Do they read the news in Jersey?
Apparently, Middlesex County looked at the climate litigation landscape – New Jersey’s case dismissed, Maryland’s cases dead, the U.S. Supreme Court days away from hearing Boulder – and thought:
Perfect time to file another one.
On Wednesday, the county filed a 44-page complaint in New Jersey Superior Court, targeting major energy companies and trade associations.
Legally, the timing is bizarre. As a headline-generating exercise? Much easier to understand.
County Commissioner Leslie Koppel, who chairs the Finance Committee, described the goal as positioning the county to “move quickly to secure much-needed funds as this case advances.” That’s an optimistic pitch considering the broader litigation campaign is currently fighting for its legal life.
But it gets stranger. Middlesex appears to have dusted off an old complaint on the eve of Supreme Court arguments.
Middlesex went digging through Hoboken’s filing cabinet
Middlesex County hired Krovatin Nau LLC in January to bring the suit – one of the same firms that represent Hoboken.
But lawyers aren’t the only thing the two cases share. Large portions of the Middlesex complaint are a near copy-and-paste job from Hoboken’s original 2020 filing, with the legal claims tracking that complaint almost line for line.
What makes that especially odd is that Hoboken’s legal team – including Krovatin Nau – deliberately amended its complaint in 2023 after the case returned to state court.
Matthew Brinckerhoff of Emery Celli, Hoboken’s lead firm, said at the time that after “two years fighting to get back to state court,” the legal team decided “it made sense” to amend the complaint and add a claim under New Jersey’s racketeering statute.
Yet when Krovatin Nau filed for Middlesex three years later, it didn’t start from that revised pleading. It went back to the 2020 version. Why?
That question gets even more interesting because the Middlesex complaint itself looks dated. It tells readers that “just this summer” wildfire smoke blanketed New Jersey – citing the June 2023 air-quality emergency – and its cited sources appear to stop in 2023. Yet a review of county minutes indicates Middlesex County did not formally hire Krovatin Nau until January 2026.
So when was this complaint actually put together? Because from the face of the filing, it looks less like a brand-new legal strategy than an old one pulled off the shelf.
CCI runs deep in Jersey
That question matters in a state where the Rockefeller-backed Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) has spent years promoting the climate litigation campaign. In 2023, EID Climate documented CCI’s outreach to municipal officials, including training, sample resolutions, talking points, press support and ghostwriting services.
One of those officials was Dunellen Mayor Jason Cilento, whose borough sits in Middlesex County and is specifically cited in the new complaint for flood damage. In correspondence with Mayor Cilento – who previously identified as a member of CCI’s Leaders for Climate Accountability – a CCI representative described the organization as an “extra set of hands” for public officials.
CCI’s political director at the time described its role even more directly during a January 2022 New Jersey coalition webinar:
“We like to picture ourselves as the staff they wish they had on climate accountability.”
That assistance reached beyond town halls. CCI also played a large role in 2022 supporting state officials around the rollout of the New Jersey attorney general’s climate lawsuit, where CCI-sponsored groups received a private briefing after the case was filed.
There’s also the question of money. When Hoboken filed its suit in 2020, the city disclosed that its legal fees would be funded partly by the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development – the nonprofit that launched CCI – and partly through a contingency arrangement.
We don’t yet know who recruited Middlesex or helped prepare this lawsuit.
But the documented record shows an organized, Rockefeller-funded effort to recruit officials, supply their messaging and support litigation in New Jersey for years. And the apparent age of the Middlesex complaint raises some obvious questions:
BOTTOM LINE: Middlesex County appears to have reached back to a Hoboken complaint from 2020, restored language Hoboken’s lawyers later removed, left behind references that still read like 2023 and filed the result five days before the Supreme Court takes up Boulder.
That is an odd way to demonstrate confidence in the future of climate litigation. It is a much better way to generate headlines.
Fresh lawsuit. Stale complaint. Right on time for SCOTUS.
