West Virginia investigates climate, environmental groups over alleged 'deceptive' acts

AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

West Virginia's Republican attorney general has launched a broad investigation into many of the state's leading environmental groups, demanding a decade of internal records involving their fundraising and climate change advocacy as part of a probe into "alleged unfair or deceptive acts," court records show.

The environmental groups decried the inquiry as a sham, and at least two asked a judge Thursday to dismiss subpoenas from the attorney general's office they described as harassing and overly broad.

At least one other target of the probe, the Sierra Club, was preparing to file a lawsuit of its own when the attorney general's office withdrew its subpoena, Jonathon Berman, the group's chief communications officer, said in a statement.

Attorney General JB McCuskey has urged federal authorities to investigate and defund certain climate advocacy organizations and has said protecting the state's fossil fuel energy industry from what he's characterized as overreaching liberal climate and energy policies is a priority of his office.

The subpoenas seek records related to the groups' public statements on climate and energy, internal deliberations and requests for donations. The documents offer few details of any alleged deception but say they concern "an investigation into alleged unfair or deceptive acts" and invoke "other possible violations" of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act.

"This investigatory subpoena from our state's attorney general is nothing more than a fishing expedition intended to stifle our collective voice in our advocacy for clean water, protected public lands and healthy communities," Jennie Smith, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition -- one of the groups that went to court to fight the subpoena -- said in a statement.

McCuskey, whose office didn't respond to multiple requests for comment about the investigation, applauded the Trump administration's move earlier this year to revoke an Obama-era scientific finding that had underpinned much of the last 15 years of U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

His office also led a successful 22-state challenge against New York state's climate "superfund" law, which a federal judge struck down earlier this year. The law, an attempt to make fossil fuel-producing industries pay into a $75 billion fund for damages related to climate change, exceeded the state's responsibility, the judge found.

David Cole, a Georgetown Law professor and First Amendment scholar, called the West Virginia investigation "frivolous" and said the subpoenas should be quashed.

"If government officials can start prosecuting nonprofit groups because they disagree with the political view they take on a matter of public concern, that would chill a tremendous amount of protected political expression," Cole told The Associated Press. "The proper place to fight this out is in the court of public opinion and in the labs of scientists -- not in criminal investigations that essentially seek to weaponize the criminal arm of the state to take sides in a political debate."

The West Virginia investigation follows similar efforts elsewhere by Republican attorneys general and members of Congress to scrutinize the work of climate-focused advocacy groups.

In Florida, Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier announced in April that his office had issued a subpoena to the Environmental Law Institute and its Climate Judiciary Project, which seeks to educate judges on the science of climate change, "as part of an investigation into suspicions" that the nonprofit had violated Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The group has also faced scrutiny from GOP members of Congress.

Uthmeier's office didn't respond to an inquiry from AP about where the effort stands.

Nick Collins, a spokesperson for the institute, said in a statement that ELI had faced years of "meritless allegations" and "answered countless questions and provided thousands of pages of documents."

"Despite these facts, certain politicians -- including a number of Republican state attorneys general -- continue to attack ELI's programs using these same meritless claims," he said.

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Uthmeier.