Another “Sustainable funding stream“ Own-Goal:
“I see that [climate litigation] as another source of funding”
The most recent entrant in the ‘climate’ sweepstakes—which takes the form of filing another in the ‘wave’ of lawsuits against energy companies— emerged just before the Thanksgiving holiday courtesy of the Maine Attorney General. These suits are typically, as in Maine, filed by Sher Edling LLP, and often have been orchestrated behind the scenes by a Rockefeller Family Fund joint called the “Center for Climate Integrity”.
Russell Cook’s Gelbspan Files has a few things to say about the former, specifically the complaints’ stretches, overlaps and occasional deviations. CLW has published rather shocking information about the latter, CCI.
Among those governmental subdivisions making noises about purchasing the next ticket is Hawai’i County. So, as it does, Government Accountability & Oversight sought the terms of any Hawai’i County arrangement. The question which attaches to all such pacts now is whether—despite all that’s in the public record about private financing of this litigation campaign by progressive foundations (of which any public fiduciary knows or should know)—the agreement is ‘contingency-ish’?
GAO’s request sought, inter alia, all common interest, engagement, retainer, pro bono, representation, non-disclosure, confidentiality, contingency and/or fee contract or agreement(s) that were entered into by the Office of Corporation Counsel in 2024, which is when the firm sought and was granted Qualified status to provide legal services. The firm’s submitted 13-page Qualification letter, as you can see, is redacted in its entirety except for the firm name, asserting a risible claim of privilege for this information submitted to it by an aspiring contractor for purposes of qualifying for public contracts.
It is stamped “Confidential,” not privileged but, anyway, a prospective vendor’s qualifications seem to be the sort of thing that open records laws were enacted to allow the public to see how its government operates. And…the public can see it.
How secretive are the lawyers who processed this? Well, the same document, unredacted, is posted by County here. Fully redacted in response to a public records request; fully posted when not afraid someone is trying to find something out about what the government is up to.
Hawai’i County did not indicate the existence of an agreement (unless after qualifying the firm then worked with some other County appendage), or of any correspondence with the CCI team since June of this year.
Further, also possibly accidental candor was shown at a February 6, 2024 meeting of the Committee on Governmental Operations and External Affairs a Councilwoman did (begin at the 55:30 mark) let it out of the bag that she sees diving in to the climate litigation sweepstakes “as another source of funding.” Joining a long list of such candid outbursts.
UPDATE: One likely new contestant is Culver City, CA. Documents reflecting the litigation industry’s recruitment of this muni can be found here.