Green Billionaire Privately Lobbied Illinois AG To Join Climate Litigation Campaign, Emails Show
Energy In Depth cited CEI’s “Government for Rent” report.
Emails between Abrams and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan dating back to February 2016 were recently unveiled by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The correspondence shows Abrams arranging a meeting to provide the attorney general and her staff “with a presentation of Exxon’s early knowledge of climate change and its subsequent campaign of deception and denial.” Abrams requested that she be allowed to bring three of the attorneys central to the #ExxonKnew campaign with her to the meeting: Matt Pawa, Steve Berman, and Sharon Eubanks. Abrams laid out her rationale in a letter:
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“The emails from Abrams to Madigan’s office are important because they demonstrate that the coordinated climate action campaign against energy companies began much sooner than what is commonly thought. The emails advance Berman’s involvement by more than a year and provide evidence that the lawsuits brought by Hagens Berman on both coasts have less to do with mitigating sea level rise and more to do with attacking oil and gas companies – by any means necessary.” (emphasis added)