A D.C.-based, Rockefeller-funded, anti-energy organization that recruits municipal and state plaintiffs is increasing pressure on Wisconsin to join the climate litigation campaign.

The Center for Climate Integrity published a report this week on the estimated costs of climate change adaptation in Wisconsin, where activists and billionaire donors have worked overtime to push the state’s attorney general to join states like Minnesota and Michigan in pursuing a climate lawsuit. CCI’s heightened focus on 2024 battleground states suggests activists hope climate suits will continue to be a political lightning rod in advance of this year’s November elections.

Rockefeller-Funded Wisconsin Climate Costs Report Makes Outlandish Claims

CCI typically publishes “climate costs” reports to build momentum for filing a climate lawsuit in various jurisdictions around the country, as they recently did in Pennsylvania. Like their other bogus reports, CCI’s Wisconsin analysis doesn’t account for the cost of limiting energy development through frivolous litigation, or costs associated with increasing the price of energy used for home heating.

In reality, most of the claims in the report simply slap a “climate” prefix on normal expenses like road maintenance and bridge stabilization and encourage Wisconsin officials to take “legal action” against oil companies to supplement their budgets. Taking things a step further, the report argues that energy companies should front hundreds of billions of dollars to treat extreme projected increases in Lyme Disease and West Nile Virus in Wisconsin.

Remember, neither CCI nor its research partner, Resilient Analytics, are unbiased sources or public health experts. Resilient Analytics has worked with CCI on several “climate costs reports” tailor-made for litigation, and in the case of Boulder’s climate lawsuit, the municipal government even commissioned Resilient Analytics to produce data to support its lawsuit.

Bloomberg and Rockefeller Dollars Descend on Wisconsin

Thus far, however, the Wisconsin AG Josh Kaul has resisted a very public pressure campaign from pro-climate lawsuit activists. Kaul told reporters this February he has declined to file primarily because he is unsure of whether similar suits in other states will hold up in court.

Kaul’s concerns are hardly unwarranted. Climate lawsuits around the country have little to show in terms of results since the initial cases’ launch in 2017. All of the lawsuits that have been decided on their merits have been decisively defeated, including the New York attorney general’s headline-making loss in 2019. And the Supreme Court is currently considering a petition to review the merits of the litigation, adding further legal uncertainty to the activist-driven campaign.

Still, there are other signs that pro-lawsuit activists and funders may already be well within Kaul’s orbit.

Last year, Kaul hired a Michael Bloomberg-funded Special Assistant Attorney General (SAAG) to expand the work of the office’s Public Protection Unit, “which enforces Wisconsin laws that protect consumers and natural resources,” according to reporting from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Private attorneys from the controversial Bloomberg-funded SAAG program, which is run out of a center at NYU Law, have historically led state action against energy producers. Minnesota AG Keith Ellison’s use of two SAAGs in bringing a climate lawsuit, for example, sparked significant public backlash in the state.

Paul Nolette, director of the Les Aspin Center for Government at Marquette University, recently raised transparency concerns about the donor-funded SAAG’s agreement with the WI AG’s office. Nolette, speaking to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist in May, argued privately-funded SAAGs risk the integrity and independence of the WI AG’s office:

“It does raise the question of, Who’s really representing the state? It’s not a taxpayer-funded staff member at the AG’ office. Instead, it’s a member or someone that’s privately funded or part of an advocacy group — that sort of thing.”

BOTTOM LINE: Despite pressure from billionaire-backed activist groups, Attorney General Josh Kaul has wisely resisted filing a frivolous climate case so far. Climate nuisance lawsuits are a waste of taxpayer time and resources. They offer no solutions to climate change or environmental issues, and instead threaten to increase gasoline and home heating costs for working people.