House Republicans have spent years investigating alleged efforts to influence the federal judges who preside over climate lawsuits that could cost the fossil fuel industry billions of dollars.
That influence campaign is happening — but it’s oil and gas companies engaged in “direct and extensive efforts at judicial influence,” according to a law firm that represents local governments suing oil and gas giants.
In a letter obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News, an attorney representing California-based Sher Edling told House Judiciary Republicans that any “real enterprise to ‘influence federal judges’ comes not from my client, but overwhelmingly from defendants and their lawyers on the other side.”
William Pittard, who represents Sher Edling as managing partner at the law firm KaiserDillon, sent the letter on Tuesday to Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Courts Subcommittee Chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). In it, he said a judicial education program run by the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law is “where the committee should look regarding efforts to bias federal judges as to climate-related litigation.”
