Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is spearheading a 23-state coalition of attorneys general urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to halt grants to the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), a group that has been providing climate-focused trainings for judges nationwide.
In a letter sent Tuesday to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Knudsen raised concerns that taxpayer dollars are funding ELI’s Climate Judiciary Project, which has hosted more than 50 events and trained over 2,000 judges on climate science from the organization’s perspective. While ELI describes the program as “objective and trusted” education, Knudsen and other coalition members argue that the project effectively encourages judges to shape climate policy through the courts.
“As attorney general, I refuse to stand by while Americans’ tax dollars fund radical environmental training for judges across the country,” Knudsen said. “The Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project is using woke climate propaganda, under the guise of what they call ‘neutral’ education, to persuade judges and push their wildly unpopular agenda through the court system.”
ELI received roughly 13 percent of its revenue from EPA grants in 2023 and an additional 8.4 percent in 2024. The coalition also cited concerns about the organization’s marketing of the program, alleging that its statements could be misleading under state consumer protection laws.
“State Attorneys General are responsible for protecting consumers, and we are concerned by ELI’s statements,” Knudsen wrote in the letter.
The coalition, which includes attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, urged the EPA to review its grant funding and reconsider any support for the Climate Judiciary Project.
The Climate Judiciary Project describes itself as offering “authoritative, objective, and trusted education on climate science” through seminars and workshops featuring climate experts. Critics argue that exposure to material from advocacy-linked organizations may compromise judicial impartiality in climate-related cases.
Knudsen also expressed optimism that the current administration will address the issue. “I commend President Trump’s efforts to cut waste and abuse during the first eight months of his presidency, and I am optimistic that his Administration will do the right thing and halt all funding to ELI,” he said.