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In Fighting Trump's Environmental Rollbacks, State AGs Get New Help

NYU School of Law will launch a new center, financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, aimed at helping state attorneys general fight any federal moves to roll back renewable energy, environmental protections and climate policies.

NYU School of Law will launch a new center, financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, aimed at helping state attorneys general fight any federal moves to roll back renewable energy, environmental protections and climate policies.

The grant of nearly $6 million, which will establish the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, marks a new step in the escalating battle between state attorneys general and the Trump administration over the nation’s energy and environmental trajectory. Although the center will provide assistance to states regardless of party, Democratic attorneys general have been particularly aggressive in challenging the administration’s efforts to unravel regulations and policies that aim to curb fossil fuel production in the United States as well as restrict drilling and mining on federal lands and in federal waters.

“Every day there’s something that goes on that endangers the health and safety of Americans,” Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) said Wednesday. “Attorneys general don’t begin to have the resources to meet these challenges.”

Former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has spent tens of millions of dollars through his charitable group to address climate change, giving $80 million to the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign to shut down coal-fired plants across the country. The new center will provide legal assistance to the attorneys general on renewable energy, climate and environmental issues and will sponsor 10 lawyers on two-year fellowships who will work directly on cases in different attorneys general offices.

David J. Hayes, who served as the Interior Department’s deputy secretary under both the Obama and Clinton administrations, will serve as the center’s executive director. In an interview Wednesday, Hayes said that although “there’s never enough” funding to support this sort of advocacy, the grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies could support not only litigation against the federal government but also enforcement activities on the state level.

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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