23 States Challenge EPA Over Climate Training Tied to Montana Youth Lawsuit

HELENA — Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen led a 23-state coalition Tuesday challenging federal funding for an organization that has been actively involved in analyzing the landmark youth climate lawsuit against Montana.

The coalition urged the Environmental Protection Agency to cancel grants to the Environmental Law Institute, which operates the Climate Judiciary Project that has trained more than 2,000 judges on climate science since 2018. The institute received approximately 13% of its revenue from EPA grants in 2023 and 8.4% in 2024, according to the organization’s financial statements.

The challenge comes as ELI has been prominently involved with Montana’s Held v. State case, the successful youth-led climate lawsuit that established a constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment.” The institute has published legal analyses of the case, released podcasts discussing the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling, and used the case as an example in its judicial education programs.

“As attorney general, I refuse to stand by while Americans’ tax dollars fund radical environmental training for judges across the country,” Knudsen said in a statement. “The Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project is using woke climate propaganda, under the guise of what they call ‘neutral’ education, to persuade judges and push their wildly unpopular agenda through the court system.”

In the letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the attorneys general argue that the Climate Judiciary Project’s training “improperly sways the judiciary by exposing judges who may hear climate related cases to material produced by the same organizations involved in litigation, therefore undermining the impartiality of the courts.”

The coalition specifically alleges that despite ELI’s claims of providing “objective and trusted” education, several project experts and judges have close ties to climate litigation curriculum. The letter quotes Senator Ted Cruz’s observation that the curriculum “reads like a playbook for judges to find in favor of plaintiffs in artificial climate change cases against traditional energy companies.”

According to the letter, the Climate Judiciary Project has hosted more than 50 events since its creation in 2018. The program connects judges with climate scientists through seminars and workshops, describing itself as providing “authoritative, objective, and trusted education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law.”

The attorneys general also raised consumer protection concerns, arguing that ELI’s marketing of its training as “neutral” and “objective” may violate state consumer protection laws when the education is allegedly designed to influence judicial decisions.

“State Attorneys General are responsible for protecting consumers, and we are concerned by ELI’s statements,” Knudsen wrote in the letter.

The letter comes as the Trump administration has already canceled significant environmental funding, including $20 billion in climate grants under the Inflation Reduction Act and 800 environmental justice grants. The Department of Government Efficiency has reported saving an estimated $190 billion through various federal spending cuts.

ELI’s involvement with Montana’s climate case adds particular relevance to Knudsen’s challenge. In January 2025, the institute released a podcast discussing the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling that affirmed the lower court’s decision in favor of the youth plaintiffs who successfully argued that state fossil fuel policies violated their constitutional rights.

The 23-state coalition includes attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

“I commend President Trump’s efforts to cut waste and abuse during the first eight months of his presidency, and I am optimistic that his Administration will do the right thing and halt all funding to ELI,” Knudsen said.