a June hearing he hosted about environmental lawfare. “They claim to be science-driven, but what they are doing is ex parte indoctrination, pressuring judges to set aside the rule of law and rule instead according to a predetermined political narrative.”
In addition to sharing the same source of funding, the ELI has worked with Sher Edling’s lawyers to develop its curriculum and seminar presentations. Sher Edling counsel Michael Burger has participated in multiple events the group has hosted while former Sher Edling lawyer Meredith Wilensky served as a public interest law fellow at the group.
And UCLA professor Ann Carlson, a former Biden administration official, provided pro bono consulting for Sher Edling while serving on the ELI’s board of directors for years. Carlson also worked with environmental philanthropist Dan Emmett to raise money for Sher Edling in 2017. Since then, Emmett’s foundation has given $25,000 to the ELI.
ELI spokesman Nick Collins said in a statement that shared philanthropic support does not create “partiality or a conflict of interest,” noting the group receives support from a wide range of sources. “Donors routinely support many different institutions with different missions—that has no bearing on ELI’s independence,” Collins said. “No funder dictates our work.”
“New Venture Fund works with numerous projects and institutional funders to advance their missions on a variety of issues, including education, health care, and the environment, the NVF added in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon. “NVF’s role is to support project grantmaking, compliance, and other administrative needs.”
Sher Edling did not respond to a request for comment.
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