EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: Mercenary climate activists were taking over official state legal operations
New York University quietly closed a program that embedded climate “fellows” inside the offices of attorneys general.
The program had drawn Congressional scrutiny due to the questionable practices. Fellows from the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center would work inside the offices and then “file activist lawsuits and lobby for more burdensome regulations,” according to a Congressional report.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, through Bloomberg Philanthropies, paid the salaries of the fellows through the center, which was housed at NYU.
However, the program appears to have wrapped up at the end of August.
The Washington Free Beacon reported:
The center’s sudden closure comes as a surprise: It continued to update its public database tracking state attorney general actions relevant to its climate priorities until Aug. 31, the date of its apparent closure. It also released an episode of its in-house podcast, Recharged with the State Impact Center, less than three weeks prior to that date. And in its 2025 “year in review” report released last December, the center indicated that it would continue operating throughout 2026.
The center may have been seeing the light as it felt the heat.
The Free Beacon reported the center “faced multiple congressional and state-level investigations over alleged ethics issues related to its funding” and practices.
Wisconsin officials had also become concerned with a “special attorney general” within the state’s attorney general office who drew a salary through the NYU center.
“Starting in 2022, Wisconsin’s Department of Justice used two environmental legal fellows, known as special assistant attorneys general,” Wisconsin Public Radio reported earlier this year. “Those attorneys were tasked with enforcing state environmental laws and regulations.”
At least 10 states, all under Democrat attorneys general, took part in the program, according to the Free Beacon.
The center expanded its work in 2023 to include public utility commissions.
Of course don’t expect the left to complain about this influence of money in politics.
They will complain about the Federalist Society acting as an incubator and networking machine to place right-leaning law students into clerkships. They will complain about a massive policy plan from the Heritage Foundation, which Trump was free to accept or reject.
But they are totally fine with an advocacy organization directly paying lobbyists to work inside, and under the authority, of state attorneys general offices.
New York University wisely scrapped this program, but the probes should continue so the depth of the corruption can be revealed.
