Last week, two state attorneys general spearheading the climate litigation campaign against energy companies, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, were sued by government watchdogs for refusing to turn over records regarding their coordination with outside organizations.

Alleging the improper influence of private interests on these law enforcement officials, public interest law firm Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C. (GAO) filed the lawsuits against the Minnesota and Massachusetts attorneys general on behalf of the nonprofit transparency group Energy Policy Advocates (EPA), after neither state complied with open records requests.

Since the comprehensive failure of the New York attorney general’s lawsuit against ExxonMobil over accounting fraud allegations last year, Healey and Ellison have picked up the baton in the flawed climate litigation campaign focused on ExxonMobil and other energy companies over alleged consumer and investor fraud. To support their lawsuits, both offices have coordinated extensively with a variety of outside organizations including plaintiffs’ lawyers, academics, activist groups, and privately funded attorneys. The extent of their coordination with these private, outside groups is what these lawsuits from GAO and EPA seek to uncover.

Massachusetts’ Coordination with Activists and Academics

While Attorney General Healey officially began her investigation into ExxonMobil back in 2016, the roots of her investigation and subsequent 2019 lawsuit stretch back further, to a conference of lawyers, academics, and activists in La Jolla, California in 2012. It was at that La Jolla conference where a strategy of recruiting states attorney general to bring litigation against energy companies was developed.

Evidence of this strategy in action is Healey’s participation in former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s “AGs United for Clean Power,” where along with 17 other attorneys general, they announced their intent to bring investigations and litigation against energy companies over climate change in March 2016. Prior to that press conference, Healey and others were briefed in secret by Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the two groups that coordinated the La Jolla conference, and activist trial lawyer Matt Pawa, a participant at the La Jolla conference who had previously sued ExxonMobil over climate related issues.

This wasn’t an isolated incident however, Healey’s office also coordinated with Pawa and Harvard researcher Naomi Oreskes – another organizer of the La Jolla conference and major player in the “Exxon Knew” campaign – before launching her investigation in 2016. And, similar to this most recent lawsuit from EPA, Healey refused to release information in 2019 about her office’s coordination with Pawa and Oreskes.

Now, Healey’s office is again refusing to turn over public records regarding its investigation of ExxonMobil in what appears to be a trend of obfuscating the influence of outside interests. In announcing its lawsuit, EPA said:

“EPA has learned that AG Healey has entered into contracts relevant to this suit, alternately styled as ‘confidentiality’ and ‘common interest’ agreements, requiring her Office to provide notice to and obtain the consent of outside parties prior to releasing certain public information, thereby contracting away the public’s access to public information as embodied in the open records law.”

Specifically, EPA is looking for communication with Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), who, starting in late 2015, worked with Pawa in developing a climate litigation strategy – just before Pawa briefed the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office in early 2016..

Campbell, like Pawa, has deep ties to the climate litigation campaign being aimed at ExxonMobil. Notably, Campbell was present at a 2016 meeting hosted by the Rockefeller Family Fund and Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York, where the agenda included discussion by the attendees on how they could “establish in the public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution,” “delegitimize [ExxonMobil] as a political actor” and “create scandal.” Campbell has also sued ExxonMobil and Shell.

Additionally, EPA is interested in the Massachusetts office’s correspondence with Cara Horowitz, the Co-Executive Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law School. Horowitz has helped brief state attorneys generals and discussed the viability of climate lawsuits. The Emmett Institute receives support from Andrew Sabin who a close relationship with the Rockefellers – the network of groups behind the entire climate litigation campaign.

Minnesota’s Coordination with Bloomberg-Funded Attorneys

Although Minnesota was already a member of Schneiderman’s “AGs United for Clean Power,” when current Attorney General Keith Ellison was sworn into office in early 2019, he kicked the state’s pursuit of climate litigation up a gear. Last month, the state filed its lawsuit against ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and Koch Industries, accusing the companies and trade association of misleading Minnesota consumers on the effects that fossil fuels have on climate change.

Minnesota’s efforts have been boosted by the support of privately-paid counsel in the form of “Special Assistant Attorneys General” (SAAGs) funded and assigned to Ellison’s by the State Energy & Environment Impact Center (SEEIC) at the New York University School of Law. The SEEIC was set up by a $5.6 million gift in 2017 from billionaire Michael Bloomberg, with the aim that these environmental lawyers would embed in state attorneys general office to “[support] state attorneys general in defending and promoting clean energy, climate and environmental laws and policies.” While these SAAGs work under the direction of the state attorney general and act as official staff, their salaries are paid for by the SEEIC.

Minnesota has two such SAAGs, both of whom are listed as counsel on the complaint and who Ellison thanked for building the lawsuit in his press conference announcing the case. Previously, an open records request forced Ellison to release his application for SAAGs, which highlighted his work “supporting state-led efforts to investigate ExxonMobil.”

Minnesota’s coordination with the SEEIC, and refusal to respond to an open records request, is why EPA and GAO filed the lawsuit to find more information about this arrangement. GAO said:

“Today’s suit seeks to compel the AG to reveal details about the use of law enforcement to advance private interests, its own coordination with other outside parties, and an organized effort by certain attorneys general to keep records about all of this from the public.

“At issue are records detailing how AG Ellison brought two privately hired lawyers into his office to advance the donor’s priorities, including a lawsuit the office just filed against energy companies. The complaint cites to records showing Ellison offering to get more active on matters of importance to this donor – a group established by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg to place its own lawyers in AG offices – if only he had more resources than the legislature found appropriate to provide.”

Despite the SEEIC saying that the SAAGs would only report to the state attorney general in the office they serve, emails have revealed possible coordination between the two parties. This revelation prompted state attorneys general around the country to sharply criticize the arrangement, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxon, who said:

“The ethical problems with this scheme are obvious — Democratic state AG offices are taking on seasoned attorneys being paid by a radical, liberal Democratic presidential primary candidate, and in turn, wield state police power and use the authority of the state attorney general to implement Bloomberg’s progressive climate change agenda across the country…”