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Leonardo DiCaprio’s non-profit foundation has awarded a grant to a dark money group, which will join the law firm spearheading a nationwide climate change lawsuit, according to an email seen by Fox News Digital. Poured the funds.
A 2017 correspondence between Dan Emmett, a leading philanthropist, and Ann Carlson, a climatology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said the two worked with law firm Shah Edling. said it had raised money for an effort to sue oil companies. Climate change deceptions on behalf of state and local governments, according to an email obtained by watchdog group Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO) and shared with Fox News Digital.
In an email, Emmett and Carlson discussed how Shah Edling’s Director of Strategic Customer Relations, Chuck Savit, enlisted Emmett’s support to serve as CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation between 2016 and 2019. We’re discussing if he already had support from Terry Taminen, who had the role. At the time the emails were exchanged, Carlson, now a senior Biden administration official, was serving as co-director of the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, an advisory panel still chaired by Emmett.
Emmett wrote to Carlson on July 22, 2017, “Chuck Savitt, who is leading this new organization behind the lawsuit, has asked for our support. Terry in his new role at the DiCaprio Foundation. Taminen was a key supporter.”
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According to records, Emmett also forwarded a message asking for support that Savit sent him on July 19, 2022. Savitt said in the email that Sher Edling’s initial lawsuit was filed with support from the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptation. The Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptation was a fund formerly managed by the dark money group Resources Legacy Fund (RLF).
“I wanted to let you know that on Monday we filed our first three lawsuits with the support of the Collective Action Fund,” Savitt told Emmett. We want the company to take responsibility for the devastating damage that rising sea levels due to greenhouse gas emissions are causing to coastal areas.”
Savitt also suggested setting up a meeting with Emmett and Sher Edling’s partner, Vic Sher.
The email exchange came two months before the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation publicly announced that it would donate $20 million in grants to various climate and environmental causes.Group announcements that have followed since Deleted but remains archivedwhich includes a grant to the RLF to “support precedent legal action to hold key players in the fossil fuel industry to account,” echoes Sabitt’s words well.
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“These grantees are working on the ground, protecting our oceans, forests and endangered species for future generations, and addressing the urgent and existential challenges of climate change,” said DiCaprio. said at the time.
Taminen added that he believes the organization needs to “do all we can now before it’s too late.” The announcement did not mention Shah Edling.
In February 2018, months after their initial email exchange, Emmett told Carlson that he and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation were “serious supporters” of Shah Edling’s ongoing lawsuit in another future. The suggestion came after Carlson asked whether he should ask New York philanthropist Andy Sabin to help support the effort.
In an email, Emmett said, “Both Terry’s organization and I are serious supporters, you are our advisors, the science is there, and if we succeed, we will do more for the environment.” I can tell you that you can do it,” said Carlson.
In addition to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and the Emmett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, and JPB Foundation have contributed to the Collective Action Fund since 2017.
According to Sher Edling’s website, the company is dedicated to “representing states, cities, public agencies, and businesses on high-impact, high-value environmental issues.” Since the first lawsuit, filed on behalf of his one city and two counties in California in July 2017, Sher Edling has been sued in Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York City, Washington, D.C. I have sued major oil companies on behalf of San Francisco, Baltimore and Honolulu.When several local governments across the countryalleging the company misled the public about climate change.
Most of the lawsuits, two involving San Francisco and Oakland, California, have been appealed to federal commissions.
“Obviously the donors have made some allegations arm’s length, including DiCaprio,” Chris Horner, the attorney who represented GAO in the case involving the emails, told Fox News in an interview. I told Digital.
“This model uses several pass-throughs that allow DiCaprio and Dan Emmett and others to operate businesses such as DiCaprio’s Foundation and the Resource Legacy Fund, which are not considered to be funding attacks. No,” Horner added.
Overall, RLF donated over $5.2 million to Sher Edling between 2017 and 2020. The organization did not disclose the donors and refused to confirm from whom it had previously received funds to fund Shah Edling’s lawsuit.
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“From 2017 to 2020, Cher Edling received a grant from the RLF for the accuracy of information fossil fuel companies disseminated to consumers and the public about the role their products played in contributing to climate change. We pursued philanthropy to hold them accountable,” said an RLF spokesperson. Mark Kleinman told his Fox News Digital in an email.
“RLF is supported by a number of funding agencies, whose board and staff make all decisions regarding where the funds go,” the spokesperson continued.
Shah Edling declined to comment.
Experts have previously expressed concerns about the sources of funding for Cher Edling’s climate lawsuit.
Michael Krauss, professor emeritus of law at George Mason University, mentioned in a 2020 Forbes article an arrangement in which Shah Edling would receive payments from the territories he represents in the event of a successful lawsuit, while also receiving funds from tax exempts. Did. This removes some of the risk involved in undertaking such cases.
“Can the non-profit funnel contribute to a for-profit law firm that has already determined another form of compensation?” Krause wrote. “Could a law firm that could make a ton of accidental wealth ethically accept the money being paid out regardless of whether the client wins the lawsuit?”
“If litigation legislation is bad, what about litigation legislation subsidized by taxpayers through charitable donations? We still don’t have all the answers to these questions,” he continued. “I think we deserve them.”
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Emmett, Taminen, Sabin and the Earth Alliance, the organization that merged the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 2019, did not respond to requests for comment.