What is the Local Environmental Accountability and Defense Fund?

In 2021, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2023 net assets: $8.06 billion) committed a three-year $750,000 grant to the Tides Foundation, a major left-of-center fiscal sponsor and funding conduit. It committed an additional $750,000 in 2024. Both grants were earmarked for a project called the Local Environmental Accountability and Defense Fund, about which no other public information is readily available.

According to the MacArthur Foundation’s reasonably detailed grant description, the Fund’s purpose is to bring “specialized legal expertise to Attorneys General and other public counsel as they step up to protect their local communities, public health, water supplies, and other natural resources. The supported cases are changing behavior and inspiring legislative and regulatory solutions that are helping the United States achieve deep decarbonization of its economy.”

On the surface, this sounds vaguely like the Michael Bloomberg-funded effort to place climate fellows in the offices of state attorneys general through the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at New York University School of Law. The State Impact Center’s mission is to support “(1) the work of state attorneys general in defending, enforcing, and promoting strong laws and policies in the areas of climate, environmental justice, environmental protection, and clean energy; and (2) the work of state utility regulators in advancing affordable, reliable, equitable, clean energy.” This blurs the line between private and public interests, seeming to permit a wealthy ideologically-motivated donor to influence government legal actions on a contentious public policy matter.

MacArthur has helped subsidize government climate lawsuits in another context. It is among the largest known philanthropic funders underwriting a nationwide litigation campaign in which state and local governments are seeking to hold energy companies civilly liable for the claimed costs of climate change. Many of these suits were filed with assistance from the California law firm Sher Edling, which in turn received a total of $13.6 million in 501(c)(3) charitable grants from 2017 through 2023 to support its climate litigation work. This money was evidently routed through a fiscally-sponsored project called the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience, and Adaptation, housed first at the Resources Legacy Fund and later at the New Venture Fund. According to its Form 990-PF filings, MacArthur made $6 million worth of grants to the Collective Action Fund from 2018 through 2023, plus an additional $3 million approved for future payment.

There may be a role here for media to look into the Local Environmental Accountability and Defense Fund. Good questions to ask include which attorneys general the MacArthur Foundation has been supporting, the exact nature of that support, and the cases that have been brought in conjunction with it.