Hawaii County appears to be gearing up to join the growing wave of municipalities suing energy companies – all to line their pockets – under the facade of addressing climate change, by opening the door to employing a dark-money funded law firm under Congressional investigation.
In a moment of surprising candor while discussing grant programs that could pay for the county’s climate priorities, a Hawaii County Councilwoman Rebecca Villegas let slip during a February 2024 meeting that filing a climate lawsuit against American energy companies is seen “as another source of funding,” as Climate Litigation Watch reports.
Villegas, who previously backed a 2022 resolution encouraging Hawaii County to join climate litigation with Oahu and Maui, appeared to suggest the County’s new Interim Administrator for Sustainability Bethany Morrison would play a key role in advancing a potential suit:
“… the council here passed a resolution a number of years ago urging our county to join in the climate litigation lawsuits, and I’ve been told as soon as you guys have got your footing that is a possibility for something [like that] to be taken on.
“And I see that as another source of funding, as well as standing in alignment with the other counties in our state. And ensuring that as resources become available and different entities are held accountable for their direct contribution to the demise of the earth and potentially humanity, that we be together with our other county brothers and sisters on that.” [Emphasis Added]
Hawaii County isn’t alone in this mindset. These frank admissions echo a growing trend among municipalities, where the promise of financial windfalls overshadow any actual concern about climate change – or any costs to consumers that successful litigation would pose.
Similar motivations have been documented in other municipalities, cataloged extensively here at Energy In Depth Climate. These explicit admissions paint a stark picture: climate litigation is being framed as a revenue generator and policy tool for governments to pursue their climate wish lists, rather than as a means to address the actual alleged climate damages.
What’s New: Hawaii County’s Legal Maneuvering
While Hawaii County has not yet filed a lawsuit, it has taken steps that signal its potential interest. The county recently added Sher Edling LLP – the dark money backed plaintiff law firm notorious for spearheading climate lawsuits against energy companies – to its list of legal providers.
Although Hawaii County published the firm’s legal services agreement online, it later redacted entire pages of the same document when responding to a public records request filed by Energy Policy Advocates, according to Climate Litigation Watch.
The inconsistency raises questions about transparency and the county’s handling of its potential legal strategy, creating the appearance that officials would rather keep the public in the dark about any plans to employ the private law firm, which is the subject of an ongoing Congressional investigation led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. James Comer (R-KY).
Sher Edling’s Hawaii Playbook
Sher Edling and climate activists’ interest in Hawaii municipalities is hardly new. The firm and its allies have been pitching various local governments in the state for years. As EID documented in 2019, the University of Hawaii’s Richardson School of Law sponsored an event that included attorney Vic Sher and Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at UCLA Law School’s Emmet Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. At the time, Carlson also consulted for Sher Edling on the climate lawsuits, and made the trip to Hawaii explicitly to “try to encourage Hawaii to consider a climate nuisance suit.”
Carlson went on to briefly serve as the acting head of NHTSA in the Biden administration, before failing to earn confirmation, in part due to her connections to these frivolous climate cases. She returned to UCLA earlier this year.
The 2019 event was co-hosted and sponsored by the Rockefeller-backed Center for Climate Integrity and the Union of Concerned Scientists, which have both been leading cheerleaders of the climate liability campaign against fossil fuels.
While the climate activists succeeded in pushing the City and County of Honolulu and Maui County to sue, the cases faces an uncertain future, as the U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a critical appeal in the Honolulu case. In June, the justices requested the Solicitor General file a brief with its opinion on the case, which is expected to be filed before the change in administration next month.
Bottom Line: Hawaii County’s flirtation with climate litigation reflects a troubling trend: using lawsuits as a cash grab and policy tool rather than for addressing climate change. Constituents in Hawaii County deserve answers about whether their leaders are truly working to address climate challenges – or simply chasing funding at any cost.
Read the full story at EIDClimate.org.
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