Climate seminars for judges face funding trail probe amid fears of outside influence on courts
FIRST ON FOX: A government watchdog group is pursuing a new possible paper trail to find out who is funding climate presentations for judges, filing public records requests for financial information that could reveal how outside advocacy groups influenced the presentations.
Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO), a nonprofit, made recent Freedom of Information Act requests, reviewed by Fox News Digital, for emails and financial records held by the Treasury Department that GAO says could show whether funds connected to the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) moved through the Federal Judicial Center Foundation.
The effort comes as Republican lawmakers and legal critics scrutinize whether the seminars exposed judges to one-sided climate presentations from figures they say are connected to the broader plaintiffs-side climate litigation network, raising concerns about whether the programs created an appearance of partiality for judges who could later hear related lawsuits.
The FOIA requests were significant, GAO legal counsel Chris Horner told Fox News Digital, because they opened up a new path for his group and congressional investigators to pursue as they probe what role the Federal Judicial Center, which is a research arm of the taxpayer-funded judicial branch, had in hosting the seminars.
While it is not necessarily subject to FOIA requests, Horner said that records belonging to the Federal Judicial Center Foundation, created by Congress as a 501c1, are public. That means the foundation, which is authorized to take donor money to support events, should have a public paper trail, Horner said.
Fox News Digital reviewed ELI's tax records, including 990 forms beginning in 2019, which showed multimillion-dollar lump sums designated, in part, for educating judges. Horner said his group was looking to understand the "mechanics" behind that funding.
"Judges are getting from the courtroom to the resort. How does that happen?" Horner asked, questioning if the Federal Judicial Center, a public, impartial entity, was improperly using ELI's money to facilitate judges' attendance at the controversial seminars.
The seminars at issue were climate-related judicial education programs involving the Federal Judicial Center and ELI's Climate Judiciary Project, which ELI launched in 2018 to provide judges with instruction on climate science, climate impacts and climate-related litigation.
The Federal Judicial Center previously told Fox News Digital it held a series of small, one-day seminars with ELI for fewer than 100 judges in 2019 and early 2020, before the programs became the subject of scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, conservative legal critics and energy industry advocates. The Federal Judicial Center said last year it stopped working with ELI in 2020. Fox News Digital reached out to ELI and the Federal Judicial Center for comment on the current status of the seminars.
Nick Collins, an ELI spokesperson, said in a statement that ELI's climate project began because courts were seeking out education on the topic. He denied that the project had ties to current climate litigation that judges might be presiding over.
"[The Climate Judiciary Project] partners with leading educational institutions to provide those courses which are no different than other judicial education programs providing training on legal and scientific topics that judges voluntarily choose to attend," Collins said. "CJP does not participate in litigation, coordinate with parties related to any litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule on any issue or in any case."
GAO argued in its FOIA requests that the Federal Judicial Center Foundation is a government agency and that the statute that established the foundation authorized it to maintain a fund with the Treasury, where all the foundation's donations could be held. GAO said the public should have access to those account statements showing deposits and disbursements.
The FOIA requests targeted records spanning multiple years, including the potential Treasury-held data dating back to 2015, as well as records from 2019 to 2021 tied to the climate seminars specifically.
The requests did not establish that any funds were improperly used, but GAO said the records could clarify how outside money was handled by a public institution.
Horner called it a "big gap in the stone wall," referencing what he viewed as an opening to learn more about what has long been a murky understanding of financial ties between the Federal Judicial Center and private entities helping to bring the climate lawsuits.
Horner noted ELI's well-documented connections to plaintiffs who have brought numerous lawsuits against major oil companies like Shell, BP and ExxonMobil in the name of addressing climate change.
"The judiciary has been caught in bed with the plaintiffs, and the judiciary apparently wants to hide the evidence rather than be transparent about it, which certainly does not inspire confidence," Horner said.
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ELI is connected to litigators involved in the uptick in recent years in the lawsuits against oil companies, including through its former board member Ann Carlson. ELI's Climate Judiciary Project maintains that it is a "neutral, objective" resource for judges, but its curriculum has been fossil fuel-averse. The Climate Judiciary Project educates the very judges who could end up presiding over cases against the oil companies.
ELI "intends to accomplish via the courts what it cannot get enacted into law: a radical environmental agenda," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, alleged in a 2024 letter.
GAO lawyers argued in their FOIA requests that the foundation's financial information was of great public interest because judges were effectively being lobbied on how to handle climate cases through these seminars, and the foundation could have had a role in funding them.
"These seminars were arranged by parties affiliated with the plaintiffs’ legal team yet presented as the objective background which judges should know about climate science," the GAO lawyers wrote in the FOIA requests. "The Federal Judicial Center Foundation is authorized to accept gifts to underwrite such seminars."
Critics like Cruz and GAO have long contended that the seminars were not neutral and instead part of a broader climate litigation ecosystem. Judges attending seminars on any given topic would normally be a nonissue, but the concerns have zeroed in on who may be influencing the judges and whether they are part of the same network advancing the climate lawsuits.
Like GAO, Congress has been probing the financials as part of its oversight of the judicial branch. In January, the House Judiciary Committee said ELI, and its Climate Judiciary Project, appeared to target judges in jurisdictions where climate cases would be heard. The letter noted that ELI has said its Climate Judiciary Project began in 2018 "in coordination with" the Federal Judicial Center.
GAO's FOIA letters signal that the Federal Judicial Center Foundation could be a missing link in understanding who paid for the seminars and how the Federal Judicial Center was involved with the privately funded programs, which lawmakers say could be at odds with policies that the U.S. courts are required to follow.
Fox News Digital reached out to Carlson, as well as the Federal Judicial Center, the Federal Judicial Center Foundation and the Treasury Department for comment on the FOIA requests.