CLW readers may recall the effort by the plaintiffs’ climate tort movement, unearthed by Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) and Energy Policy Advocates (EPA), to brief federal judges on the plaintiffs’ case. New public records from the Department of Energy in FOIA litigation brought by EPA shed further light on this.
Here is a summary opening a window into one such session, embedded in this email.
One of the presentations was by Climategate figure Ben Santer (Lawrence Livermore/Union of Concerned Scientists).
This series to brief federal judges on the plaintiffs’ claims — not styled as such, but the speaker list tells the tale — was created by the Environmental Law Institute (on whose board and governance committee a then-consultant for leading “climate” plaintiffs’ firm Sher Edling, LLP [UCLA Law Prof Ann Carlson] served), after Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California dared ask for a tutorial on the science and then ruled (not on the science) against plaintiffs.
The records reflect that a followup presentation to the National Judicial College was arranged as a result of this briefing for the Federal Judicial Center.
