A billionaire-funded climate organization that embedded privately paid attorneys inside Democratic state attorney general offices across the country has quietly closed its doors, weeks after its own annual report promised it would keep operating through 2026.
The State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, housed at New York University School of Law and bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg, stopped operations on or around August 31, 2026, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The center issued no press release and made no social media announcement. Its website now labels all content "historical material as it existed on August 31, 2026." Its advisory board page has been scrubbed. Former directors have updated their LinkedIn profiles to remove the center from their employment history.
The closure came after a House Oversight Committee investigation, a Wisconsin State Senate probe, and a lawsuit by dairy farmers, all challenging the legality and propriety of a privately funded group placing partisan attorneys inside government law offices. Neither the center nor Bloomberg Philanthropies responded to the Free Beacon's requests for comment.
Bloomberg helped found the center in 2017 with two seed grants worth $2.8 million each, channeled through the Bloomberg Family Foundation. Tax filings reviewed by the Free Beacon confirmed the payments. From the start, the center's model was straightforward: recruit climate-focused attorneys, call them "fellows," and place them inside the offices of state attorneys general, where they would carry out official government work on the public's behalf, paid not by taxpayers but by a billionaire's charity.
The arrangement operated in Washington, D.C., and at least ten states, including Minnesota, Maryland, New York, and Wisconsin. Every fellow the center placed went to a Democrat-controlled office. Not one served a Republican attorney general.
That exclusivity is the core of the problem. A nonpartisan legal center that only funds one party's lawyers is not nonpartisan. It is a political operation with a university address.
One of the center's fellows, Lauren Cullum, was hired in 2022 and embedded in the Washington, D.C., attorney general's office with the title Special Assistant Attorney General. Cullum was listed as a prosecutor on multiple environmental justice lawsuits targeting chemical companies. She also represented D.C. in federal comment letters arguing in favor of green energy initiatives. The Free Beacon described her as behind a number of the office's high-profile climate-related actions.
Cullum was not an outside consultant offering advice. She held an official government title, filed official government documents, and litigated official government cases, all while drawing her salary from a private organization funded by one of the Democratic Party's most prolific donors. The arrangement gave a private group, as the House Oversight Committee put it, the ability to offer "states partisan money from a billionaire to carry out official functions of their offices."
The pattern extends well beyond one attorney in one office. Across the country, Democratic attorneys general have coordinated legal strategy on climate and other progressive priorities, often in ways that raise questions about whose interests they actually serve, their constituents' or their donors'.
Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, opened an investigation into the center last year. The committee's written findings were blunt. Bloomberg "disguises his donations as 'philanthropy'" and uses the center as a mechanism "to skirt legislative bodies and effect partisan policy," the committee stated. The center's activities, the committee added, "raise questions as to whether participating state attorneys general are acting on independent judgement to best serve the interests of their states' citizens."
In a statement to the Free Beacon after the closure, Comer said the committee welcomed the news but remained wary:
"The Committee is glad to see that this center will no longer be in operation."
He added that he remained concerned the center had "undermined public integrity and pushed radical Democrat policies that increase energy costs for Americans, despite billing itself as 'nonpartisan.'"
The Oversight Committee's broader concerns about politically motivated state-level law enforcement echo other recent clashes. Congressional Republicans have also subpoenaed local prosecutors over policies they say shield criminals from federal accountability, part of a widening fight over whether state and local officials are using their offices to advance ideological agendas rather than enforce the law evenhandedly.
Months after Comer launched the federal investigation, Wisconsin's State Senate opened its own probe. Senate President Mary Felzkowski, a Republican, chaired a committee created to coordinate the inquiry into the state attorney general's arrangement with the center. Wisconsin had employed a "special attorney general" whose $90,000 annual salary was paid not by the state but by Bloomberg's organization.
Felzkowski did not mince words:
"Outside influence from highly self-interested sources is unacceptable."
Then came the lawsuit. In February 2025, two Wisconsin groups representing dairy farmers filed a civil complaint against the state attorney general. The farmers alleged that the center's fellow had coordinated enforcement actions the state had taken against their industry. The complaint argued that the fellowship arrangement gave the center "unique, insider access and influence over DOJ's work on agricultural and other environmental issues."
An oral ruling in that case is scheduled for later in September 2026. The center may be gone, but the legal consequences of its work are not.
A Wayback Machine archive of the center's advisory council page, captured in April 2026 before it was removed, shows the board included the CEO of a major wind energy developer and the vice president of the American Clean Power Association, a green energy industry group. Those are not disinterested academics. They are executives whose companies stand to profit directly from the climate regulations and lawsuits the center's fellows were paid to pursue.
The arrangement created a closed loop: an industry-connected board shaped the center's priorities, Bloomberg's money paid the attorneys, and Democratic attorneys general gave those attorneys the power of the state. Taxpayers and regulated businesses, dairy farmers, chemical companies, energy consumers, had no seat at the table and no say in who was prosecuting them or why.
That dynamic is part of a broader pattern in which state attorney general offices have become flashpoints in national political fights, with critics arguing that some AGs prioritize ideology over impartial law enforcement.
Nothing about the closure was telegraphed. In December 2025, the center released a "year in review" report indicating it would continue operating throughout 2026. Its in-house podcast published an episode less than three weeks before the August 31 shutdown. Its public database tracking state attorney general actions was updated right up to the final day.
Then it was over. No explanation. No farewell statement. No accounting of what happened to the fellows still embedded in government offices or the cases they were litigating. The website went dark, the advisory board page disappeared, and the former directors quietly moved on.
The silence is telling. An organization confident in the legality and propriety of its work does not fold overnight and erase its public footprint. It holds a press conference, thanks its partners, and defends its record. The center did none of those things.
State attorneys general who accepted these fellows owe their constituents an answer about who was really directing the legal work done in their names. Accountability in government means the public knows who is calling the shots, and who is writing the checks. When those two things happen in secret, the public is the last to know and the first to pay the price.
