2026-05-05 09:42 EDT / 福克斯新闻
监督团体追查财政部记录，调查面向法官的气候研讨会资金来源，批评者警告此举可能影响能源相关案件
作者：阿什利·奥利弗 福克斯新闻
发布于2026年5月5日上午9:42 EDT
福克斯新闻独家报道： 一个政府监督团体正在追查新的书面记录线索，以查明谁在为面向法官的气候主题宣讲提供资金，该团体已提交公共信息申请，要求获取财务记录，以揭示外部倡导团体如何影响这些宣讲活动。
非营利组织“政府问责与监督（GAO）”近期提交了《信息自由法》申请，福克斯新闻数字频道查阅到相关申请内容，该组织要求获取财政部持有的电子邮件和财务记录。GAO称，这些记录可以显示与环境法律研究所（ELI）相关的资金是否通过联邦司法中心基金会流转。
此举正值共和党议员和法律批评人士仔细审查这些研讨会是否让法官接触到片面的气候宣讲，他们称这些宣讲活动的相关人士与原告方广泛的气候诉讼网络存在关联。这引发了人们的担忧：这些项目可能会让法官显得有失公允，而这些法官后续可能会审理相关诉讼案件。
气候正义团体与参与诉讼的法官、专家联系密切，引发公正性争议
2023年9月18日，气候活动人士在曼哈顿举行抗议活动，要求华尔街和美国政府停止为化石燃料提供资金。图为纽约市场景。（斯宾塞·普拉特/盖蒂图片社）
GAO法律顾问克里斯·霍纳告诉福克斯新闻数字频道，此次《信息自由法》申请意义重大，因为这为他的团队和国会调查人员开辟了一条新的调查路径，他们正在调查作为纳税人资助的司法部门研究机构的联邦司法中心在主办这些研讨会中扮演了何种角色。
霍纳表示，联邦司法中心本身不一定受《信息自由法》约束，但国会设立的、作为501c1类组织的联邦司法中心基金会的记录是公开的。他说，该基金会有权接受捐赠资金以支持活动，因此应该有公开的资金流向记录。
福克斯新闻数字频道查阅了ELI的税务记录，包括2019年起的990表格，其中显示该机构有数百万元的整笔拨款，部分用于为法官提供培训。霍纳称，他的团队希望了解这类资金背后的“运作机制”。
“法官从法庭前往度假胜地参会，这一切是如何发生的？”霍纳质疑道，他怀疑作为公共、中立机构的联邦司法中心是否不当使用ELI的资金，为法官出席这些争议性研讨会提供便利。
此次受质疑的研讨会是涉及联邦司法中心和ELI气候司法项目的气候相关司法培训项目。ELI于2018年启动该项目，旨在为法官提供气候科学、气候影响以及与气候相关诉讼的培训。
联邦司法中心此前曾告诉福克斯新闻数字频道，2019年和2020年初，该中心与ELI合作举办了一系列小型单日研讨会，共有不到100名法官参加，之后这些项目便成为共和党议员、保守派法律批评人士和能源行业倡导者的审查对象。联邦司法中心去年表示，已于2020年停止与ELI合作。福克斯新闻数字频道已联系ELI和联邦司法中心，询问这些研讨会的当前状况。
ELI发言人尼克·柯林斯在一份声明中表示，ELI的气候项目始于法院主动寻求相关主题的培训。他否认该项目与法官可能审理的当前气候诉讼存在关联。
“（气候司法项目）与顶尖教育机构合作提供相关课程，这与其他司法教育项目并无不同，这些项目为法官自愿参加的法律和科学主题培训提供支持，”柯林斯说，“气候司法项目不参与诉讼、不与任何诉讼相关方协调，也不会就任何问题或案件向法官提供裁决建议。”
GAO在其《信息自由法》申请中主张，联邦司法中心基金会是政府机构，设立该基金会的法案授权其在财政部设立基金，基金会的所有捐赠都可存入该账户。GAO称，公众有权获取显示存款和支出情况的账户对账单。
此次《信息自由法》申请针对多年的记录，包括可追溯至2015年的财政部相关数据，以及2019年至2021年与气候研讨会直接相关的记录。
这些申请并未证实存在任何不当使用资金的情况，但GAO表示，这些记录可以澄清公共机构如何处理外部资金。
霍纳将此称为“石墙中的一个大缺口”，他认为这一突破有助于进一步揭开长期以来人们对联邦司法中心与协助提起气候诉讼的私人实体之间财务联系的模糊认知。
霍纳指出，ELI与原告方存在有据可查的联系，这些原告以应对气候变化为由，对壳牌、BP和埃克森美孚等大型石油公司提起了多起诉讼。
“司法部门已与原告方勾结，而司法部门显然想要隐藏证据，而非保持透明，这当然无法让人树立信心，”霍纳说。
针对大型石油公司的重大“气候欺诈”诉讼自愿撤诉
2024年8月5日，德克萨斯州奥斯汀的一家埃克森美孚加油站。（布兰登·贝尔/盖蒂图片社）
ELI与近期不断增多的石油公司诉讼案件的诉讼律师存在联系，其前董事会成员安·卡尔森就是其中的关联人物之一。ELI的气候司法项目自称是为法官提供“中立、客观”的资源，但其课程内容明显反对化石燃料。该项目培训的法官，最终可能会审理针对石油公司的相关案件。
德克萨斯州共和党参议员特德·克鲁兹在2024年的一封信中指责称，ELI“试图通过法院实现其无法通过立法达成的激进环保议程”。
GAO律师在《信息自由法》申请中辩称，该基金会的财务信息具有重大公共利益，因为这些研讨会实际上是在游说法官如何处理气候案件，而基金会可能参与了相关资金资助。
“这些研讨会由与原告法律团队有关联的方策划，却被包装成法官应当了解的气候科学客观背景知识，”GAO律师在申请中写道，“联邦司法中心基金会有权接受捐赠，以资助此类研讨会。”
特德·克鲁兹在华盛顿特区美国国会山参加圆桌讨论，2025年3月3日。（凯·巴特科夫斯基/盖蒂图片社）
包括克鲁兹和GAO在内的批评人士长期以来一直认为，这些研讨会并非中立活动，而是更广泛的气候诉讼生态系统的一部分。法官参加任何主题的研讨会通常都不成问题，但此次担忧的焦点集中在谁可能在影响法官，以及他们是否属于推动气候诉讼的同一网络。
与GAO一样，国会也一直在调查相关财务情况，作为对司法部门监督的一部分。今年1月，众议院司法委员会表示，ELI及其气候司法项目似乎瞄准了气候案件可能在当地审理的司法辖区的法官。该信函指出，ELI曾表示其气候司法项目于2018年“与联邦司法中心协调”启动。
GAO的《信息自由法》信函表明，联邦司法中心基金会可能是查明谁为研讨会支付费用，以及联邦司法中心如何参与这些私人资助项目的缺失环节。议员们称，这可能与美国法院必须遵守的政策相悖。
福克斯新闻数字频道已联系卡尔森、联邦司法中心、联邦司法中心基金会和财政部，就此次《信息自由法》申请置评。
阿什利·奥利弗是福克斯新闻数字频道和福克斯商业频道的记者，负责报道司法部和法律事务。可通过ashley.oliver@fox.com发送新闻线索。
Climate seminars for judges face funding trail probe amid fears of outside influence on courts
2026-05-05 09:42 EDT / Fox News
Oversight group targets Treasury records in probe of climate seminars for judges, as critics warn of potential influence on energy cases
By Ashley Oliver Fox News
Published May 5, 2026 9:42am EDT
FIRST ON FOX: A government watchdog group is pursuing a new possible paper trail to find out who is funding climate presentations for judges, filing public records requests for financial information that could reveal how outside advocacy groups influenced the presentations.
Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO), a nonprofit, made recent Freedom of Information Act requests, reviewed by Fox News Digital, for emails and financial records held by the Treasury Department that GAO says could show whether funds connected to the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) moved through the Federal Judicial Center Foundation.
The effort comes as Republican lawmakers and legal critics scrutinize whether the seminars exposed judges to one-sided climate presentations from figures they say are connected to the broader plaintiffs-side climate litigation network, raising concerns about whether the programs created an appearance of partiality for judges who could later hear related lawsuits.
CLIMATE JUSTICE GROUP HAS DEEP TIES TO JUDGES, EXPERTS INVOLVED IN LITIGATION AMID CLAIMS OF IMPARTIALITY
People involved in climate activism hold a demonstration in Manhattan to demand an end to fossil fuel funding by Wall Street and the American government on Sept. 18, 2023, in New York City.(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The FOIA requests were significant, GAO legal counsel Chris Horner told Fox News Digital, because they opened up a new path for his group and congressional investigators to pursue as they probe what role the Federal Judicial Center, which is a research arm of the taxpayer-funded judicial branch, had in hosting the seminars.
While it is not necessarily subject to FOIA requests, Horner said that records belonging to the Federal Judicial Center Foundation, created by Congress as a 501c1, are public. That means the foundation, which is authorized to take donor money to support events, should have a public paper trail, Horner said.
Fox News Digital reviewed ELI’s tax records, including 990 forms beginning in 2019, which showed multimillion-dollar lump sums designated, in part, for educating judges. Horner said his group was looking to understand the “mechanics” behind that funding.
“Judges are getting from the courtroom to the resort. How does that happen?” Horner asked, questioning if the Federal Judicial Center, a public, impartial entity, was improperly using ELI’s money to facilitate judges’ attendance at the controversial seminars.
The seminars at issue were climate-related judicial education programs involving the Federal Judicial Center and ELI’s Climate Judiciary Project, which ELI launched in 2018 to provide judges with instruction on climate science, climate impacts and climate-related litigation.
The Federal Judicial Center previously told Fox News Digital it held a series of small, one-day seminars with ELI for fewer than 100 judges in 2019 and early 2020, before the programs became the subject of scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, conservative legal critics and energy industry advocates. The Federal Judicial Center said last year it stopped working with ELI in 2020. Fox News Digital reached out to ELI and the Federal Judicial Center for comment on the current status of the seminars.
Nick Collins, an ELI spokesperson, said in a statement that ELI’s climate project began because courts were seeking out education on the topic. He denied that the project had ties to current climate litigation that judges might be presiding over.
“[The Climate Judiciary Project] partners with leading educational institutions to provide those courses which are no different than other judicial education programs providing training on legal and scientific topics that judges voluntarily choose to attend,” Collins said. “CJP does not participate in litigation, coordinate with parties related to any litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule on any issue or in any case.”
GAO argued in its FOIA requests that the Federal Judicial Center Foundation is a government agency and that the statute that established the foundation authorized it to maintain a fund with the Treasury, where all the foundation’s donations could be held. GAO said the public should have access to those account statements showing deposits and disbursements.
The FOIA requests targeted records spanning multiple years, including the potential Treasury-held data dating back to 2015, as well as records from 2019 to 2021 tied to the climate seminars specifically.
The requests did not establish that any funds were improperly used, but GAO said the records could clarify how outside money was handled by a public institution.
Horner called it a “big gap in the stone wall,” referencing what he viewed as an opening to learn more about what has long been a murky understanding of financial ties between the Federal Judicial Center and private entities helping to bring the climate lawsuits.
Horner noted ELI’s well-documented connections to plaintiffs who have brought numerous lawsuits against major oil companies like Shell, BP and ExxonMobil in the name of addressing climate change.
“The judiciary has been caught in bed with the plaintiffs, and the judiciary apparently wants to hide the evidence rather than be transparent about it, which certainly does not inspire confidence,” Horner said.
MAJOR ‘CLIMATE DECEPTION’ LAWSUIT AGAINST BIG OIL VOLUNTARILY DISMISSED
An Exxon gas station on Aug. 5, 2024, in Austin, Texas.(Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
ELI is connected to litigators involved in the uptick in recent years in the lawsuits against oil companies, including through its former board member Ann Carlson. ELI’s Climate Judiciary Project maintains that it is a “neutral, objective” resource for judges, but its curriculum has been fossil fuel-averse. The Climate Judiciary Project educates the very judges who could end up presiding over cases against the oil companies.
ELI “intends to accomplish via the courts what it cannot get enacted into law: a radical environmental agenda,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, alleged in a 2024 letter.
GAO lawyers argued in their FOIA requests that the foundation’s financial information was of great public interest because judges were effectively being lobbied on how to handle climate cases through these seminars, and the foundation could have had a role in funding them.
“These seminars were arranged by parties affiliated with the plaintiffs’ legal team yet presented as the objective background which judges should know about climate science,” the GAO lawyers wrote in the FOIA requests. “The Federal Judicial Center Foundation is authorized to accept gifts to underwrite such seminars.”
Sen. Ted Cruz speaks during a roundtable discussion at the U.S. Capitol on March 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Critics like Cruz and GAO have long contended that the seminars were not neutral and instead part of a broader climate litigation ecosystem. Judges attending seminars on any given topic would normally be a nonissue, but the concerns have zeroed in on who may be influencing the judges and whether they are part of the same network advancing the climate lawsuits.
Like GAO, Congress has been probing the financials as part of its oversight of the judicial branch. In January, the House Judiciary Committee said ELI, and its Climate Judiciary Project, appeared to target judges in jurisdictions where climate cases would be heard. The letter noted that ELI has said its Climate Judiciary Project began in 2018 “in coordination with” the Federal Judicial Center.
GAO’s FOIA letters signal that the Federal Judicial Center Foundation could be a missing link in understanding who paid for the seminars and how the Federal Judicial Center was involved with the privately funded programs, which lawmakers say could be at odds with policies that the U.S. courts are required to follow.
Fox News Digital reached out to Carlson, as well as the Federal Judicial Center, the Federal Judicial Center Foundation and the Treasury Department for comment on the FOIA requests.
Ashley Oliver is a reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business, covering the Justice Department and legal affairs. Email story tips to ashley.oliver@fox.com.