China-linked green group training US judges draws fresh heat as foreign ties fuel pressure at home
A national security group is urging Congress to investigate a prominent environmental-law nonprofit over past partnerships and programming ties with Chinese government-linked organizations, according to a report sent to lawmakers on Tuesday by State Armor, a national security organization.
The Environmental Law Institute, or ELI, has trained more than 2,000 American judges on environmental law through its Climate Judiciary Project since 2018, according to its website. During its decades of China-related work, the organization cultivated relationships with entities the report described as Chinese government-affiliated, CCP-linked or tied to China’s military research ecosystem, according to State Armor.
"Across three decades of engagement, ELI’s work has uniformly advanced Chinese strategic and national security interests while undermining American national security by constraining domestic energy producers and industrial expansion and simultaneously pushing America toward dependence upon energy sources dominated by the PRC," a letter addressed to congressional leadership attached to the report reads.
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State Armor, a national security organization focused on state-level policy responses to foreign threats, is raising concerns that the ties could have domestic implications.
The organization is run by Michael Lucci, a lobbyist, and keeps its donors private to shield them from being targeted by the Chinese government. Lucci said in an April 2025 Wall Street Journal profile that his group refuses funding from corporate and foreign sources to avoid perceptions of conflicting interests.
"The question is not whether judges should receive continuing education but rather whether any educational initiative funded, organized, or influenced by organizations with relationships with foreign entities, particularly a foreign adversary, could affect the perception or reality of judicial impartiality," the congressional letter reads.
ELI, when asked about its ties to China, told Fox News Digital that its programming in China ceased in 2024 and rejected criticism that its work advanced Chinese government interests specifically.
"For over 50 years, ELI has worked to strengthen environmental protections in dozens of countries," an ELI spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Thursday. "Our programming in China concluded in 2024 but was no different than our typical work — sharing evidence-based best practices on environmental regulation, not advancing any government interests. The Climate Judiciary Project has not conducted any programming in China."
The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit was founded in 1969 and describes its mission as developing "innovative, just, and practical" environmental law and policy solutions across borders and sectors. ELI launched the Climate Judiciary Project in 2018, which is a judicial-education initiative focused on climate science, climate change and the ways climate science arises in the law.
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Though ELI says it has ceased its work in China, ELI has continued to advance China-related scholarship and partner with individuals linked to Chinese government ventures. Fox News Digital is not aware of any ELI programming that has taken place in China since 2024.
As recently as May, the nonprofit, through its journal, published an English-language paper written by two Chinese academics hailing from state-run universities detailing how China had made progress on environmental protection.
Then, in June, ELI hosted a Chinese legal scholar for a panel discussion with speakers from multiple other countries on global career pathways in environmental law. The scholar, who received training through an ELI fellowship in 2021, "participated in ministry-level projects on environmental legislation and policy of China," according to her biography on ELI’s website.
She also "managed internationally funded programs" to train Chinese "judges" and "environmental law enforcement officers," according to ELI.
ELI did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the paper by the Chinese academics or the panel featuring the Chinese legal scholar.
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ELI discloses on its website that it has "worked to improve environmental rule of law, enforcement, and compliance in China" since the "mid-1990s" in light of "the critical role that China, and its 1.4 billion people, has in global environmental protection."
"ELI has worked to improve environmental rule of law, enforcement, and compliance in China in partnership with Chinese NGOs, universities, law firms, businesses, judges and environmental regulators," the organization's website reads. "ELI has held capacity-building workshops, high-level roundtables, seminars and panel discussions on Chinese policy issues, trained lawyers on environmental justice issues, and published articles and books on sustainability, environmental management, and constitutional environmental law in China."
State Armor argued that this kind of knowledge sharing ultimately benefited the Chinese government, to the detriment of the United States. State Armor urged lawmakers to examine the scope of ELI’s cooperation with Chinese entities and review the funding, curriculum development, expert selection and governance structure of its judicial education programs.
"Under the banner of ‘improv[ing] environmental rule of law,’ ELI’s China Program provides technical assistance, capacity building, and legal training to Chinese NGOs, judges, and environmental regulators," the report reads.
While ELI has historically provided these services, Fox News Digital could not find evidence that ELI has provided any programming in China after 2024.
To support this assertion, State Armor cited public records showing that some of the organizations ELI worked with are tied to the Chinese Communist Party or the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
State Armor cited ELI’s own website, which states that the organization worked with the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy (PRCEE), a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, to improve China’s environmental regulatory system.
State Armor argued that PRCEE’s affiliation with China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment and its stated policy-support role place it within China’s government environmental-policy apparatus.
In 2013, PRCEE worked on a report jointly published by the Chinese government and the United Nations Environment Programme dubbed "China’s Green Long March" — an apparent reference to the CCP’s famous 1934 "Long March" where it strategically retreated inland during the Chinese Civil War.
ELI also states on its website that its China International Business Dialogue on Environmental Governance (CIBDEG) working group provided "information and analysis to the Chinese government regarding environmental regulations in the United States and Europe as well as the concerns of multinational business."
"The working group is designed to facilitate and encourage dialogue between multinational businesses and Chinese environmental regulatory authorities regarding best practices in environmental regulation and performance by governments and industries," the group’s website reads.
ELI joined forces with the PRCEE, the Chinese law firm JunHe and the prestigious American law firm Latham & Watkins to launch CIBDEG in 2018. A press release from JunHe claimed that China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment was also involved in founding the working group.
In addition to PRCEE and the CIBDEG, ELI has also worked with multiple universities that have been scrutinized by the United States government over their ties to China’s military.
ELI, for instance, "trained 265 environmental NGO workers, judges, prosecutors and attorneys from 26 provinces" at Tianjin University in 2018, only for the university to later land on the Commerce Department’s Entity List, an export-control list, over alleged trade-secret theft tied to military applications. ELI was not involved in the purported intellectual property theft.
ELI has drawn sustained scrutiny from Republican lawmakers and conservative activists over its China-related work, foreign partnerships and climate-focused judicial education programs. The critiques have been based on media reports alleging that ELI works closely with the Chinese government as well as with individuals linked to the CCP, not investigative findings produced by U.S. government bodies.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in particular has waged a prolonged campaign against ELI, alleging that the group has links to the Chinese government and that its operations materially harm the United States.
"We’re witnessing right now a systematic campaign against American energy. There is a coordinated assault by the radical left, backed and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party to seize control of our courts, to weaponize litigation against U.S. energy producers," Cruz said during a June 2025 hearing. "The judiciary itself is being quietly captured and brainwashed as left wing nonprofits host closed door trainings that indoctrinate judges to adopt the ideological goals of the climate lawfare machine."
"Perhaps the most insidious because it strikes at the very heart of the rule of law, judicial capture," the senator continued. "It is being carried out by one organization with near total control over climate-related judicial training, the Environmental Law Institute, and its Climate Judiciary Project … They claim to be science driven but what they are doing is ex parte indoctrination, pressuring judges to set aside the rule of law and rule instead according to a predetermined political narrative."
In its letter to lawmakers, State Armor alleged that ELI promotes a policy agenda that disfavors American energy interests.
"The jurisprudential frameworks ELI promotes to American judges disproportionately favor regulatory constraints on U.S. domestic energy production, with no commensurate frameworks within China’s system," State Armor’s report reads. "Consciously or not, this is an instance of ELI pushing for American unilateral disarmament in energy security and industrial production."