Energy on Trial
The price at the pump has never been a higher priority for Americans and the politicians vying for their votes in the upcoming midterms.
Wars in energy-rich regions and tight refining capacity aren’t problems any lawmaker can fix by November. But for those who want to deliver on affordability, there’s an easier target here at home: the climate lawfare machine that puts American energy producers constantly on the defensive.
In July 2025, House Oversight Chairman James Comer began that work. His committee opened an investigation into Bloomberg Philanthropies and New York University School of Law’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, which for nearly a decade placed privately funded lawyers inside Democratic attorney general offices across the country.
The arrangement is spelled out on the center’s own website. State AGs could apply for “fellows” to work on climate and energy matters as special assistant attorneys general, with NYU covering their salaries and benefits. Michael Bloomberg seeded the center with two grants of $2.8 million each, and fellows served in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.
The university program was essentially run as a farm school for climate lawyers, staffing up state offices for years of litigation and regulatory fights against oil and gas companies — on a billionaire’s dime rather than through a state budget voters can scrutinize.
And this has a direct impact on the cost of goods and fuel for consumers.
The Climate Litigation Complex
No matter the locality, each lawsuit seeks potentially billions from energy producers while the legal challenges to permits halt millions of dollars worth of projects. Those are real costs that are passed on to consumers, truckers who supply your grocery stores, and every part of the value chain that depends on affordable energy. Americans deserve to know who is driving the legal fight and why.
Even the nation’s highest court is taking notice.
On October 5, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, which asks whether federal law bars the state-law climate suits that blue cities and states have filed against oil and gas companies. This will be a bellwether case to test whether state-based climate suits can continue.
After months of congressional scrutiny, the State Impact Center quietly closed at the end of August, without so much as a press release. Comer said he was “glad to see that this center will no longer be in operation,” noting that it “pushed radical Democrat policies that increase energy costs for Americans.”
But the program didn’t disappear so much as change addresses.
As POLITICO reported, Vermont Law and Graduate School has launched the Multistate Assistance for Public Service Leadership and Excellence (MAPLE) Initiative, again with no announcement. Its executive director is Bethany Davis, who ran the NYU center. Its legal director is Jessica Bell, the center’s former deputy director. Plenty more of the former staff are in fresh positions in Vermont.
MAPLE advertises fellowships, training, and student work on state agency energy and environmental law. What it doesn’t say is who funds it, or whether it plans to keep paying lawyers who work inside AG offices.
And some of those lawyers are still on the job. A federal court filing dated October 5, more than a month after NYU’s center went dark, lists Lauren Cullum as a special assistant attorney general for the District of Columbia. The Washington Free Beacon previously identified Cullum as a Bloomberg-funded fellow placed in the D.C. AG’s office in 2022.
So who is paying her now? D.C. taxpayers, a leftover NYU commitment, or MAPLE?
We don’t know, and that’s the problem. Closing a center in New York doesn’t cancel the contracts, secondment agreements, and grant commitments that put these attorneys in public offices in the first place.
Comer can continue his pursuit
Chairman Comer has the tools to find out. His committee should send follow-up letters to Vermont Law, NYU, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the AG offices that hosted fellows, asking for a roster of placed attorneys as of August 31 and another as of today, along with each lawyer’s employer, salary source, and appointment agreement. He should also ask whether any grants, fellowship obligations, or records responsive to his 2025 requests moved from New York to Vermont.
Considering this Congress ends in January, there is no time to wait.
The program’s defenders will say these lawyers answered only to the elected officials who supervised them, and NYU said as much on its website. If that’s true, the paperwork will show it.
Rather than let attorneys general outsource their energy agenda to a billionaire’s philanthropy, voters and legislators in those states should be able to see who funds the lawyers acting in their name. Those of us paying more at the pump and on our power bills have a stake in that answer, too.
Comer was right to start this investigation, and he should continue. Though their zip code has changed, he should follow these climate lawyers to Vermont and find out who’s signing their paychecks.