A senior official behind a number of the Washington, D.C., attorney general office’s high-profile climate-related legal actions is funded through an initiative backed by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg—an arrangement experts say raises serious questions about government independence.
Lauren Cullum’s official title is special assistant attorney general for the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. But according to her LinkedIn profile, that position is housed at the New York University School of Law’s State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, which Bloomberg helped found in 2017. The billionaire’s nonprofit, Bloomberg Philanthropies, also awarded the center two seed grants worth $5.6 million at the time.
Since Cullum was embedded in the office in February 2022, she has played a central role in at least four environmental lawsuits the D.C. attorney general’s office either filed or intervened in. She has also represented Washington, D.C., in more than two dozen comment letters to the federal government lobbying for more aggressive climate regulations, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of public announcements, legal filings, and court records.
Cullum’s involvement raises ethics concerns, calling into question the motivations behind Bloomberg and the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center’s decision to fund her and other officials in similar roles nationwide. And her actions provide insight into the center’s activities nationwide—fellows funded by the Bloomberg-backed center have previously worked or currently work in attorney general offices in at least 10 states nationwide, including Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin.
The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center says that it is strictly nonpartisan, but it lists issue areas usually associated with Democrats like climate change, environmental justice, and equity as among its core values. And, like Cullum, its fellows work exclusively for Democrats and, by and large, use their positions to target the oil and gas sector and push for stricter eco regulations, according to a database compiling their actions.
Bloomberg and the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center appear to have a significant interest in influencing such climate-related actions nationwide. Bloomberg has dished out hundreds of millions of dollars backing initiatives to shut down existing fossil fuel infrastructure and advance green energy alternatives, while the center’s advisory council includes, among others, the CEO of a major wind energy developer and the vice president of the American Clean Power Association, a green energy industry group.
“This arrangement further confirms that the push by left wing officials to use public nuisance lawsuits and other legal maneuvers over climate-related issues really comes down to a push by dark money donors to enforce progressive lifestyle choices through the courts,” O.H. Skinner, the executive director of Alliance for Consumers and former Arizona solicitor general, told the Free Beacon.
“For years the evidence has been clear that the left is running a coordinated effort to reshape American society through the courtroom, especially in the face of their big losses in D.C.,” he continued. “This is another confirmation of that, with one of the public officials central to pushing these efforts now being revealed to being on the literal payroll of a dark-money-backed front organization.”
Cullum, a former staffer of the left-wing green group Sierra Club, was singled out in a recent letter a coalition of conservative watchdog groups—American Tort Reform Association, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and the Foundation for American Innovation—sent to top House leaders, calling for an investigation into the D.C. attorney general’s office.
“This arrangement raises serious questions about government independence and due process rights, as it appears to target specific industries in an effort to further a political agenda,” the groups wrote.
Shortly after Cullum assumed the position in 2022, then-Washington, D.C. attorney general Karl Racine filed an environmental justice lawsuit against major chemical manufacturer Velsicol, accusing the company of violating environmental laws and contaminating local waterways in the 1980s. Cullum was listed as one of a handful of prosecutors leading the lawsuit, which was endorsed by the D.C. chapters of the NAACP, Sierra Club, and other activist groups.
Months later, in mid-2023, Cullum was listed as representing the district in a sprawling lawsuit against 25 chemical companies, including major manufacturers 3M and DuPont, accusing them of selling products that contain PFAS chemicals. The complaint accused the companies of continuing to sell their products for decades despite knowing they were dangerous.
“We will hold polluters accountable for the damage their conduct has caused and will continue to cause,” D.C. attorney general Brian Schwalb said at the time.
In a related action, Cullum represented the district in a motion to intervene in a related case in South Carolina. In the filing, D.C. and 21 states called on the federal district court handling that case to reject a proposed settlement between 3M and class action plaintiffs, saying it would protect 3M and other chemical companies from future lawsuits.
And late last year Cullum was listed on a D.C. attorney general’s lawsuit accusing Fort Myer Construction Company, a major government contractor and infrastructure developer, of environmental violations.
Bloomberg himself has taken aim at chemical companies, having put $85 million behind a project he launched in 2022, Beyond Petrochemicals, aimed at blocking “the construction of 120+ planned new petrochemical projects.”
In addition to her role in the district’s wide profile of environmental litigation, Cullum frequently represents the city in federal comment letters to government agencies regarding pending regulations. Such letters, often cosigned by a number of like-minded states, play a significant role in shaping and influencing high-profile federal climate initiatives.
In the most recent example, Cullum represented D.C. in a March 2025 letter to the Trump White House, calling on it to keep strict environmental permitting requirements in place for federal infrastructure projects.
Cullum was also involved in dozens of such letters sent during the Biden administration supporting federal climate justice grants, regulations mandating electric vehicle sales, restrictions on gas stoves, single-use plastic reporting requirements, and rules forcing states to set greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals for vehicles on highways.
“The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan academic center that supports and studies the work of attorneys general related to the environment and clean energy,” State Energy & Environmental Impact Center spokeswoman Jessica Bell said in a statement.
“The D.C. Attorney General, not the State Impact Center, directs the work of the SAAG,” Bell continued. “The SAAG’s sole duty of loyalty is to the office in which she works, not to NYU, the State Impact Center, or its funders. The State Impact Center receives funding from a variety of donors. Our advisory council is comprised of former attorneys general and energy and environmental experts, including academics and lawyers.”
The D.C. attorney general’s office and Cullum did not respond to requests for comment.
Original News Source – Washington Free Beacon
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