First on Fox: A major left-wing dark money nonprofit allocated millions of dollars last year to a private law firm leading climate lawsuits against the oil industry on behalf of Democratic-led cities and states, according to newly published tax filings.
The New Venture Fund — managed by Arabella Advisors, a firm that oversees a multibillion-dollar liberal dark money network — wired grants totaling $2.5 million to California-based Sher Edling in 2022 alone, according to tax filings reviewed by Fox Digital News. Across the country, Sher Edling has filed new climate lawsuits against major oil and gas producers, arguing that the industry has misled the public about the threat posed by global warming.
“It’s a political process,” Tom Pyle, president of the Energy Research Institute, said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “You have this whole self-dealing scheme where progressive donors hide behind nonprofits and profit from that from a tax perspective, and then they fund Democratic law firms, and Democratic politicians and elected officials are also involved.”
“Across the board, it’s messed up,” Pyle continued. “This is further evidence that the Green Movement is no longer about protecting the environment. Rather, it has become a political, financial, and organizational arm of the Democratic Party.”
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Vic Sher, partner at law firm Sher Edling, talks about the climate-related litigation he’s involved in during a virtual panel discussion in December 2021. (American Tort Law Museum/YouTube)
Since 2016, the year Sher Edling was founded, the firm has pursued aggressive climate litigation on behalf of Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, Honolulu, and Washington. Many local governments across the country. The first-of-its-kind lawsuits allege that oil companies are financially responsible for global warming and, by extension, climate events that affect people and communities.
The company says on its website that its climate practices seek to hold oil companies such as Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell accountable for their alleged “deception” about climate change. She says the fossil fuel industry has known for decades that burning fossil fuels would cause global warming, making the industry responsible for the mass human devastation caused by such human-induced climate change.
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While Sher Edling’s full funding structure is unknown, the company has for years raised millions of dollars from nonprofits whose individual donors are shielded from public view, meaning anonymous individuals and groups support its climate claims. However, the arrangement has attracted scrutiny from Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.
“As I have warned, far-left dark money groups are clearly footing the bill for Cher Edling’s climate campaign aimed at bankrupting America’s energy employers,” Cruz told Fox News Digital in a statement. “The controversial gamble by New Venture Fund and Sher Edling is merely an attempt to achieve a goal that lacks majority support in Congress: eliminating fossil fuels.”
“It’s clear that far-left dark money groups are footing the bill for Cher Edling’s climate campaign to bankrupt America’s energy employers,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images)
“It is not surprising that a dark money group would fund a lawsuit aimed at bankrupting American energy companies,” Coomer added in a separate statement. “The House Oversight Committee raised concerns about this particular issue in our letter to Cher Edling that was sent in partnership with Ranking Member Cruz and the Senate Commerce Committee.”
The Oversight Committee chairman noted that the committee recently held a hearing on September 13 on left-wing litigation funding, and said it would “continue to follow the facts wherever they lead.”
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Shortly after that hearing, Cruz and Comer launched their latest investigation into Cher Edling’s finances, sparking a tense back-and-forth between the two sides, messages shared with Fox News Digital show.
“Regardless of names, donations to Cher Edling do not fund any specific lawsuit; rather, these donations support only the company’s general operations in this area,” Cher Edling’s attorney wrote to Cruz and Comer in an Oct. 6 letter.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said his committee will continue to investigate the left’s funding of litigation and “follow the facts wherever they lead.” (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images)
According to tax filings, between 2017 and 2020, the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptation (CAF), a secret group financially sponsored by the New Venture Fund, transferred more than $5.2 million to Cher Edling. Then, in 2021 alone, CAF transferred another $3 million to the company. Adequate She transferred her financial sponsorship To New Venture Fund from a smaller dark money pool in 2021.
Including the financing disclosed this week in 2022 tax forms, CAF has sent $10.7 million to Sher Edling since the small company began suing oil companies.
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Although individual donors to the CAF, and by extension Cher Edling, are unknown, a previous Fox News Digital review showed that previous funding had flowed through the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Fox News Digital previously reported that Anne Carlson — a senior Biden administration official serving as acting administrator of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — secretly coordinated the fundraising for CAF and Cher Edling. She also helped recruit at least one state, Hawaii, to hire Cher Edling.
Led by Cruz, Republicans succeeded in permanently eliminating Carlson’s nomination to lead NHTSA, in part because of her relationship with Cher Edling.
Sher Edling and New Venture Fund did not respond to requests for comment.
