    [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]