Thomas Catenacci of the Washington Free Beacon explores the money behind one climate alarmist’s work.
A senior official behind a number of the Washington, D.C., attorney general office’s high-profile climate-related legal actions is funded through an initiative backed by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg—an arrangement experts say raises serious questions about government independence.
Lauren Cullum’s official title is special assistant attorney general for the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. But according to her LinkedIn profile, that position is housed at the New York University School of Law’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, which Bloomberg helped found in 2017. The billionaire’s nonprofit, Bloomberg Philanthropies, also awarded the center two seed grants worth $5.6 million at the time.
Since Cullum was embedded in the office in February 2022, she has played a central role in at least four environmental lawsuits the D.C. attorney general’s office either filed or intervened in. She has also represented Washington, D.C., in more than two dozen comment letters to the federal government lobbying for more aggressive climate regulations, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of public announcements, legal filings, and court records.
Cullum’s involvement raises ethics concerns, calling into question the motivations behind Bloomberg and the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center’s decision to fund her and other officials in similar roles nationwide. And her actions provide insight into the center’s activities nationwide—fellows funded by the Bloomberg-backed center have previously worked or currently work in attorney general offices in at least 10 states nationwide, including Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin.
The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center says that it is strictly nonpartisan, but it lists issue areas usually associated with Democrats like climate change, environmental justice, and equity as among its core values. And, like Cullum, its fellows work exclusively for Democrats and, by and large, use their positions to target the oil and gas sector and push for stricter eco regulations, according to a database compiling their actions.
