Hawaii's Chief Justice coached a plaintiff's expert on how to pass his own courtroom's evidence test – while presiding over a climate lawsuit against energy companies.
That judge had been trained by the same group funding those lawsuits.
A new University of Texas report just mapped how that operation reached courts across America – and the damage goes far deeper than Hawaii.
How Climate Lawsuit Lawyers Secretly Funded the Judges Training Program
The Environmental Law Institute launched the Climate Judiciary Project in 2018, billing it to judges as "neutral, objective information" on climate science – a characterization the group's own donor list contradicts.
The project shared major donors with Sher Edling LLP, a San Francisco law firm running more than two dozen climate lawsuits against American energy companies. The Freedom Together Foundation poured at least $3 million into the Climate Judiciary Project while funneling $5.6 million to the fund that bankrolls Sher Edling's operations. The Hewlett Foundation gave $500,000 to the project and $150,000 directly toward Sher Edling's legal fees in the same climate cases.
The faculty were not neutral scientists. UCLA Law School professor Ann Carlson sat on CJP's advisory curriculum committee while also recruiting climate plaintiffs and coordinating strategy with Sher Edling.
Vermont Law School professor Pat Parenteau taught a module on judicial remedies for "climate disruption" while actively advising climate plaintiff San Mateo County.
The judges sitting through these sessions had no way of knowing they were receiving one-sided legal advocacy dressed up as science education.
Climate Judiciary Project Turned Judges Into Activists on Active Cases
The 2022 "Judicial Leaders in Climate Science" training included sessions on "Effective Leadership" and "Transformational Leadership," with judges leaving carrying specific action items to complete before a follow-up seminar.
Suggested actions included updating benchbooks on qualifying expert witnesses, writing articles, and developing resources for other judges. A CJP staffer followed up with Vermont judge Thomas Durkin after the Cape Cod seminar, asking about "the status" of his action plan.
By March 2023, Judge Durkin had shared climate talking points with Vermont's Chief Justice and delivered a CJP-prepared presentation to his judicial colleagues.
The presentation materials included research claiming "a causal link between a defendant's contributions to climate change and injuries to the public or plaintiffs" – language drawn from plaintiff legal strategy, delivered through the state's own judicial education program.
One attendee at an Oregon event captured the problem: the presentation came "from what would effectively be the plaintiff's side."
The Sher Edling Lawyer Who Ghostwrote the Federal Courts Science Guide
Beyond the seminars, the Climate Judiciary Project set its sights on the Federal Judicial Center's Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence – the official guide judges rely on to evaluate scientific testimony in court.
In late 2025, the FJC published the fourth edition of the manual, the first update in 15 years, and for the first time it included a chapter on climate science. The two named authors both had deep ties to climate litigation. The undisclosed contributor was the more significant problem.
Michael Burger is of counsel at Sher Edling and had written a 2020 law review article arguing that attribution science was central to winning climate litigation. A plagiarism analysis found the FJC climate chapter drew a 23% identical match from that single article.
Investigators also found that more than half of the chapter's discussion of attribution methodology came from a lawyer whose firm stood to collect if the underlying cases succeeded – none of which was disclosed to the judges relying on the manual.
By February 6, 2026, the FJC had removed the chapter after 27 state attorneys general forced the issue. The House Judiciary Committee, led by Jim Jordan and Darrell Issa, opened a formal investigation. The EPA had already cut all ties with the Environmental Law Institute in September 2025.
Jim Jordan Investigation Into Climate Judge Training Reaches 10 States
More than 2,000 state and federal judges attended CJP programs, with attendance records showing participants from California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington – every one of them a jurisdiction with active climate litigation against energy companies.
Hawaii's then-Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald attended CJP events while presiding over those cases. Records show his chambers shared a Daubert brief with a climate plaintiff expert – providing guidance on the evidentiary standard he would later apply as the presiding judge.
He subsequently issued a ruling that delivered a significant victory to climate plaintiffs.
Rhode Island's judge presiding over the state's active climate lawsuit attended CJP training in 2024. Oregon's CJP presentation reached nearly every active state judge in the state, months after Multnomah County filed suit seeking damages from the energy industry.
The House Judiciary Committee expanded its investigation in April 2026, sending letters to Burger, ELI president Jordan Diamond, and Sher Edling's Vic Sher demanding full documentation of their coordination with federal judges.
Climate Lawfare and the Eight Year Campaign Against American Energy Courts
American energy companies face more than two thousand active climate lawsuits. The trial lawyers running those cases spent eight years training the judges assigned to decide them, using curriculum their allies wrote and money their donors raised, channeled through institutions whose reputations provided the cover.
Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers that the judiciary "may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment."
The legitimacy of that judgment rests entirely on judges receiving information free from the interests of one side. The Climate Judiciary Project worked to compromise that for nearly a decade before Congress and 27 state attorneys general forced it into the open.
The University of Texas report is the first full account of how the operation worked. Congressional investigators are now demanding answers on who authorized it.
Sources:
- Michael Toth, "A Finger on the Scales: Climate Litigation and the Campaign to Influence the Judiciary," Civitas Institute, University of Texas, September 2026.
- Michael Toth, "New UT Report: Climate Litigation and the Campaign to Influence the Judiciary," RealClearEnergy, September 11, 2026.
- "Federal Judicial Center Removes Climate Science Section Written by Litigation Advocates," EID Climate, February 9, 2026.
- "House GOP Launches Probe Into Alleged Climate Group Influence on Federal Judges," House Judiciary Committee, January 14, 2026.
- "House Judiciary Committee Ramps Up Investigation Into 'Improper' Influence Campaign Targeting Federal Judges," EID Climate, April 29, 2026.
- "Climate-Advocacy Materials Removed From Federal Judicial Manual, but Issues Remain," Just the News, February 11, 2026.
