Climate Liability News recently announced that its closing its doors and folding itself in with the Drilled podcast and Heated newsletter to launch a combined “news” platform, Drilled News. While Drilled News’s website provides no information about its funders, nonprofit status, or founder, an investigation by Energy In Depth (EID) reveals that this new media conglomerate is likely the work of Richard Wiles, the man behind the numerous, seemingly independent branches of the climate litigation movement.

The EID investigation also reveals that the Drilled podcast, billed in recent glowing profiles as an objective purveyor of truth, is in fact nothing more than an arm of the leading advocacy campaign to promote litigation against energy producers.

Who is Richard Wiles? A Quick Refresher

As EID has previously reported, Richard Wiles is the executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a project of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD). CCI has been at the forefront of the public relations campaign propping up the public nuisance climate litigation movement, from putting up billboards and social media, to hosting  numerous events. CCI even hired a lobbyist to arrange meetings between city officials and plaintiffs’ attorneys and submitted an amicus brief in support of an ongoing climate case.

Wiles is also the founder of Climate Central, a Rockefeller-funded organization whose research on the impacts of climate change is cited in the lawsuits filed by municipalities against energy producers.

Drilled Podcast: A PR Campaign Tool

In 2018, Amy Westervelt launched Drilled, a podcast which seeks to rehash the debunked “Exxon Knew” campaign under the guise of independent journalism.  Westervelt’s disclosure of her funding has shifted over the podcast’s three seasons. While recent episodes finally reveal CCI’s financial support for the podcast, the show is in fact a strategic arm of CCI’s advocacy campaign.

Beaconfire Red, a digital campaign consulting firm, worked with CCI to help develop the organization’s branding and launch a series of advocacy campaigns – including Drilled. In a case study featured on their website, Beaconfire described Drilled as one of their three favorite “advocacy campaigns” they worked on for CCI:

“CCI partnered with the creators of this podcast to engage taxpayers, elected officials, political influencers, and journalists to start talking about Big Oil and Gas companies’ deception. Beaconfire RED helped CCI launch a nationwide digital campaign through online media buys at several well-known, online publications and Twitter ads. Capturing the “true crime” aura, our engaging ad creative earned over one million impressions and thousands of engagements and podcast listens.”

While Westervelt has previously disclosed that Drilled is executive produced by Richard Wiles and is funded in part by a “generous grant” from IGSD and CCI, the podcast’s role as an advocacy tool to promote climate litigation remains undisclosed by Westervelt and in media coverage of Drilled.

Interview with Drilled Podcast Host Unveils New Insights into Climate Liability News

Drilled isn’t the only outlet secretly led by CCI. In a recent interview about the launch of Drilled News, Westervelt reveals that yet another opaque Wiles-led project, Climate Liability News, is also the brainchild of IGSD:

“Well, I initially pitched [Drilled] to a bunch of different places, and basically no one wanted to fund it… And then I eventually got funding from the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, which was doing a climate liability news site at the time.” (emphasis added)

Climate liability News is (was) a dark-money “news” site originally set up in 2017 as a project of Climate Communications and Law (CCL) to promote climate lawsuits across the country. CCL was incorporated in Washington, D.C., in 2017 by Richard Wiles and includes only three executive board members: Wiles, former Greenpeace activist Kert Davies, and fellow CCI-employee Alyssa Johl.

CCL recently came under scrutiny for failing to adequately register as a nonprofit in the correct state. Though CCL is incorporated in D.C., its business address is located in Frederick, Maryland, and a November 2018 filing with the IRS states that it conducts business in Maryland. By lapsing their nonprofit status, CCL may have been able to circumvent disclosing funding for CLN.

Westervelt’s assertion that IGSD is behind CLN complicates matters further. Neither organization discloses this relationship on their tax forms or websites, raising questions about the motives behind this lack of transparency. The move to shut down Climate Liability News and host it under Drilled News may be a strategic decision to consolidate more of Wiles’s projects under one banner and escape further scrutiny or liability for CLN and CCL.

The Billionaires Behind the Climate Litigation Campaign?

Perhaps CCI’s efforts to conceal its involvement in Drilled and CLN stem from its desire to present the facade of a robust public movement pushing for litigation against energy producers. Instead, these seemingly independent organizations are the work of a single, centralized public relations campaign funded by billionaires.

Since the launch of CCI, IGSD’s grant revenue has more than doubled to nearly $10 million. The organization does not disclose its full list of funders, but a recent investigation by RealClear Investigations revealed that a British billionaire – Chris Hohn – gave CCI $7 million through his nonprofit, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. According to RealClear Investigations, Hohn’s broader effort to funnel millions of dollars into climate activism campaigns in the United States, raises concerns about his compliance with the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Unsurprisingly the Rockefeller Family Fund, an organization that has been funding nearly every aspect of the climate litigation campaign, also finances CCI. A recent EID analysis of New York state tax disclosures revealed that RFF gave IGSD over $1 million to launch CCI in 2017. The grant represented RFF’s largest donation to a single organization, excluding other charitable funds, that year.

Conclusion

Richard Wiles has a long history of attempting to circumvent transparency. He has attempted to hide CCI’s involvement in Drilled and CLN, failed to adequately register CCL as a nonprofit, and even dodged questions about CCI’s funders when pressed by reporters. As Drilled News attempts to consolidate these media platforms under a single brand, it’s unsurprising that Wiles and CCI are absent from the website. As these platforms continue to grow their following and influence, it’s critical that reporters and the public alike demand transparency from this new organization.