An interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee alleges that a left-leaning environmental law group has been running what it describes as a targeted influence campaign aimed at federal and state judges who may preside over climate-related litigation, according to reporting by The Federalist.
The report, titled “How Radical Environmental Special Interests Manipulate the Federal Judiciary,” was released Wednesday and focuses on the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and its Climate Judiciary Project (CJP). It contends that the two entities present themselves as sources of neutral climate science education for judges while actually working to predispose the bench in favor of plaintiffs suing fossil fuel companies.
“This targeted influence campaign undermines the American tradition of unbiased neutrality by predisposing federal and state judges in favor of plaintiffs alleging injuries from the manufacturing, marketing, or sale of fossil-fuel products,” the report states, per The Federalist’s account.
The committee’s analysis arrives just days before the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Suncor v. Boulder, a case examining whether Boulder, Colorado can use state law to pursue oil companies over alleged harms tied to climate change. The timing gives the report added political weight as both sides prepare for a high-stakes courtroom showdown over the role of state courts in climate litigation.
What the Report Alleges
At the center of the committee’s findings is CJP’s network of seminars and educational programming for judges. According to the report, these sessions are designed “to predispose judges to rule in favor of radical environmentalists.”
The committee points to transcribed interview comments from CJP founder Paul Hanle, in which he reportedly said many judges do not believe climate change is human-caused and that CJP seminars exist expressly to “educate” judges that climate change is “real” and caused by humans. The report also cites private emails in which Hanle allegedly told aligned academics that CJP’s efforts would “make a great difference in the final outcome of cases.”
Those allegations form the backbone of the committee’s argument that CJP functions less as a neutral educational resource and more as a coordinated effort to shape judicial thinking ahead of major climate cases.
Conflict-of-Interest Concerns
The report also raises questions about how CJP selects the people who author its curriculum and present at its seminars. According to the committee, CJP lacks a formal conflict-of-interest policy to ensure that authors and presenters are not simultaneously involved in active climate litigation before judges who attend the sessions.
Instead, the analysis says, the group relies on internal reviews conducted by its founder and senior staff to assess the neutrality of potential presenters and flag conflicts. CJP states publicly that it chooses curriculum authors, presenters, and advisory committee members based on expertise, professional standing, objectivity, and presentation skills. But the committee contends the organization does not evaluate or disclose participants’ affiliations with climate litigants, advocacy groups, or pending climate cases.
That gap, the report argues, leaves judges without the information they would need to weigh whether a presenter has a stake in the outcome of litigation appearing on their dockets.
Fallout Over the Scientific Evidence Manual
The Judiciary Committee’s report also revisits an earlier controversy involving the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) and the National Academies of Science’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The manual is intended to give federal judges objective guidance on scientific matters, but earlier this year it emerged that a climate science chapter included references to left-wing climate activists.
The disclosure set off a wave of backlash, and the FJC and the National Academies ultimately retracted the chapter from the manual. President Trump weighed in as well, directing federal suspension and debarment officials to review the situation after The Federalist reported on the chapter’s contents.
That episode is now being folded into the broader congressional scrutiny of how climate science reaches the federal bench, with the committee framing the manual’s retraction as evidence that outside advocacy had seeped into what was supposed to be impartial reference material.
Funding and Political Context
The report also touches on ELI’s funding. As reported by the Capital Research Center, The Federalist notes that ELI is heavily bankrolled by what critics describe as Democrats’ dark money network. The committee’s Democratic counterparts have not yet issued a formal response to the interim report, and ELI has not publicly commented on the specific allegations in the document.
The committee describes its work as interim, suggesting further findings could follow. For now, the report offers a detailed, if partisan, roadmap of the conservative argument that climate litigation is being shaped behind the scenes by groups that present themselves as neutral educators.
With Suncor v. Boulder on the near horizon, the report’s release ensures that debate over judicial impartiality and climate science will play out in both Congress and the Supreme Court in the same week — an unusual collision of legislative oversight and high court argument that is likely to keep the issue in the headlines well past the justices’ first questions from the bench.
Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/10/01/new-report-uncovers-how-this-leftist-group-indoctrinates-judges-on-climate-alarmism/