[Senate Hearing 119-198]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 119-198

                       ENTER THE DRAGON	CHINA AND
                       THE LEFT'S LAWFARE AGAINST
                       AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                    SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL COURTS,
                       OVERSIGHT, AGENCY ACTION,
                           AND FEDERAL RIGHTS

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 25, 2025

                               __________

                           Serial No. J-119-28

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                          www.judiciary.senate.gov
                            www.govinfo.gov

                               __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
61-887                  WASHINGTON : 2025                  
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
                     
                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                  CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Chairman
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina    RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois,       
JOHN CORNYN, Texas                       Ranking Member
MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah                 SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
TED CRUZ, Texas                      AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri                CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina          RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana              MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee          CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
ERIC SCHMITT, Missouri               ALEX PADILLA, California
KATIE BOYD BRITT, Alabama            PETER WELCH, Vermont
ASHLEY MOODY, Florida                ADAM B. SCHIFF, California

             Kolan Davis, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
         Joe Zogby, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director

              Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, 
                   Agency Action, and Federal Rights

                         TED CRUZ, Texas, Chair
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina    SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, 
MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah                     Ranking Member
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina          RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana              MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
ERIC SCHMITT, Missouri               ALEX PADILLA, California
                                     PETER WELCH, Vermont

                Michael Berry,  Republican Chief Counsel
                 Claire Kim,  Democratic Chief Counsel
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page

Cruz, Hon. Ted...................................................     1
Durbin, Hon. Richard J...........................................     7
Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon.........................................     4

                               WITNESSES

Arkush, David....................................................    13
    Prepared statement...........................................    33
    Responses to written questions...............................    65
Kobach, Kris.....................................................    10
    Prepared statement...........................................    44
Walter, Scott....................................................    14
    Prepared statement...........................................    51

                                APPENDIX

Items submitted for the record...................................    79

 
                       ENTER THE DRAGON-CHINA AND
                       THE LEFT'S LAWFARE AGAINST
                       AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2025

                      United States Senate,
 Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency 
                        Action, and Federal Rights,
                                Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice at 2:32 p.m., in 
Room 226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ted Cruz, Chair 
of the Subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Cruz [presiding], Durbin, Whitehouse, 
Blumenthal, and Welch.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TED CRUZ, 
             A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

    Chair Cruz. Good afternoon. I hereby call to order this 
hearing, Enter the Dragon-China and the Left's Lawfare Against 
American Energy Dominance. We're witnessing right now a 
systematic campaign against American energy. There is a 
coordinated assault by the radical left, backed and paid for by 
the Chinese Communist Party to seize control of our courts, to 
weaponize litigation against U.S. energy producers.
    All in order to undermine American energy dominance. At 
stake, is a lot more than an industry. Our energy sector is the 
engine of American prosperity, the lifeblood of our industrial 
power, our national security, and our geopolitical leverage. If 
American energy is under attack, so is American security and 
American independence. The campaign against American Energy is 
a three-pronged assault.
    First, foreign money from entities tied to the Chinese 
Communist Party flows into the United States to bankroll 
climate advocacy groups who litigate against American Energy. 
Second, activist lawyers flood our courts with lawsuits 
designed not to win policy debates but to bankrupt energy 
producers and to dismantle energy infrastructure through sheer 
attrition.
    And third, the judiciary itself is being quietly captured 
and brainwashed as left wing nonprofits host closed door 
trainings that indoctrinate judges to adopt the ideological 
goals of the climate lawfare machine. The first prong of this 
coordinated campaign is a strategic alliance, a cozy financial 
partnership between leftist, billionaires, radical 
environmental organizations, and the Chinese Communist Party.
    [Poster is displayed.]
    One of the primary vehicles for this alliance is Energy 
Foundation China, which has funneled upwards of $12 million to 
U.S. based climate advocacy groups since 2020. And this money 
isn't going to tree planting campaigns or to science fairs. 
It's flowing directly to aggressive litigation outfits like the 
Natural Resources Defense Council, the Rocky Mountain 
Institute, and the World Resources Institute.
    Organizations that routinely file lawsuits trying to block 
pipelines, trying to ban gas powered vehicles, and trying to 
bankrupt oil and gas companies. On paper Energy Foundation 
China's goals may sound benign. Support for clean coal, 
electric vehicle and global decarbonization. But that raises 
the obvious question.
    If this is truly about reducing emissions, why isn't China 
investing that money in reducing its own pollution? China is 
the number one polluter on planet earth. Communist China emits 
more carbon than the United States and Europe combined. The 
answer is simple because this is not about climate. It is about 
global energy dominance and control and it gets worse.
    The man at the helm of Energy Foundation China, Ji Zou, is 
not a neutral administrator. He is a former senior official in 
China's National Development and Reform Commission. The agency 
responsible for writing the CCP's 5-year plans, coordinating 
industrial expansion and steering national energy policy 
between 2000 and 2009.
    And again from 2012 to 2015, Professor Zou served as a key 
member of China's official climate negotiation team, including 
during the run up to the Paris Agreement, a deal that gave 
China a free pass to increase emissions until 2030 while 
demanding immediate costly reductions from the United States.
    That was not an accident, that was not a bug, that was the 
purpose and he is not the only one. Energy Foundation. China's 
senior leadership includes other alumni of the Chinese Ministry 
of Ecology and Environment and affiliated State-run 
institutions. This is not remotely a grassroots nonprofit. It 
is a foreign policy weapon disguised as philanthropy, run by 
Chinese Communist Party operatives.
    Flush with funding, the second prong of this campaign is a 
legal barrage aimed at bankrupting the American energy sector 
through a coordinated onslaught of lawsuits. And if this feels 
familiar, it should. It's the same playbook the left used to 
try to destroy President Trump. They couldn't beat him at the 
ballot box so they turned to the courts for indictments, dozens 
of civil suits, fringe legal theories given legitimacy by rogue 
activist judges.
    That wasn't about justice, it was about power. Now they're 
applying that same strategy to an entire sector of the American 
economy. Over 30 lawsuits have been filed in at least 15 
Democrat-run jurisdictions, including by 12 States targeting 
oil producers and gas producers and coal producers. Climate 
lawfare activists have infiltrated American cities and States 
convincing them to sue American energy companies.
    Over 24 pending suits brought by our own State and local 
governments manipulated by the Chinese Communist government and 
funded by left-wing groups. And all of them together are 
crippling American energy. These lawsuits use creative theories 
like public nuisance, climate superfund, consumer protection 
but their objective is clear. Cripple the fossil fuel industry 
through legal attrition and the damages are staggering.
    One suit seeks $1.15 billion. Another demands $3.5 billion. 
The days of Dr. Evil demanding $1 million are long behind us. 
These are not good faith disputes. These are weapons. Just in 
fiscal year 2023, the leading climate law fair groups, not even 
all of them, just the leading groups, raked in close to $500 
million from U.S. energy companies. That's $500 million 
stripped from our energy independence.
    [Poster is displayed.]
    Driving these lawsuits is Sher Edling, LLP, a private 
plaintiff's firm that has filed more than two dozen suits. 
They're not paid by their clients. They're bankrolled by dark 
money empires like the New Venture Fund and the Tides 
Foundation. Groups that launder anonymous donations into 
political litigation. This matters because our domestic energy 
industry supports over 8.5 million jobs, jobs that these 
zealots want to destroy.
    Our fossil fuels power 84 percent of our national energy. 
If these suits succeed, here's what the American public will 
face. Skyrocketing energy costs, a weakened, an unreliable 
power grid and an historic collapse in American energy 
production. And the biggest winner in all of this, China, who's 
paying the bills. This is not litigation. It is strategic 
sabotage disguised in legalese, executed with precision and 
aims squarely at the foundation of American strength.
    The third prong of this strategy is perhaps the most 
insidious because it strikes at the very heart of the rule of 
law, judicial capture. It is being carried out by one 
organization with near total control over climate related 
judicial training, the Environmental Law Institute, and its 
climate judiciary project. If a Federal judge or a State judge 
is receiving ``climate science education today,'' chances are 
overwhelming that it is coming from ELI. The group has 
established a defacto monopoly on climate rating related 
instruction for the judiciary.
    [Poster is displayed.]
    [Points at poster.]
    They've, ``Trained over 2000 judges.'' They claim to be 
neutral. They claim to be science driven but what they are 
doing is ex parte indoctrination, pressuring judges to set 
aside the rule of law and rule instead according to a 
predetermined political narrative. Left wing bankrollers like 
the Hewlett Foundation and the Freedom Together Foundation 
Fund, CJP. They fund CJP to train judges, so, ``Train in 
climate science and make them agreeable to creative climate 
litigation tactics.''
    Then these left wing bankrollers turn around and fund the 
climate litigators who will bring these bogus cases before 
those same judges that they've just indoctrinated. This is like 
paying the players to play and paying the umpire to call the 
shots the way you want them. On April 1 of this year, in my 
capacity as Chairman of the Commerce Committee. I sent a letter 
to the Environmental Law Institute, raising deep concerns about 
this program.
    We have also initiated oversight requests with Federal 
agencies like NOAA, whose internal documents show a cozy 
relationship with ELI and its activist curriculum. And here's 
what we've learned. The Climate Judiciary Project tells judges 
that, ``The consequences of a business-as-usual scenario would 
be catastrophic.'' That's called propaganda. And yet it goes 
on, it encourages the judiciary to view climate litigation as 
a, ``Unique opportunity for accountability.''
    It even recommends embracing novel tort theories like 
public nuisance to assign liability for greenhouse gas 
emissions. Let me ask, is this neutral or is that lobbying 
behind closed doors? The materials even applaud pending 
lawsuits, praising the Rhode Island AG's case is, ``well-
crafted'' while failing to mention that similar claims have 
been dismissed by Federal courts as legally baseless.
    And who funds these baseless CJP trainings? The same dark 
money donors who bankrolled the lawsuits themselves. The same 
networks that support Sher Edling, LLP. This is not how a 
constitutional republic functions. Courts are not supposed to 
be laboratories for political activism and judges are not 
supposed to be trained by the plaintiff's bar that is receiving 
their funding from the Chinese Communist Party.
    What we are witnessing is judicial capture, driven by 
ideology, powered by money, and tolerated by far too many. This 
three-pronged strategy, foreign funding, mass litigation and 
judicial indoctrination is a full spectrum assault on American 
energy independence. And while China drills and digs, we sue 
and shut down. While China dominates supply chains, we 
dismantle our own in court. And while China prepares for energy 
dominance, the American left prepares to attack our own 
domestic capability.
    Congress has a responsibility to expose the funding 
networks, to break the dark money pipelines, to defund the 
judicial indoctrination programs and to restore legal 
neutrality to the courts. We must protect American energy, not 
just on the battlefield but in the courtroom where this war is 
being quietly waged. Ranking Member Whitehouse.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, 
         A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman. This hearing is a 
perfect display of projection; blaming your adversary for what 
you are doing. Dark money, judicial capture, propaganda. Oh my, 
the fossil fuel industry would have nothing to do with those 
things. The hearing ignores that the fossil fuel industry has 
for decades benefited from secret funding to wage war on the 
American consumer by making energy more expensive and dirtier, 
higher utility bills, worse pollution.
    Let's examine the facts. First, money. The fossil fuel 
industry has spent 10 times more on lobbying than environmental 
groups and the renewable energy industry combined, that's not 
even counting fossil fuel elections spending. Republican and 
fossil fuel interests pushed for the citizens' united decision, 
allowing unlimited election spending by special interests.
    Second, dark money. My Disclose Act would require 
transparency in election spending. We voted on it a half a 
dozen times, every time every Republican voted against it. 
Third, energy. Renewable energy is now the cheapest form of 
energy on the planet. The wind, our sunshine, flowing water and 
the earth's own heat are all free and essentially unlimited 
fuel sources their price. Again, zero, does not depend on 
geopolitical events or international industry cartels beyond 
our control. As Republicans hold this hearing today, oil and 
gas gasoline prices have climbed in response to strife in the 
Middle East.
    As Republicans hold this hearing today, tens of millions of 
Americans swelter through a punishing heat wave made both more 
likely and more intense by climate change caused by fossil fuel 
emissions. So, let's talk about climate change. By damaging 
earth's natural systems, climate change costs Americans money, 
lots of money.
    I suspect that Americans would be more interested in 
tackling climateflation than an unspooling yet another 
conspiracy theory from the fossil fuel funded fertile swamp of 
Republican fever dreams. Climate change is raising grocery 
prices. Coffee, chocolate, sugar, and orange juice are just a 
few of the staples whose prices have spiked in response to 
floods, droughts, and heat waves made worse by climate change.
    Climate change is raising electricity costs. Heat waves, 
hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and floods, raise generation 
and distribution costs, raising Americans' utility bills. Heat 
waves force people to consume more electricity. Air 
conditioners are running all around Washington today, further 
raising consumers' electricity bills.
    And then there's insurance. This is the big one not just 
because of the added costs for consumers but because of the 
risk that an insurance crisis triggers a deep and lasting 
recession. Increasingly frequent and severe wildfires and 
storms are making property insurance both unaffordable and 
unavailable in many places. Texas had the fourth highest 
average homeowners' premium is in the country last year at 
around $6,000.
    This year, their projected to increase by another $500. In 
Louisiana premiums averaged almost $11,000 last year. In 
Florida, they were over $14,000 and those are projected to get 
far worse. That's when you can find a company to write 
coverage. Last year, as Chair of the Budget Committee, I 
investigated how climate change was driving non-renewals, where 
your insurance company fires you after you've been a loyal 
customer for many years because they can't afford the risk of 
your property.
    We found that non-renewals are spiking around the country, 
up 278 percent in Florida, 267 percent in Louisiana, 944 
percent in Chambers County, Texas. Where insurance becomes 
unavailable, it becomes impossible to get a mortgage. No 
insurance, no mortgage. Without the ability to get a mortgage 
property values crash unless of course your billionaires 
swapping mansions back and forth with your excess income.
    Rising insurance premiums on their own also cause home 
values to decline and a wide scale crash in coastal and 
wildfire prone home values is likely to trigger a larger 
economic meltdown like we saw in 2008. I'm not the only one 
saying this. An economist cover story last year predicted a $25 
trillion hit to the global real estate market, the world's 
largest asset class.
    Earlier this year, Fed Chair Powell told the Senate Banking 
Committee that in 10 to 15 years it'll be impossible to get 
insurance or a mortgage in entire regions of the country. It's 
already hitting home. I'll share a few articles for the record 
for the Houston Chronicle, inside the costly new reality of 
ensuring a home in Texas.
    Map, see where extreme weather is pushing up home insurance 
costs in Texas and the U.S. Houston Chronicle again, Texas has 
a home insurance crisis. These four charts show how it's 
getting worse. How much is your Texas home worth if you pay a 
lot in insurance? Less than you might think. Wouldn't it be 
great if colleagues on both sides of the aisle would focus on 
this?
    The real danger rather than attempting to project fossil 
fuel dark money mischief onto the organizations and elected 
governments that are trying to protect Americans from climate 
change. Climate change is going to impose immense costs on 
State and local governments. That is indisputable. Sea level 
rise and other climate related phenomena are already damaging 
roads, bridges, ports, water treatment plants and other 
essential infrastructure. And it will just get worse. One 
emblem of climate change's cost to governments is the proposed 
Ike Dike in coastal Texas estimated to cost nearly $60 billion. 
Who's going to pay for that?
    Governments faced with costs like that have a dilemma. Who 
do you get the money from? Taxpayers? Do you want to go to 
taxpayers adding another hit on top of their spiraling 
insurance premiums and declining home values? Or do you want to 
look at the responsible party, the fossil fuel industry. To put 
this into scale, Exxon's profits in the last quarter of last 
year were $900 million per day.
    If they had to pay a billion-dollar judgment, they'd be 
over it by 6 a.m. the next day. And the oil and gas industry 
has known about this problem for more than 60 years. For 3 
decades, they hired their own climate scientists and did their 
own research and their own scientists confirmed that combusting 
fossil fuels would heat the planet with disastrous consequences 
for earth's natural systems, that is, for all of us.
    And then armed with that knowledge, they lied. They denied 
the science. They obstructed climate action. They constructed 
the most complex and mischievous armada of phony front groups 
that America has ever seen in order to do so. The suits that 
are at issue in this hearing are brought under a variety of 
traditional State law tort public nuisance and fraud claims. At 
their heart, there about who should pay for the climate damages 
bearing down on folks around the country.
    We Democrats believe that the responsible party, the 
polluter, the fossil fuel industry should pay. So does Milton 
Friedman, by the way, it's Econ 101, that pollution, a negative 
externality should be baked into the cost of the product. 
Republicans, on the other hand believe that American families 
should pay to protect the free to pollute business model of 
their favored fossil fuel industry.
    By the way, every time somebody on that side of the aisle 
says the word energy in this hearing, what they really mean is 
fossil fuel. Every time they say the word energy dominance in 
this hearing, what they really mean is fossil fuel dominance. 
It's gotten so bad that the Trump administration actually wrote 
wind energy and solar energy, which are extremely prevalent and 
successful in Texas out of their own definition of energy.
    They're not just violating economic principles; they're 
violating the dictionary. That's where we're at. Well, I'm 
willing to bet that the American people are with us on this 
one.
    Thank you, Chairman.
    Chair Cruz. Well, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for 
those effusive words about the great State of Texas. And I 
would note that for more than a decade, we have had over 1,000 
people a day fleeing blue States such as those represented by 
the Democrat Members of this Committee. And coming to Texas, we 
right now have over 1,500 people a day coming to Texas because 
Texas is where the jobs are and you can raise your family 
safely and with prosperity.
    The Ranking Member of the full Committee, Senator Durbin, 
has asked to give an opening statement as well. Senator Durbin.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, 
           A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Senator Durbin. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Last year, President 
Trump asked a room full of oil industry executives to raise $1 
billion for his reelection campaign. And in return, he promised 
to reverse the environmental policies of the Biden 
administration. Big Oil, Big Fossil Fuel eagerly took Trump up 
on his offer.
    They didn't quite make it to $1 billion for his campaign, 
but fossil fuel companies spent over $400 million to elect 
Donald Trump and other Republicans in the 2024 election cycle. 
It seems their money was well spent. In less than 6 months, the 
Trump administration has gutted staff at the EPA, moved to 
special regulations that ensure clean air and water repeal 
regulations that ensure clean air and water, instructed 
agencies to stop considering the cost of carbon emissions and 
scrubbed even the mention of climate change from government 
documents and websites.
    In our audience today are a lot of students and interns, 
welcome to Washington. Many of us have been through your 
experience. I'm glad you're watching this hearing because this 
hearing is all about you and the world you're going to live on. 
And whether or not the weather you noticed in June in the 
District of Columbia is going to be weather you're going to 
notice in May and April as well.
    That's what's at stake here. They say when it comes to heat 
in Washington, it isn't the temperature, it's the stupidity, 
the stupidity of Congress when it comes to ignoring climate 
change, when ignoring what is happening right outside the door. 
Who wants to place a bet that the overall temperature on the 
earth is not going to go up this year over last year and next 
year, over this year, and on and on and on.
    And you're thinking about finishing college, getting a job, 
raising a family, owning a home. This is your world. How we can 
try to hatch conspiracy theories about the Chinese and God 
knows what else. But the bottom line is what are we doing about 
it? What are we doing for you about it? So your generation has 
a fighting chance to have a place that's habitable and livable.
    I decided about 4 or 5 years ago to take advantage of the 
tax credits that were available, put solar panels on your home. 
It didn't catch onto my neighborhood. I'm the only one with 
solar panels. But let me tell you the reality of the situation. 
My electric bill in Springfield, Illinois used to be $120 a 
month. It's now 15. My solar panels are working out pretty 
nicely.
    But what are they doing now with the new bills? They're 
considering the reconciliation bills and others, they're doing 
their best to eliminate all these tax credits and incentives to 
put solar panels on your home. Why? What in the hell is so 
insidious and dangerous about a solar panel? That was my 
conscious decision and my investment and I think it'll pay off 
nicely for me. Why would you want to set out to do this? 
Because of fossil fuel industry hates them like the devil hates 
holy water.
    They hate solar panels, but we put them on then and I'm 
glad we did. President Trump also instructed the Justice 
Department to sue the States that have enacted laws to force 
fossil fuel companies to pay for the cost of their pollution 
and to block lawsuits intended to hold the fossil fuel industry 
accountable.
    Now, Republicans are trying to repeal the tax incentives 
like the one I just mentioned on my solar panels in my home as 
part of the President's so called, ``Big Beautiful Bill.'' Less 
clean energy means what? More pollution, more heat on this 
planet, higher electricity bills for Americans. Who's going to 
profit from that? The fossil fuel industry exactly. Climate 
change is real and it's a huge threat to our economy, our 
environment, and our way of life.
    These facts are undeniable. We need you as young people in 
America to stand up and say to our generation, ``Get the hell 
out of the way. You're screwing up this planet and we have to 
live with it.'' So, give us something that's more hopeful and 
positive. And it isn't by finding conspiracy theories involving 
China. Instead of holding this partisan hearing to push 
conspiracy theories and fossil fuel industry funded attacks on 
State climate policy, we should be holding bipartisan meetings 
to address the cost of climate change and to identify 
bipartisan ideas to produce more clean energy, create jobs and 
lower energy bills across the country and maybe give you an 
earth that you can live on.
    I yield.
    Chair Cruz. I thank the Ranking Member, and I would note 
that both of my Democrat colleagues in their remarks had not a 
word to say about communist China funneling millions of dollars 
to pay for these lawsuits, miraculously that was absent from 
their remarks nor----
    Senator Whitehouse. I think we referred to it by using the 
phrase, ``Conspiracy.''
    Chair Cruz. Yes, you did say you don't worry about 
conspiracy theories but what is most certainly not a conspiracy 
theory is that the agenda of the Chinese Communist Party and 
the agenda of Senate Democrats are identical. Both China and 
the Democrats want to bankrupt the American energy industry. 
Both China and the Democrats want to destroy jobs in America 
and both China and the Democrats want to increase the price you 
pay for electricity every month.
    And they want to increase the price you pay for putting gas 
in your car every week. That is the agenda of today's Democrat 
party. That is the agenda of communist China. And today's 
Democrats are not remotely embarrassed to have their left wing 
groups funded by communist China, the world's biggest polluter 
because China's interest is weakening and hurting America. It 
makes you ask why an American political party would have that 
interest as well.
    Senator Whitehouse. I would just observe that saying it 
more loudly doesn't make it more true.
    Chair Cruz. Actually, in Washington, sometimes it does. All 
right. We will now introduce our distinguished panel. We will 
start with Attorney General Kris Kobach, who was raised in 
Topeka, Kansas, where he graduated from Washburn Rural High 
School. He completed his undergraduate studies in government at 
Harvard University. I've heard of them.
    Graduating first at his department in summa cum laude, a 
Marshall scholar. He received his PhD in politics from the 
University of Oxford. He received his JD from Yale Law School 
serving as notes development editor of the Yale Law Journal. 
Attorney General Kobach clerked for the 10th Circuit Court of 
Appeals and shortly thereafter became a professor of 
constitutional law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City 
School of Law from 1996 to 2011.
    During that period, Attorney General Kobach received a 
White House fellowship from President George W. Bush. He served 
in the United States Department of Justice under Attorney 
General John Ashcroft as Counsel to the Attorney General. 
Attorney General Kobach served as the 31st Kansas Secretary of 
State from 2011 to 2019.
    In 2017, President Trump tapped him to lead the 
Presidential Commission on election integrity. As an attorney 
in private practice, Attorney General Kobach litigated some of 
the most high profile cases in the country, including defending 
statutes and ordinances against the ACLU on multiple occasions. 
In 2012, he brought the first challenge to President Obama's 
DACA amnesty on behalf of 10 ICE agents.
    In 2022, he represented 36 members of the Air Force and the 
Air National Guard who were denied a religious exemption to the 
Biden Vaccine Mandate. Attorney General Kobach was elected as 
Kansas' 45th Attorney General in November 2022. As Attorney 
General, he led and personally argued multiple challenges to 
the illegal actions of the Biden administration, including 
obtaining an injunction, stopping Biden's illegal Title IX 
regulation that would've opened women's locker rooms and 
facilities on college campuses to biological males.
    He also stopped the Biden administration's regulation that 
provided Obamacare benefits to illegal aliens. In 2024, the 
Nation's Republican Attorney's General elected him chairman of 
the Republican Attorney General Association. He lives near Lee 
Compton with his wife Heather and their five children. Our 
second witness is David Arkush.
    Senator Whitehouse. May I? He's a minority witness.
    Chair Cruz. In practice, the Chairman has always introduced 
all the witnesses.
    Senator Whitehouse. I don't think that is the practice but 
that's okay if you don't want to provide me that courtesy, 
proceed.
    Chair Cruz. David Arkush is the Director of Public Citizens 
Climate Program. He is an expert on the climate crisis, 
financial regulations, regulatory law and policy and consumer 
and worker protection. He has broad experience building 
coalitions and advocating for the public interest, having 
interacted extensively with Congress and regulatory agencies 
and litigated complex cases in the Federal courts.
    Before running the climate program, David spent 5 years 
directing Public Citizens Congress Watch Division, where he led 
strategic research and advocacy campaigns and played key roles 
in the passage of laws including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street 
Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, and the Consumer 
Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
    A Time magazine profile of David notes that he has, 
``Advocated for consumer protection, advised breaking up the 
largest too big to fail banks and addressed other industry 
structure issues while investigating the financial sector's 
myriad ties to the Government.''
    David has also taught administrative law and legislation at 
the University of Richmond School of Law. He graduated with 
honors from Harvard Law School where he served as managing 
editor of the Harvard Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review 
and with honors from Washington University in St. Louis, where 
he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
    Our third witness, Scott Walter, is President of Capital 
Research Center. He served in the George W. Bush administration 
as Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and 
was Vice President at the philanthropy Round Table, editing 
Philanthropy magazine and producing donor guidebooks on 
assistance to the poor, public policy research and other 
topics.
    Walter has testified to six Committees in Congress, and to 
the IRS, and numerous State legislatures, and he has written 
for and been quoted in such outlets as The New York Times, The 
Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Chronicle of 
Philanthropy. A Georgetown graduate, he served as a senior 
fellow at the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, and is senior 
editor of AEI's flagship publication.
    He is the author of Arabella: The Dark Money Network of 
Billionaires Secretly Transforming America. He and his wife 
Erica, have four children and live in Virginia. I would ask 
each of the three witnesses to please rise for the oath.
    [Witnesses are sworn in.]
    Chair Cruz. All of you have answered affirmatively. General 
Kobach, you are recognized for your opening statement.

   STATEMENT OF HON. KRIS KOBACH, ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF 
                     KANSAS, TOPEKA, KANSAS

    Mr. Kobach. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished 
Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to 
testify today about environmental lawfare. As Attorney General 
of Kansas, I've represented the State of Kansas in multiple 
environmental cases in this broad category of litigation.
    Because my experience is greatest in the litigation itself 
rather than on the various connections to China, I will focus 
principally on the litigation. Touching briefly on the China 
connections where I am familiar with them. I want to jump 
straight to what we see that's new in environmental litigation. 
We're all familiar with the past decades of litigation.
    There are two new types of litigation we're seeing just in 
the last few years. First, we are seeing laws or regulations 
coming from specific States that are extra territorial in 
scope. In other words, the law doesn't just regulate the State 
and the residents of that State. It attempts to regulate the 
whole country.
    And I'll give you two principal examples of this. And the 
main way to stop these laws right now and to try to restore 
Federal, nationwide uniform regulation in the environmental 
sector is for either the justice department or for a State to 
sue. First in 2023, the California Air Resources Board or CARB 
promulgated their advanced clean fleet regulation, which 
mandates a transition to zero emission trucks on highways in 
California by 2035 for medium duty vehicles by 2042 for all 
other vehicles.
    But most fleets would have to meet emission targets 
starting this year in 2025. This CARB regulation masquerades as 
an in-State rule. But really it is a nationwide rule because of 
California's scope and because so many ports are in California, 
trucks have to go through and if they go through California for 
one bit of one day then they're subject to the regulations. It 
would effectively create a national policy regulating trucks 
all over the country.
    And of course, usurp Congress's prerogative, presumably 
something the Committee cares about here. In 2024, Nebraska and 
Kansas and 15 other States sued California, challenging 
California's CARB regulation, arguing principally that it was 
preempted by two Federal statutes. Candidly, California was 
never going to win this case in court. You had those two 
express preemption provisions and then on top of that, they had 
to get a waiver from the EPA.
    They applied for that waiver but by the time of the recent 
election had not yet obtained it. And then in January of this 
year, California backed down, withdrew their waiver request, 
and entered into settlement negotiations with the plaintiff 
states of which I'm one. But not all extraterritorial State 
laws are defeated so easily. The ones that are currently in 
litigation are the so-called climate change Superfund laws in 
like late 2024.
    New York enacted one and then in early 2025 Vermont 
followed. The New York Law Forces climate companies to 
retroactively pay fines, totaling $75 billion for the past 25 
years of fossil fuel emissions, the carbon emissions, the CCP 
backed Chinese American Planning Council lobbied heavily for 
the New York Superfund Law.
    In February, 2025, a group of Republican-led States, 22 of 
us sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of 
New York. We are maintaining that it is impliedly preempted by 
the Clean Air Act, since it obviously interferes with 
Congress's objective of having a uniform national law. It also 
violates the equal sovereignty of the States.
    But I make the point in my written testimony, this is one 
area where express preemption would be much more helpful. And 
I'm normally a strong opponent of preemption. I think Congress 
should reluctantly preempt State laws and courts should 
reluctantly read between the lines of congressional statutes to 
find preemption. But this is one area where I believe express 
preemption will be helpful to Congress and to the States so 
that we have a uniform national policy. And there's language I 
suggest on page 5 of my testimony.
    The second threat is something the Chairman alluded to and 
that is lawsuits brought by cities and counties. And these are 
all over the country. There's over 30 of them. I want to 
briefly describe a couple of them. One is Rodriguez versus 
Exxon Mobil. In that case, Ford County, Kansas, where Dodge 
City is, is one of the plaintiffs attempting to represent not 
just Ford County, not just Kansas counties, but to represent 
all counties in America and all of their representatives.
    In other words, it's purporting to represent everybody in 
this country. They're bringing a case under the theory of 
public nuisance but they're also doing something different. 
They're attempting to usurp the State's prerogative as parens 
patriae. That is to say the State's Attorney's General have the 
authority to bring a case to protect the broadly rich health 
and welfare of the citizens of the State.
    So in addition to usurping Federal authority by trying to 
make a national policy in that case against plastics, they're 
also usurping State authorities. As Kansas' Attorney General, 
I've intervened in that case and also in a companion case or a 
similar case with similar plaintiffs, going after shale oil 
production in New Mexico. There's another case that's further 
along. It's Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. BP. That 
one's in the Maryland Supreme Court right now. I think that 
where Congress can be helpful in these cases is in getting to 
the bottom of where the money is coming from.
    The case has been going on for 8 years. There's not a 
single dollar that's been won in damages. Yet, tens of millions 
of dollars in attorney's fees have been expended already. The 
money is coming from somewhere. The foundations are getting 
their money from somewhere. It's reasonable to ask if China is 
part of that equation. And I think, I would hope that would be 
there'd be bipartisan support for disclosing foreign funding of 
third-party litigation.
    And so, in conclusion, I would say we will continue these 
fights in court as the State Attorney's General. But we do need 
some help from Congress. And I think these are modest requests 
for legislation preemption that would preserve the prerogatives 
shared by both parties for congressional national uniform 
legislation and also some transparency where foreign entities 
and foreign countries are engaged in this litigation.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Kobach appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Cruz. Thank you General. Mr. Arkush.

             STATEMENT OF DAVID ARKUSH, DIRECTOR, 
         PUBLIC CITIZEN CLIMATE PROGRAM, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Arkush. Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Whitehouse, 
Ranking Member Durbin, thank you for the opportunity to testify 
today. Right now, there's a brutal heat wave afflicting half 
the United States. Energy costs and insurance premiums are 
skyrocketing. And we're sitting here in the U.S. Senate talking 
about Chinese communist conspiracy theories straight out of the 
1950's. I don't think this is the right priority.
    That said, there is a conspiracy here and it's the obvious 
one in plain sight. Big Oil has made trillions of dollars in 
profits over the past several decades and the industry is 
extremely harmful. It kills millions of people every year and 
has cost us trillions of dollars. The industry knew decades ago 
that burning fossil fuels would cause in its own words, 
``Globally catastrophic harm.''
    What it chose to do with that knowledge is remarkable. 
Imagine you've learned that something you are doing will cause 
globally catastrophic harm, will have, ``Serious consequences 
for humanity's survival. Those are the industry's words.'' I 
hope you would stop doing it.
    If for some reason you can't stop immediately because of 
the economic importance of your industry then you could still 
alert the public and help work toward solutions, including 
selling safer, better forms of energy yourself. Worst case, you 
could at least keep quiet while other people go about learning 
about the problem and figuring out how to fix it.
    But the oil industry did none of these things. Instead, it 
actively lied and deceived people, spending millions of dollars 
on a deception campaign to cast doubt on science that the 
industry itself knew was correct. They had polling in the 
1990's that showed strong public support and public concern for 
climate change. And that showed that public support for climate 
change turned to opposition when people were told that there 
was scientific disagreement about climate science.
    So that's what they did. Manufacture doubt about climate 
science and fraudulently claim that scientists disagree about 
it. Even more remarkable, it's clear they believed the science 
themselves because they used it. For example, in the 1990's, 
they raised the height of offshore oil platforms to account for 
the sea level rise that they predicted.
    They did this while arguing to the public and Congress that 
climate science was too uncertain to make any costly economic 
decisions about it, but they weren't uncertain. They moved to 
protect their own investments and interests while lying to 
everyone else. This was also, they could keep profiting 
enormously but the rest of us have not profited, far from it. 
On the contrary, we're paying dearly. Last year alone climate 
related harms cost Americans nearly $1 trillion, more than 3 
percent of GDP.
    This is like a stealth tax on all of us. Insurance premiums 
are skyrocketing due to climate driven extreme weather 
insurance companies are pulling out of more and more places, 
even whole States. The Chair of the Federal Reserve, as Senator 
Whitehouse noted, recently testified to a Senate Committee that 
there are whole regions of the country, where in 10 or 15 years 
you won't be able to get a mortgage and there won't be bank 
branches or ATMs.
    This will have devastating economic consequences for our 
country. A large proportion of climate related costs are 
already uninsured and the burden is increasingly falling on 
American families and State and local governments. Some of 
those governments are trying to hold Big Oil accountable for a 
fraction of those costs so that the polluter's responsible for 
the damage pay the cost instead of taxpayers getting stuck with 
the bill. This is a basic principle of fairness.
    Something we teach to our toddlers. You make a mess, you 
clean it up. Also, the notion that a person who causes damage 
should pay for it is as old as law itself. You can see it in 
the Code of Hammurabi written nearly 4,000 years ago. But oil 
companies don't like this principle because they're causing 
more harm than perhaps anyone else in human history and they 
don't want to pay what they owe. They don't want the normal 
rules to apply. They want you to shield them from 
accountability and they're pushing for it in part by funding 
people to spin cockamamie theories about China like the ones 
we're hearing today.
    Speaking of China, if anyone is helping China right now in 
our political system, it's the party pushing what I think of as 
a serious energy retreat and the Big Ugly Bill in Congress. 
Some people call it the Big Beautiful Bill. That bill would put 
China way, way ahead of the U.S. by strangling our renewable 
energy, stifling innovation, and locking us into forking over 
hundreds of billions of dollars every year to the dirty, 
dangerous, expensive energy of 200 years ago, fossil fuels.
    The bill could shatter 331 factories and kill 330,000 jobs 
in the U.S. solar industry alone, mostly in red States, 
including ones represented by Members of this Committee. But 
that's what Big Oil wants and that's the industry that happens 
to fund the elections of politicians supporting the bill and 
funds a vast network of groups that are still lying on its 
behalf. That's the conspiracy here, the obvious one in plain 
sight. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Arkush appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Cruz. Thank you. Mr. Walter.

             STATEMENT OF SCOTT WALTER, PRESIDENT, 
            CAPITAL RESEARCH CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Walter. Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Whitehouse 
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 
honor of testifying. I'm Scott Walter, President of the Capital 
Research Center, where we study special interests. It's no 
accident as the Marxists say that China has deep ties to the 
environmentalist movement. Whatever their intentions, radical 
climate activists advocate policy after policy that objectively 
strengthens China and weakens America.
    Whether it's hindering our production of energy, boosting 
China's energy resilience, or making our supply chains 
dependent on Chinese inputs. As the report by State Armor I 
cited documents, the Chinese Communist Party has every 
incentive to support climate activism in America. 
Unfortunately, as I also document, China finds willing partners 
in activist groups like the Rocky Mountain Institute, the 
California China Climate Institute and Energy Foundation China.
    The Energy Foundation Scheme is not subtle. It's headed by 
a former influential Chinese government official and sends 
money to activists at groups like the Rocky Mountain Institute 
and the Natural Resources Defense Council. It also sends money 
to activists in universities like Berkeley, UCLA, and Harvard. 
But foreign nationals in China aren't the only ones who attack 
our energy independence and threaten to make it harder for 
working class Americans to heat and cool their homes and drive 
their cars and trucks. Billionaires around the world add to the 
threat.
    In Australia, the billionaire Andrew Forrest works with 
American tort lawyers and groups like the Sierra Club and the 
Center for Climate Integrity to put a major U.S. energy company 
out of business through lawfare that bypasses the democratic 
process. A British billionaire, Sir Christopher Hohn also funds 
the Center for Climate Integrity as well as law breaking 
radicals at Extinction Rebellion.
    Then, there's the biggest foreign national billionaire 
working to manipulate America's politics, Hansjorg Wyss, who's 
poured over $650 million into the American left. Recipients 
have included Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, ClimateWorks, 
and the minority witness's employer, Public Citizen.
    But Wyss is best known for giving $278 million to the 
Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501c4 operated by Arabella Advisors and 
called by the Atlantic, ``The indisputable heavyweight of 
Democratic Party dark money.'' Sixteen Thirty passes along tens 
of millions of dollars to the League of Conservation Voters and 
other environmental groups. Then there's the new Venture Fund 
to which Wyss has given $82 million and which is also operated 
by Arabella. They run the largest dark money network in the 
country on either side.
    New Venture has donated over $1 million to Mr. Arkush's 
Public Citizen and it also runs the Collective Action Fund. 
That group pays the fore profit firm Sher Edling to sue energy 
companies on behalf of States like Rhode Island and cities like 
Baltimore, in hopes judges will force policies on our country 
that majorities of Democrats and Republicans oppose, policies 
that should be resolved through the political process by voters 
and their elected representatives, not by private lawyers and 
their ideologically motivated funders.
    Climate lawfare in America is also funded by homegrown 
billionaires. Many with the same last name, ``Foundation.'' 
Hewlett and Rockefeller philanthropies stand out joined by many 
more like Ford and MacArthur, who provide a handful of climate 
lawfare groups a half billion dollars a year.
    Billionaire Michael Bloomberg supports lawfare by paying to 
install activists in State Attorney General offices, hoping 
they'll sue energy companies and achieve policy changes they 
can't win through democratic legislatures.
    So far, they're mostly losing in the courts too. The New 
York AGs case was dismissed with prejudice. Climate lawfare 
raises ethics issues too. Contingency fees for firms like Sher 
Edling presume they're taking a risk but are they, if they have 
prior funding? Did these firms disclose that funding to 
government clients? If the Government clients knew, did they 
disclose the funding to the public?
    Another ethics problem, the Climate Judiciary Project runs 
educational programs for judges about climate change and 
lawsuits. One observer calls it an effort by the climate tort 
movement to brief judges on the plaintiff's cases with 
supposedly neutral information.
    Yet the speakers come from the plaintiff's witnesses and 
amicus brief filers. This effort to capture courts deserves 
your oversight. If the public knew climate lawfare's cost and 
its ties to foreign influence, they'd be outraged. I hope this 
hearing begins to reveal the truth. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Walter appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Cruz. Thank you. What we're seeing is not the rule of 
law. It's lawfare. These lawsuits aren't meant to succeed on 
the merits. They're designed to exhaust, to intimidate and to 
destroy America's energy sector, death by a thousand cuts. 
We've even seen private parties get in on the act. One of the 
most infamous examples was Juliana versus United States, where 
21 people sued the Federal Government claiming that allowing 
climate change to persist violated their due process rights.
    A Federal district judge in Oregon actually agreed, 
comparing the right to a stable climate to the right to same 
sex marriage. She was prepared to enjoin the entire Federal 
Government, effectively putting the energy industry into 
judicial receivership at the behest of ``children.'' 
Fortunately, the Ninth Circuit, by far the most liberal court 
of appeals in the country shut it down and eventually a 
unanimous Supreme Court did as well.
    Funded by deep pocketed climate activists and left wing 
dark money, the anti-American energy lobby and its allies in 
the plaintiff's bar have initiated dozens of civil lawsuits 
against American energy producers. These suits, which assert 
State law claims under dubious nuisance toward or consumer 
protection theories are properly preempted by Federal law.
    Nevertheless, they have proliferated across the country and 
they're exposing energy producers to potentially trillions of 
dollars in damages. There are now more than 30 active lawsuits 
across the country accusing energy producers of misleading the 
public about carbon emissions and climate change. If 
successful, these suits could destroy millions of jobs and 
raise the energy cost of every consumer in America.
    Let me start with the legal foundation. General Kobach, 
have any of these climate lawsuits brought under public 
nuisance or similar theories been upheld on the merits by a 
Federal Appellate Court?
    Mr. Kobach. No, Senator. And none of them have been upheld 
on the merits by a State appellate court either. The case that 
is closest to a higher-level decision right now is the 
Baltimore case, Baltimore versus BP. It's several consolidated 
cases. That's basically a case where Baltimore is suing the 
fossil fuel industry, defendants for climate change generally.
    A lot of these others are more specific like shale oil 
production or plastics but they're just global warming. And the 
District Court in Baltimore ruled against the plaintiffs on all 
eight grounds. That's a pretty big deal and they now are 
appealing to the State Supreme Court. That one will probably be 
decided later this year, early next year. But that's the 
biggest or nearest chance the plaintiffs have to achieving a 
victory. But they have got no victory so far.
    Chair Cruz. And isn't it true that many of these suits are 
brought by cities and counties that lack the legal standing to 
assert injuries on behalf of the entire public?
    Mr. Kobach. Yes, Mr. Chairman and that's what I was 
alluding to when I mentioned parens patriae. The State has the 
responsibility--parens patriae is Latin of course for parent or 
father of the country and the State Attorney General, which 
represents the State at large, has that sovereignty. Our 
Constitution contemplates that States have sovereignty and they 
conceded some of that sovereignty to the Federal Government.
    But localities are creations of State government, 
localities do not possess the sovereignty the State does. And 
so, while some people may be upset that we have 50 States and 
the States take different positions in some of these legal 
cases, the States have at least the right to represent their 
residents. Cities do not, counties do not.
    And so, it massively multiplies the, the potential 
plaintiffs out there. And it becomes nonsensical in a legal 
sense for a city in one end of a State and a city on the 
opposite end of the State to both purport to represent the 
residents of the same State. And in the cases I mentioned, 
they're purporting to in a class action format, represent all 
representatives, represent all citizens and residents of every 
county in America. So they've taken public nuisance theory to a 
bizarre extreme. And they've also usurped authority of State 
Attorney's General.
    Chair Cruz. Well, that may help explain why they're losing 
so many of these cases. Mr. Walter, Sher Edling has filed 
dozens of climate lawsuits. Are they being paid by the 
Government entities they represent or by anonymous left wing 
donor networks like the new Venture Fund?
    Mr. Walter. I believe the vast majority of the funding 
comes from the outside funders, yes.
    Chair Cruz. Isn't it also true that one of the biggest 
sources of funding for U.S. based environmental litigation 
groups is Energy Foundation China, an organization run by a 
former senior Chinese Communist Party official who helped craft 
the CCP's 5-year energy plans?
    Mr. Walter. Energy Foundation China channels tens of 
millions of dollars to numerous environmental groups. Yes.
    Chair Cruz. Now, Mr. Walter, my Democrat colleagues have 
said that's a crazy conspiracy theory. What is the basis for 
saying that energy Foundation China is funneling so many 
millions of dollars into these suits?
    Mr. Walter. Well, their own IRS filings because they're are 
501c3 registered in San Francisco.
    Chair Cruz. If this were really about reducing emissions, 
wouldn't we expect Energy Foundation China to give a damn about 
the worst polluter on the face of the planet, that being 
communist China?
    Mr. Walter. That would be logical. Yes, Senator.
    Chair Cruz. And yet their lawsuits are designed to destroy 
the American energy industry, which happens to perfectly 
coincide with the political objective of Senate Democrats to 
destroy the American energy industry. Would the result of that 
help or hurt America and would it help or hurt China?
    Mr. Walter. Well, obviously it would help China vis-a-vis 
the United States and it would certainly be highly problematic 
for everyone in the United States.
    Chair Cruz. Thank you. Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Whitehouse. Just for the record, at least as to me, 
my personal objective is to reduce fossil fuel emissions to the 
point of safety, which can be done in a lot of ways, including 
by reducing fossil fuel emissions or scrubbing them out of the 
fossil fuel power plants or replacing burning water to make 
steam with fossil fuel to run the turbines with boiling water, 
with nuclear, solar, other ways to run the turbines.
    So, this is not about destroying the fossil fuel industry. 
This is about getting the fossil fuel industry to behave like a 
responsible citizen while it is causing so much harm. On the 
subject of harm, the International Monetary Fund has pegged the 
subsidy to fossil fuel in the United States every year from 
getting away with polluting for free, which is not moral, not 
economic, not environmentally correct. At over $700 billion, 
$700 billion.
    No wonder it's such a monster in the political landscape 
when it's defending a $700 billion annual subsidy. But more 
than that, the damage that it does rolls forward. And one of 
the areas we're seeing it most clearly now is through the 
insurance industry. And Mr. Arkush, I'd like to ask you a 
little bit about that [points at witness]. There have been 
reports, not from green groups, from major insurance companies, 
from major mortgage companies, from very respected financial 
experts that once climate change makes weather and weather 
conditions too unpredictable, there become areas of the country 
that can't insure themselves any longer.
    And once they can't insure themselves any longer in that 
area, you can't get mortgages any longer, which means that 
property values crash in that area and that local bankers 
suffer because their loan to value ratios crash and their 
mortgage revenue crashes. And that the combination of that 
local economic effect with the property value loss to those 
homeowners cascades into a full on 2008 style recession. Could 
you walk us through that and where we're seeing some current 
examples of that already beginning to appear?
    Mr. Arkush. Sure. That's exactly right. Again, no less than 
the Republican Chair of the Federal Reserve has said that there 
are whole regions of the country that soon you won't be able to 
get a mortgage and there may not be bank branches or ATMs. And 
that is because of insurers withdrawing from those areas. And 
the way this works is that climate harms raise insurance rates 
or cause insurance insurers to withdraw entirely. They're 
withdrawing from entire States. There are headlines about this 
every other month.
    When insurance becomes too expensive to afford or is just 
unavailable, that dramatically drops home values because you 
can't get a mortgage without insurance. And if you can't get a 
mortgage on a property, that dramatically shrinks the buying 
pool. And also, if the insurance is just really expensive, the 
expenses of paying for any asset or any kind of ownership 
reduce the value of the asset, right?
    Senator Whitehouse. My point in my opening remarks, if the 
average homeowners insurance price in Florida is now $14,000 a 
year.
    Mr. Arkush. Yes.
    Senator Whitehouse. And if that's predicted to double or 
triple, let's say it doubles, now you go to $28,000 a year.
    Mr. Arkush. Yes.
    Senator Whitehouse. If when you buy a home you're signing 
up for $28,000 a year in expense out of your pocket?
    Mr. Arkush. Just for insurance.
    Senator Whitehouse. Just for insurance, what does that do 
for the value the home?
    Mr. Arkush [continuing]. Not for maintenance, not the home, 
not the taxes, not for anything else. That's right. Then it 
gets a lot harder to sell your home, that's for sure.
    Senator Whitehouse. Yes. The price goes down.
    Mr. Arkush. And the value of your property falls a lot. 
Yes, that's absolutely right. And that's what we're seeing in 
Florida, people are losing their insurance. It has some of the 
highest premiums in the country. It has some of the fastest 
premium increases in the country. According to data from the 
Federal Insurance Office, there was a 168 percent increase from 
2018 to 2022.
    And Floridians who have to go to the State last resort 
insurer, Florida Citizens because they can't get insurance from 
anyone else. Ten percent of Florida homeowners already don't 
have insurance. And more and more people are unable to afford 
these premiums. It could easily cause a real estate crash that 
has nationwide effects. As you said, just like the financial 
crisis of 2008 which had its roots and a sharp decrease in home 
values.
    Senator Whitehouse. And Mr. Arkush, just a last question. 
If an industry is lying to the public about the dangers of the 
product that it sells, is that established to be a legally 
actionable situation? And is the Tobacco Lawsuit an example of 
that?
    Mr. Arkush. That's exactly right. There are, these are not 
novel legal theories. In fact, they're some of the oldest in 
our country. Some of them go way back, way before our country 
in English common law. If you're responsible for harms, you pay 
for them. If you can't commit fraud to consumers you can't 
engage in a fraud racket. And a fraud racket is exactly what 
big tobacco engaged in and was successfully sued by the U.S. 
Department of Justice for.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you very much. And State 
Attorneys' General points out our State Attorney General----
    Mr. Arkush. And State Attorneys' General. That's absolutely 
right.
    Chair Cruz. Thank you. Senator Durbin.
    Senator Durbin. I'd like to followup a little bit on this 
discussion about lawsuits because I think that's part of why 
we're here today. It isn't just trying to identify the threat 
as being Chinese conspiracies or whatever it happens to be but 
it's also to slow down the pace of lawsuits being filed against 
major elements of the American economy.
    In this case, the fossil fuel industry. Sheldon Whitehouse, 
my colleague, mentioned the tobacco issue. I know that one 
little bit because in 1988 in the House of Representatives, I 
successfully passed a bill to ban smoking on airplanes. Yes, 
that's true. We used to smoke on airplanes in the smoking 
section. How about that for a fantasy?
    And the fact that we had the largest frequent fire club in 
the world, in the House of Representatives led to many revolt. 
We banned smoking on airplanes, but in order to finally get 
real regulation on tobacco and smoking, we couldn't do it 
through the House or the Senate. It had to be done in court. 
And it was done when States came together, General Kobach, 
States came together and said, ``We're going to all sue the 
tobacco companies.''
    It took years for them to do it but they did it 
successfully. And what happened? Tobacco became less of a 
scourge to public health in America. And the likelihood that 
young people sit in this audience smoke has diminished 
dramatically. Now we have new challenges, social media 
platforms that are exploiting young people. We've had testimony 
before, Judiciary Committee, and we're all members of it, of 
people whose children some committed suicide. Others were 
exploited terribly with sexual images on the screen.
    And the industry is oblivious to this because they're 
protected under law under Section 230 from liability for this 
activity. If we can crack through with lawsuits on the social 
media platforms, we can change things dramatically. In the last 
week or two, you probably heard about the opioid settlement, $7 
or $8 billion to be distributed, lawsuits. The point I'm making 
to you is part of the agenda here is to somehow assign to 
lawsuits some insidious or evil motive and why they're being 
formed and filed.
    And the fact is that they're doing what we expect them to 
do. Speak up for the consumer, try to bring some justice to a 
situation which otherwise doesn't have it. We know the fossil 
fuel industry is polluting this planet that we live on 
terribly. I can tell you this, a couple of successful lawsuits 
and they'll think twice about it. It changes. We changed the 
tobacco industry. Opioids changed. They can change.
    But you go to the courtroom to make that to happen. I don't 
think it's necessarily the Chinese motivating us. We're looking 
for justice. And that's fundamental. It doesn't come from 
China. It comes from the heart of America too. The last point I 
would like to make to you is that we have an opportunity here 
to do something now, to provide opportunities for diminishing 
the pollution that we're living with.
    Ignore it and it'll be too late. We've got to show some 
leadership in this country. The bill pending before the U.S. 
Congress on Reconciliation eliminates most of the incentive 
programs for renewable fuels. And that to me is something we'll 
pay a price for years to come. This is not a thoughtful thing. 
This is inspired by a President who calls global warming a 
hoax. I don't think it's a hoax. I think it's reality. And I 
think we need to do more about it. I yield.
    Chair Cruz. Thank you. Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. The Tobacco 
Lawsuit was in fact brought by State attorneys' general and 
just as a historical footnote, we went to the Department of 
Justice and asked them to join us. They refused to do it. They 
said it couldn't succeed. And they also said the tobacco 
companies have never lost a lawsuit. They have never settled a 
lawsuit and you'll lose. Well, as it turned out, eventually, 
all the Attorneys' General of the United States of America, 
including Kansas, joined our lawsuit after a while, after we 
were successful because of the legal action based on the Unfair 
Trade Practices Act of the State of Connecticut, the State of 
Minnesota, the State of Massachusetts, the State of Florida.
    The core States that brought that lawsuit relied on 
deceptive and unfair practice allegations, saying that the 
tobacco companies were lying when they said, ``Our product 
doesn't cause cancer. It doesn't cause death. It doesn't cause 
disease.'' It was a good old-fashioned garden-variety consumer 
protection case. It also involved antitrust allegations in 
Mississippi. It was an equity action.
    It's more complicated than I am describing it right now but 
your State of Kansas, I think it's probably still getting 
money. Every year, every State in the country gets money to 
combat tobacco because it relied on the good old fashioned 
consumer protection statutes that say, ``When you make a 
promise to consumers, it has to be truthful and accurate.''
    And so, I assume that all of the witnesses here support 
those kinds of consumer actions, correct? I'll begin with you, 
Attorney General?
    Mr. Kobach. Yes, I do. When it fits into the correct legal 
box. So, for example, the tobacco lawsuits were brought under 
the State Consumer Protection Acts that you mentioned and every 
State has one. And they're based on the notion, which is very 
clearly laid out that the manufacturer of a product 
misrepresents the product to the consumer of the product and 
the consumer purchases it and suffers some injury or harm.
    And it's because of that deception. It's much harder to fit 
climate change lawsuits into that box because there's no secret 
about the fact that fossil fuels are used in internal 
combustion engines and that those internal combustion engines 
emit CO2.
    Senator Blumenthal. Well, but the State of Connecticut is 
suing Exxon Mobil right now under the Connecticut Unfair Trade 
Practices Act, saying basically it's lying about its product 
and the dangers and damages done by its product. You were suing 
Pfizer, same kinds of allegations, correct?
    Mr. Kobach. The similarity is----
    Senator Blumenthal. But no one is accusing you of trying to 
destroy the American drug industry.
    Mr. Kobach. No, I don't think so. But I think they're not 
the same. The same, they both try to use a consumer protection 
box to put the case in. In the case of the Pfizer, they made 
certain representations about their product and that turned out 
to be contrary to the information they had and the individual 
took it to direct harm to himself.
    In the case of fossil fuels, you have a broad public debate 
about the harms and how big they are, who's causing the harms. 
You also have third parties because it's not just the oil 
company.
    Senator Blumenthal. But in the court, Connecticut has to 
prove its allegation, the facts behind the allegation that in 
fact the company is misrepresenting its product just as you 
have to prove by the way, as you well know----
    Mr. Kobach. Right. Absolutely. Yes.
    Senator Blumenthal [continuing]. Your case has been 
remanded to State court. So you'll have your day in court there 
but no less than if you were in Federal court. You're going to 
have to offer evidence that proves your allegation. Same is 
true of Connecticut in suing Exxon Mobil. I don't see how, as a 
lawyer you can say, ``Well, the claims under the statute are 
wrongly bought just because it's a different industry.'' And 
because there is a public debate because----
    Mr. Kobach. I'm not saying you can't----
    Senator Blumenthal [continuing]. Also, about the American 
drug industry.
    Mr. Kobach. I'm not saying the claims are wrongly brought. 
I'm saying they have a much harder time proving the claims 
because there's less deception, there's also third parties and 
also the--it's not just the fossil fuel extraction company. You 
have the factory that uses, burns the fuels. You have the 
individuals themselves who drive to work in a car. Probably 
most of us flew here from some point on a plane.
    Senator Blumenthal. My time has expired but I could take 
the words exactly that you just uttered and substitute tobacco 
and they would be identical to what the tobacco industry was 
saying about our lawsuit at the time. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Chair Cruz. Thank you. I would note that multiple Democrats 
said the idea that communist China was funding this litigation 
and assault in American energy was a ``Conspiracy theory.'' I 
thank Mr. Walter for pointing out the basis of it are the IRS 
filings from the China Energy Foundation. I have in front of me 
just one of those filings, the form 990 from 2023 and I turned 
to their disbursements.
    And in 2023, they gave the University of California 
Berkeley $150,000. They gave the Rocky Mountain Institute 
$350,000. They gave the International Council on Clean 
Transportation, which I don't know what that is, but it's on K 
Street in Washington, $770,000. They gave Harvard University 
$80,000. They gave the Institute for Transformative and 
Development Policy in New York, $254,000.
    They gave the University of California Los Angeles 
$150,000. They gave the University of Maryland College Park 
$250,000 and they gave the Natural Resources Defense Council 
$200,000. This is just 1 year. You can pull their 990 for every 
year but I ask unanimous consent that this be admitted into the 
record without objection.
    [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
    Senator Whitehouse. Without objection? I think it is 
important to clarify at the end of the day which one of those 
groups are actual litigants. You said litigants and whether the 
money goes to the litigation as opposed to the activities that 
those groups have legitimately in China trying to knock down 
Chinese emissions. It is Republicans who are fond of saying, 
``We might as well throw our hands up in the air about climate 
stuff because the Chinese are doing so much polluting.''
    So, I think it is good that, let's say NRDC is on the 
ground in China fighting Chinese pollution in China. If that is 
what they're doing. It is a very different thing than having a 
Chinese conspiracy that funds a litigating group here in the 
United States in U.S. litigation. So that's a perfectly 
legitimate exhibit to enter into evidence. I have no objection 
to it but it doesn't prove your point yet.
    Chair Cruz. So, I guess you and I disagree in that. I don't 
think it's good that these left wing activist groups that are 
litigating and trying to destroy jobs in this country and 
destroy American energy are being funded by the Chinese 
communist and the Chinese communist interest are directly 
antithetical to the interest of the American people. I'm going 
to ask a couple of more questions and I'll get--I'm sorry. Mr. 
Welch came back. Senator Welch, I didn't see you come back in.
    Senator Welch. Thank you. So, Mr. Walter, I favor the 
provisions of the IRA that are being repealed. You're aware of 
what's going on there, right?
    Mr. Walter. To some degree.
    Senator Welch. All right. I mean, if all the people you've 
mentioned, all of the folks who you indicted for kind of using 
Ted Cruz's language, left wing radical ideas, how do you 
distinguish between a person whose motivation is to be left-
wing Chinese sympathizer and people who just disagree with the 
fossil fuel industry, that climate change in fact is real and 
we have to do something about it? Can you explain to me?
    Mr. Walter. Well at the beginning of my oral testimony 
there, I made the distinction between whatever the intentions 
of various folks may be. They're objectively assisting China in 
its desire to compete with United States.
    Senator Welch. Like the Hewlett Foundation?
    Mr. Walter. Yes.
    Senator Walter. Seriously? Walter Hewlett, his foundation 
you think is in bed with the Communist Party?
    Mr. Walter. Well, that's not what I said, is it? I said 
that objectively they're aiding the Chinese communists but I 
did not say that they themselves were communists.
    Senator Welch. Right. But what you're doing is denying them 
the ability to make their own judgment about what's good public 
policy for the benefit of this country by saying that they're--
and this really is how I hear it. Dupes of the Communist Party 
because what they're doing aligns you say with the communist?
    Mr. Walter. Well, they give a good deal of money for 
instance to the Energy Foundation China, that the Chairman has 
been discussing, which is run by a former Chinese communist 
official.
    Senator Welch. So, if by virtue--does China have any 
environmental problems?
    Mr. Walter. It has grave environmental problems, yes.
    Senator Welch. So, if there are some Chinese that want to 
deal with their environmental problems and we agree that there 
are environmental problems. And we also know that climate 
change can't be solved by one country and other countries start 
to do something about it, is that a problem for you?
    Mr. Walter. Well, I have to say that I'm skeptical that 
former Chinese communist officials are interested in doing 
anything that would harm their country.
    Senator Welch. Who are some of the other names? I don't 
know if your statement here that you said are in effect, 
``Dupes,'' if I can translate what you're saying of the 
Communist Party because their climate agenda you say is being 
funded by them?
    Mr. Walter. I didn't talk about it being funded by them. 
And what I did--what I did explain for--I mean, there are very 
simple things. Massive U.S. Government subsidies for products 
that use Chinese technology obviously is enhancing the Chinese 
economy.
    Senator Welch. Has the U.S. Government through its tax code 
ever provided any incentives in tax preferences for the fossil 
fuel industry?
    Mr. Walter. Yes. A great deal.
    Senator Welch. And you don't have a problem with that?
    Mr. Walter. Well, I'm not an economist qualified to talk 
about the relative value of the subsidies but I don't think 
that it's remotely deniable that we currently subsidize all 
sorts of green technology in which China is leading and 
therefore helping the Chinese.
    Senator Welch. So, the fact that we Senator Durbin here has 
solar panels, does that make him a communist sympathizer?
    Mr. Walter. No, I don't think so. Any more than my driving 
to this hearing today makes me a mass murderer or an accessory 
to mass murder.
    Senator Welch. You know, this is the issue I have. We've 
got a planet that's melting. All right? That's my view. The oil 
industry doesn't agree with that. They think everything's fine. 
And we went from a policy where it was all of the above to 
essentially a policy that everything below is where we're going 
to get our energy.
    And what I'm seeing in the arguments that you were making 
is you're trying to demean and disparage and discredit 
arguments by people who believe that we need a radically 
different policy. It does allow for the development of clean 
energy to reduce carbon emissions. That's what I'm hearing.
    And then one of the tools is to vilify folks who have that 
point of view that they are dupes of the Communist Party that's 
trying to take us down. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chair Cruz. Thank you. And I would note one of the reasons 
why the left and the Chinese Communist resort to litigation is 
because their ideas are incredibly unpopular when the American 
people vote on them. So for example, in the U.S. Senate, every 
Senate Democrat voted in favor of the California Waiver that 
would effectively ban the internal combustion engine in 18 
States across the country.
    Every Senate Democrat voted in favor of it. But you know 
what? The citizens aren't voting in favor of it. They're not 
campaigning. We don't see our Democrat colleagues saying, 
``We're going to ban the internal combustion engine.'' Even in 
bright blue States, even in Vermont and Rhode Island, the 
voters are not saying, ``Take away the car out of my 
driveway.''
    And yet, Democrat office holders are trying to use 
government power to fight the Democrat wishes of their 
electorate. General Kobach, let's talk about the courts. The 
Climate Judiciary Project backed by the Environmental Law 
Institute, Energy Foundation and private donors connected to 
plaintiff's law firms has trained over 2000 judges, many in key 
jurisdictions where these climate cases are pending.
    Is it appropriate for sitting judges to receive climate 
science, ``Education'' from advocacy groups like the 
Environmental Law Institute, groups that are directly tied to 
the plaintiffs in active litigation?
    Mr. Kobach. No. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe it is any 
more than it would be appropriate for a group of justices to go 
on an extensive training conference and be trained in how to 
dispute or defend the fossil fuel industry. When you have a 
group of litigants in a pitch legal battle in approximately 
three--well, more than three dozen cases, if we're talking 
about more than just the ones brought by cities and counties. 
The judges are there to be neutral.
    And the worst thing I fear going into any case on any issue 
is if I know that the judge has already dug in based on prior 
things the judge has done or said against me. So I don't think 
it's appropriate for litigants to be training the judges in 
essentially what their experts are going to say in the trial.
    Mr. Arkush. Mr. Chairman, may I respond to this as well? 
Because----
    Chair Cruz. No. Because we've got limited time. If someone 
else wants to get into it. General Kobach, isn't it true that--
actually, go ahead, Mr. Arkush.
    Mr. Arkush. I just wanted to say that what Mr. Kobach is 
saying he opposes is exactly what's happening from the defense 
side as well. The Environmental Institute has multiple oil 
companies on its board, executives of oil companies, BP and 
Shell and it has Counsel representing them in court in 
important leadership positions.
    Chair Cruz. So, we may be breaking news here or are you on 
behalf of Public Citizen calling for The Environmental Law 
Institute to stop training judges and indoctrinating judges?
    Mr. Arkush. What I'm saying is it doesn't make any sense to 
say that they're indoctrinating judges as some sort of leftist 
plot against the oil companies----
    Chair Cruz. Let's be clear. I'm calling for them to stop 
training judges because I think they are indoctrinating them. 
It's interesting you said that but you weren't willing to go to 
the natural next step of therefore it should stop. General----
    Mr. Arkush. I don't know much about it but I do know that 
BP and Shell are on the board.
    Chair Cruz. Mr. Arkush, if you believed what you were 
saying, you would be willing to call for it to stop. You're not 
and that suggests you know damn well what it is. They're 
training the judges, and it's indoctrination, and you don't 
want it to stop because you want the judges to be biased and 
rule in favor of these crackpot theories. General Kobach, isn't 
it true----
    Mr. Arkush. I disagree that Shell and BP are on the board 
of an organization that's indoctrinated and that is against 
them.
    Chair Cruz. Mr. Arkush, your time is done.
    Mr. Arkush. Thank you.
    Chair Cruz. Isn't it true that these programs often hosted 
in conjunction with the Federal Judicial Center or the National 
Judicial College can obscure ethics disclosure requirements 
because they fall under judicial exemption categories?
    Mr. Kobach. Yes, Chairman, you're correct. There are 
definite ethical problems. And in addition to any the 
overarching sort of Federal model of ethics, you also have 
additional State ethical rules that may be violated as well. 
But at the end of the day, it's judicial neutrality that is the 
biggest ethical constraint on our entire Article III Courts and 
State Courts. And that is the biggest problem I see going into 
any case.
    Chair Cruz. It's also been reported that the Chief Justice 
of the Hawaii Supreme Court participated in these sessions at 
the same time that his court was reviewing one of these climate 
lawsuits. So active litigation and yet happily being 
indoctrinated by interested parties in an ex parte setting 
where the opposing Counsel had no opportunity to refute the 
indoctrination.
    Mr. Walter, the Climate Judiciary Project tells judges that 
climate lawsuits are a, ``Unique opportunity for 
accountability.'' Would you call that education or would you 
call that political indoctrination disguised as training?
    Mr. Walter. Accountability is the standard term used by 
political activists to try to say, ``We want to hurt those 
folks that we're opposed to.''
    Chair Cruz. Do you believe Congress should investigate 
whether these trainings are undermining the impartiality of the 
judiciary?
    Mr. Walter. Absolutely, Senator.
    Chair Cruz. Thank you. Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Whitehouse. Well, the funny thing about this 
conversation is that time did not begin yesterday. And for 
years, public advocates have been objecting to fossil fuel 
funded special trips, trainings, exotic locales behind closed 
doors, indoctrination sessions of judges for like 20 years now.
    This is a recurring phenomenon and now we're hearing 
outrage about that same phenomenon when it's not all fossil 
fuel funded, when it's a group that has fossil fuel executives 
and attorneys on its board. But somehow this is the big 
outrage. So yes, I don't think judges should be being 
indoctrinated behind closed doors by special interests. And 
I've been saying that for years.
    But the experience of this is that the fossil fuel industry 
has been at it like hammer and tongs for decades. And now to 
suggest that a group that has fossil fuel folks on its board 
is, I mean, this is an epic effort in projection and false 
equivalency. And Mr. Arkush you wanted to say something a 
little further--one other thing. The people in America don't 
want to see a climate solution as a proposition is simply not 
true. We have done polling that I have pretty good confidence 
in that says penalties on polluting imports, like imports from 
China that are built with coal powered power electricity and 
have huge carbon footprints, putting a penalty on that higher 
footprint.
    Because they're not meeting our standards. Twelve percent 
opposed, 74 percent support putting pollution limits on big 
corporations. You can pollute this much and then no more. 
Twelve percent oppose, 72 percent support putting a fee on big 
polluters to fix that economic problem that I described. That 
polluting for free violates the fundamental law of market 
economics. That the harms of your product should be baked into 
its cost.
    That fee, 10 percent of Americans opposed, 74 percent 
support. The problem with this issue isn't public support. The 
problem with this issue is fossil fuel influence in this 
building. And I contend that that is what today is all about. 
And I'll just leave it at that.
    Chair Cruz. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse. One final bit of 
questioning for you, Mr. Arkush. Define for this Committee what 
homicide means?
    Mr. Arkush. Sure. So, homicide is a legal term that refers 
to--it's essentially a blanket term for any form of unlawful 
killing. And an unlawful killing is causing death with a 
culpable mental state, causing a death means substantially 
contributing to it or accelerating it. And a culpable mental 
state could be negligence knowledge, recklessness.
    Chair Cruz. So, you wrote an article in 2023 entitled, 
``Climate Homicide prosecuting Big Oil for Climate deaths.'' In 
that article, you argue that oil and gas executives could be 
prosecuted not just sued but criminally prosecuted for 
homicide, for murder based on climate change. Is that right?
    Mr. Arkush. That's right. I mean, I would be careful with 
the wording because murder again is a technical term and 
definitely, we're not arguing that they could be prosecuted for 
first degree murder. That's killing with intent.
    Chair Cruz. But you want to put them in prison for 
homicide, lock them up, treat them as criminals, put them in, 
murderers get put, people who commit homicide get put in jails 
with violent criminals. And your position is this is a 
reasonable and rational thing that we should put the people 
leading the energy companies in America producing 8.5 million 
jobs, we should arrest them and throw them in jail. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Arkush. It could be the case that some executives 
should be prosecuted in that way, of course, if you can't put a 
corporation in jail. So, there are other remedies in that 
situation.
    Chair Cruz. But you can put human beings in jail and 
presumably you put the corporate officers in jail.
    Mr. Arkush. Yes, you can.
    Chairman Cruiz. You'd prosecute them for murder. So don't 
let there be any ambiguity. And by the way, Senator Whitehouse 
was really eager to make clear that you're the minority 
witness, you're the witness he wanted, he was eager to 
introduce you. I'm going to go on the record and say that is a 
moonbeam wacky theory that you want to prosecute people 
creating jobs and producing energy for murder. Let me ask you, 
Mr. Arkush, how did you get to the capital today?
    Mr. Arkush. So, here's what I want to tell you----
    Chair Cruz. How did you get to the capital today?
    Mr. Arkush. I took an Uber.
    Chair Cruz. You took an Uber?
    Mr. Arkush. Yes.
    Chair Cruz. Now was that in an automobile?
    Mr. Arkush. Yes.
    Chair Cruz. Did that automobile have gasoline in it?
    Mr. Arkush. Yes. This is very, very cute. I see where this 
is going.
    Chair Cruz. So, I'm glad you think it's cute. Under your 
theory, you admitted you admitted carbon emissions----
    Mr. Arkush. Yes.
    Chair Cruz [continuing]. Should you be arrested in this 
room right now and prosecuted for murder?
    Mr. Arkush. No.
    Chair Cruz. Why?
    Mr. Arkush. That's not what the law holds. So, there is a--
--
    Chair Cruz. So well, tell me why because you're willing to 
say the guy who sold you the gasoline should be prosecuted for 
murder. You are the one that benefited from it. Couldn't you 
have ridden a bicycle or maybe like some fairy dust to get 
here?
    Mr. Arkush. The guy who sold the gas and 50 years ago knew 
that it was going to cause globally catastrophic damage that 
would cause problems for humanity so that--hold on.
    Chair Cruz. But you have exquisite knowledge of this. You 
are saying you are an expert. So on mens rea----
    Mr. Arkush. I'm not done.
    Chair Cruz [continuing]. You have a level of culpability 
because you claim that the act of getting in that car was 
violence. It was murder, that you should be locked up. Why do 
you get to violate these principles in a way that you just want 
to lock up the person who sold you the gas but not the 
beneficiary of it?
    Mr. Arkush. That's your claim, not mine. Because to be 
liable, there are a bunch of reasons but one of them is you 
have to substantially contribute to the harm to the death. And 
I am not----
    Chair Cruz. How many car rides is substantially? Is it 1, 
is it 2, is it 10? How many?
    Mr. Arkush. I am not--a single individual couldn't possibly 
contribute enough. The point is----
    Chair Cruz. Well, what about if say you're a Democrat 
politician who present but--what about if you're a Democrat 
politician----
    Mr. Arkush. Do you want me to answer this?
    Chair Cruz. What about if you're a Democrat politician who 
flies private jet?
    Senator Whitehouse. It would be helpful if you're asking 
the questions. Doesn't he get to answer?
    Chair Cruz. He gets to answer them in my time. Just like he 
gets to answer them in your time when you are asking them.
    Mr. Arkush. It seems like I don't.
    Chair Cruz. So, what about democrat politicians who fly 
private planes all the time? People like John Kerry who say, 
``For someone like me, a private jet is the only reasonable way 
to travel.'' John Kerry has the climate footprint of a small 
town in Tennessee. Would you prosecute John Kerry for murder?
    Mr. Arkush. So, depending on how you calculate it, U.S. 
fossil fuel company or the oil majors, private oil majors are 
responsible for around----
    Chair Cruz. So, my question was----
    Mr. Arkush [continuing]. Half of global emission.
    Chair Cruz. My question was, would you prosecute John Kerry 
for murder?
    Mr. Arkush. Obviously not. No.
    Chair Cruz. Okay. So, Democrat politicians are exempted?
    Mr. Arkush. There is no individual who is----
    Chair Cruz. Democrat activists are exempted?
    Mr. Arkush. I'm not going after people for carbon 
footprints. The whole thing is actually----
    Chair Cruz. Well, why not though? Under your principle, 
carbon is killing us. You claim it is homicide. By the way, 
this is a whack job theory, you teach in law school. If one of 
your law students wrote this on an exam, any law professor--
General Kobach, you were a law professor for years. If I wrote 
it's homicide, lock them up. What grade would you give me and 
why?
    Mr. Kobach. Yes. It wouldn't be a good one. Part of the 
problem here is the same problem that the Baltimore judge in 
rejecting all of the eight claims brought by the city of 
Baltimore pointed out with regard to public nuisance theory. 
And that is, it's not just the company that took the oil out of 
the ground. The individual consumer made a choice to use it as 
well.
    She dismissed all their claims, rejected their attempt to 
stretch public nuisance doctrine to cover ``The results of 
fossil fuel usage and gas emissions by third parties located 
all over the world.'' You can't put the blame either in a 
homicide case or in a public nuisance case just on the company 
that extracted the oil from the ground because everybody's 
using it and we're all involved in it.
    And that's why it doesn't fit homicide easily and it 
doesn't fit public nuisance easily either.
    Mr. Arkush. With all due respect. I don't think that Mr. 
Kobach is familiar with the relevant law in this case. A 
defendant in a homicide case can't defend by saying somebody 
used my products exactly as I intended them to while I was 
lying to them about it----
    Chair Cruz. So, you're saying we should prosecute you for 
murder?
    Mr. Arkush. No.
    Chair Cruz. Because you drove an automobile here?
    Mr. Arkush. No. I'm saying----
    Chair Cruz. Well, you said you couldn't use a defense, the 
fact that someone else does it----
    Mr. Arkush. I'm saying the----
    Chair Cruz. You contributed, you're a murderer--under your 
wacky theory, you're a murderer too.
    Mr. Arkush. I'm not sure I should be trying to speak. Can I 
finish a sentence?
    Chair Cruz. For once we agree. Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Whitehouse. Will you allow the witness to answer 
without interruption during my time?
    Chair Cruz. It's your time. You're welcome to----
    Senator Whitehouse. You just interrupted him during my 
time----
    Chair Cruz. You're welcome to sing. Now, he was actually--
it was the end of my time. You're welcome to sing or you 
conduct poetry, an ambic pentamete. You can blow a kazoo, you 
can do whatever you wish.
    Senator Whitehouse. Go ahead and answer the question that 
you were prevented from answering.
    Mr. Arkush. Yes, I'm a little lost now as to where we were. 
But my point was that a fossil fuel producer in a criminal 
trial would not be able to say--I mean, there, there's legal 
doctrine on this, right? You can say there's an intervening 
third party, intervening circumstances that disrupt the chain 
of causation. You cannot say that when the third party, their 
actions were completely foreseeable.
    Like for example, a consumer using your product exactly as 
you intended, you also can't use it when you defrauded them 
into using your product exactly as you intended. So, with all 
due respect, the Baltimore company is wrong.
    Senator Whitehouse. That is the company can't use that 
defense?
    Mr. Arkush. Sorry?
    Senator Whitehouse. The company can't use that defense when 
it is on the delivery end of the fraud?
    Mr. Arkush. It's meritless in a criminal context anyway.
    Senator Whitehouse. Yes. And the tobacco case focused on 
key organizations, not everybody who smoked and gave secondhand 
smoke, lawyers know how to sort through this stuff. And I think 
that we really do have to take the harm that is being caused by 
these companies and protected behind the $700 billion a year 
annual subsidy that Congress showers them with every year.
    And that motivates them to be so influential and so 
intrusive into Congress. So involved in elections, spending so 
many millions of dollars in dark money and in direct money. And 
in the meantime, just to use the very simplest example of the 
articles I put into the record, here comes an insurance crisis 
that's already fully engaged in Florida, that is hitting 
southern Mississippi, southern Louisiana, southern Texas.
    It's hitting all the coastal States as predicted by the 
chief economist of Freddie Mac. Not a green group, not a 
Chinese communist group, as predicted by that chief economist, 
as predicted by the chairman of the Federal Reserve, far from 
green, as predicted by the CEO of American AON, as predicted by 
the board of Allianz, the biggest insurance company on the 
planet.
    You can make as much fun as you like of an article that Mr. 
Arkush wrote but that doesn't take away from the fundamental 
fact that the earth's natural systems are being badly degraded 
by fossil fuel and that the fossil fuel industry knew that this 
would happen. And that for years knowing that it would happen, 
they lied about it. They set up whole organizations to lie 
about it even more.
    They fund an entire armada of front groups whose job is to 
lie about it. And I do believe that it's proper to hold a 
corporation accountable for that kind of misconduct. Mr. 
Arkush.
    Mr. Arkush. There are two things I'd like to say. One, it 
does seem like we can all agree on one thing, which is that 
group spending money to influence other people's behavior can 
be problematic. And sometimes people don't do things for the 
right reasons. They do things because they're getting paid, 
right? And there is almost nobody in the world with more 
resources than the fossil fuel industry to be paying people to 
do their bidding.
    And I think just as important to note that as Senator 
Whitehouse noted one of them alone, ExxonMobil last year, 
almost a billion dollars in profits a day, every day. That's 
more than twice the amount that was on that chart that you held 
up Mr. Chairman for all the environmental groups. So right.
    ExxonMobil, twice that amount every single day. That's just 
one of the oil companies I'm very concerned about spending 
money on political influence. And it's a lot more on that side. 
Second, I just want to say my understanding of this theory 
about China is that--and tell me if I'm wrong. Is that China is 
ahead of the U.S. right now and in manufacturing, some aspects 
of renewable energy, right?
    Solar panels, batteries. Ahead on critical minerals, right? 
And I guess the theory is, I guess therefore they want to 
stifle our fossil fuels so that we're dependent on them for 
their renewable energy. I don't know why they'd want to stifle 
fossil fuels when China is like a huge buyer of U.S. oil and 
gas. Some of it they burn, some of it they flip. They flip a 
lot of the oil and gas at a profit. If we are losing a 
competition with China on the technologies of tomorrow, we 
should be investing in those technologies and funding them, 
right?
    Imagine in the late 50's and early 60's when we were 
worried we were losing the space race with the Soviet Union. 
Imagine if instead of saying in 1962, Kennedy saying, ``We're 
going to go to the moon by the end of this decade,'' he said, 
``Do you know what? We're going to defund all of aeronautics 
and stay on the ground.'' Is that the way to make America 
strong and great? I don't think so.
    And I wish that you would all join the people who are 
trying to make America strong and great today and tomorrow by 
funding the industries and the energy sources of tomorrow that 
are cleaner, safer, and cheaper like renewables.
    Chair Cruz. Thank you to each of the witnesses. A final 
question, Mr. Walter. You're an expert on special interests, 
when it comes to dark money, political funding. Where is more 
of it found on the left or on the right? What are the biggest 
funders?
    Mr. Walter. It's considerably more on the left depending on 
how you want to define dark money. Oddly enough, people who use 
the term a lot tend not to define it with any legal precision. 
But there is the largest of any such entity left or right 
again, is the vast multi-billion-dollar network run by Arabella 
advisors with hundreds of millions of dollars from the foreign 
billionaire Mr. Wyss.
    Chair Cruz. And oddly enough, my Democrat colleagues never 
seem concerned by that massive money on the left, which is 
considerably larger than the money that is supporting 
Republicans.
    Senator Whitehouse. Again, since you're speaking about me, 
that's also not true. I am the actual lead sponsor of an Act 
that would end dark money and it wouldn't end it just on your 
side. It would end it for everyone. Everyone would know who is 
funding people's campaigns. And every Democrat votes for that 
bill to get rid of dark money. And every Republican votes 
against that bill to protect dark money, largely because the 
fossil fuel industry's dark money is the lifeblood of the 
Republican political operation and you don't want to see that 
exposed.
    Chair Cruz. So that happens to be factually false. But I'll 
point out, every year I've been in the Senate, I've introduced 
legislation called the Super PAC Elimination Act that does two 
very simple things.
    One, it allows unlimited individual contributions directly 
to Federal campaigns, as is the case in State law and many 
States, including my home State of Texas. And two, it requires 
immediate 24-hour disclosure of any contributions. As a 
practical matter, Super PACs would go away. And every time 
we've tried to vote on that, the Democrats uniformly oppose it.
    I want to thank each of the witnesses for being here. This 
concludes our hearing. Written questions can be submitted for 
the record until Wednesday, July 2 at 5 p.m. and I will ask the 
witnesses to answer and return the questions to the Committee 
by July 16 at 5 p.m. This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:17 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
   [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    

                            A P P E N D I X

The following submissions are available at:

  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-119shrg61887/pdf/CHRG-
    119shrg
    61887-add1.pdf


Submitted by Chair Cruz:

 Ferate, Anthony J., letter.......................................     2

 Convert Chinese Communist Lawfare, posters.......................    10

 IRS, statement...................................................    14

Submitted by Ranking Member Whitehouse:

 How much is your Texas home worth, Houston Chronicle.............    52

 Inside the costly new reality of insuring a home in Texas, 
    Houston Chronicle.............................................    63

 See where extreme weather is pushing up home insurance costs in 
    Texas, Houston Chronicle......................................    85

 Texas has a home insurance crisis, Houston Chronicle.............    95

                                 [all]