The U.S. Supreme Court very recently granted certiorari in Suncor Energy v. Boulder on the question of whether federal law preempts Boulder’s state-law tort claims for alleged injuries from purported interstate/international greenhouse gas emissions. Before the court hears the case, however, let’s examine the outsize yet mostly unknown influence fomenting this litigation that the Environmental Law Institute, Climate Judiciary Project, and other similar organizations have upon both the Federal Judicial Center and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Imagine that the National Rifle Association, “America’s longest-standing civil rights organization,” wrote a chapter on Second Amendment rights in the FJC’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, which is supposed to be an objective, neutral reference for judges. Anti-Second Amendment and pro-gun control groups would freak out because the NRA has an obvious agenda: it advocates, files lawsuits, lobbies for legislation, and is proudly pro-Second Amendment.