A State Armor report accuses the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) of advancing Chinese strategic interests through decades of cooperation with China-linked institutions, while supporting legal and regulatory efforts that restrict American energy production.
The report, titled “ELI and Communist China: How the Environmental Law Institute Threatens American Energy and Advances Chinese Interests,” examines the Environmental Law Institute’s relationships with Chinese government-affiliated entities, regulators, judges, universities, and legal institutions.
State Armor said the report was sent Thursday morning to key congressional leaders along with a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Mike Lee (R-UT), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI).
The organization’s letter called for congressional investigations into ELI’s foreign partnerships, funding, information sharing, judicial education programs, and potential influence on the American justice system.
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In a one-pager outlining the report’s findings, State Armor alleges that ELI has maintained extensive relationships with Chinese government-affiliated organizations through its China Program while its Climate Judiciary Project has provided climate-related educational programming to more than 2,000 American judges.
ELI’s China Program has operated for nearly 30 years, working directly with Chinese regulators, judges, and government-linked institutions, according to State Armor’s one-pager. State Armor also alleges that ELI has worked with Chinese universities.
State Armor says ELI operates the China International Business Dialogue on Environmental Governance, which provides Chinese officials with “detailed analysis” of American and European environmental regulations.
The one-pager says ELI has hosted judges from China’s Supreme People’s Court and officials from the Ministry of Ecology on its platforms, giving Chinese officials a venue to promote Chinese President Xi Jinping’s agenda to Western audiences.
State Armor also alleges ELI has worked with Chinese universities that U.S. officials have flagged for ties to military research or influence operations, including Wuhan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The organization raises concerns about those relationships in light of China’s National Security Law, which State Armor says requires all organizations and citizens to “support state intelligence operations.” The one-pager alleges that every ELI interaction in China therefore represents “a vector for CCP intel gathering.”
Despite ELI’s decades of environmental outreach, State Armor says China’s annual carbon dioxide output has nearly quadrupled since the organization began its work there. The one-pager says China has made “no new binding emissions commitments” attributable to ELI’s engagement.
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State Armor further alleges that the international environmental frameworks promoted by ELI cannot be enforced against Chinese companies and fail to create legal or financial pressure against Chinese energy producers.
Although China has made nonbinding pledges to adopt clean energy, a sector in which it enjoys global manufacturing dominance, it continues to add more than 50 coal plants to its grid annually, according to the one-pager.
At the same time, State Armor alleges that ELI and its Climate Judiciary Project operate a pipeline that “primes courts to be instruments of climate activism” and empowers trial lawyers to restrict domestic energy production.
Since 2018, the project has trained more than 2,000 judges on climate science and law, specifically targeting jurisdictions where climate lawsuits against energy companies are already underway, according to State Armor.
The organization alleges that the project’s curriculum conditions judges to accept aggressive public-nuisance lawsuits as a “backdoor method” of imposing carbon restrictions that Congress has never enacted. The accompanying congressional letter says the report argues that the programs relied heavily on legal theories and expert networks associated with active climate litigation and advocacy efforts.
State Armor argues that ELI’s “asymmetric pursuit” of its climate goals has produced sharply different outcomes, weakening American energy and national security while advancing China’s strategic and economic interests.
The organization contends that American energy producers face litigation and regulatory pressure while the frameworks promoted by ELI fail to create legal or financial pressure against Chinese energy producers.
The one-pager points to California, where ELI helped launch the California-China Climate Institute. State Armor alleges that regulation and litigation have caused the state’s oil-refining industry to “collapse,” leading to higher prices and greater dependence on Asian imports of refined fuel.
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State Armor also identifies financial relationships between ELI and progressive foundations that simultaneously support climate litigation, judicial training, and China-linked environmental initiatives.
The one-pager names the Hewlett Foundation as one of ELI’s largest funders and says it has poured money into ELI’s judicial initiatives while also supporting Energy Foundation China, which State Armor describes as a CCP-linked nonprofit under congressional scrutiny.
It says the Oak Foundation has funded the Climate Judiciary Project while directing millions of dollars toward Belt and Road-linked initiatives. ClimateWorks has also funneled money into Chinese climate programs, according to State Armor.
The report additionally alleges that ELI has received support from donors and law firms with significant ties to China.
In the accompanying letter, State Armor Founder and CEO Michael Lucci wrote that the report raises substantial questions about ELI’s relationships with entities affiliated with or closely connected to the People’s Republic of China and the CCP, as well as the potential effects of those relationships on the American justice system.
Lucci asked Congress to examine the full extent of ELI’s partnerships with Chinese entities, including information sharing, the role of Chinese government-affiliated organizations in shaping its programs, and whether any conduct warrants scrutiny under foreign-influence laws.
He also requested that the House and Senate Judiciary Committees review ELI’s judicial training programs, including their funding, curriculum, expert-selection process, and governance. The letter suggests identifying judges who attended ELI-sponsored programs and examining climate or China-related cases they later handled to determine whether any patterns merit further inquiry.
“The question is not whether judges should receive continuing education but rather whether any educational initiative funded, organized, or influenced by organizations with relationships with foreign entities, particularly a foreign adversary, could affect the perception or reality of judicial impartiality,” Lucci wrote.
He called for a thorough and bipartisan congressional review.
The report’s release coincides with State Armor’s launch of ELIandChina.com and a Capitol Hill mobile billboard campaign calling for an investigation into ELI. The campaign features imagery of Xi Jinping holding an ELI-branded folder, questions ELI’s work with China, and directs viewers to the website, which includes the report, key facts, updates, and a video explaining the ELI-China connection. The website also features a graphic asking, “If ELI believes it can change China’s behavior through these exchanges, why wouldn’t China believe it could do the same to America—and is it?”
Lucci told Breitbart News:
ELI and China are strategically tied at the hip. While ELI trains American judges to embrace legal theories that threaten U.S. energy production and industrial strength, it simultaneously gives a free pass to China to continue its massive emissions growth. ELI has embedded itself with CCP-linked universities, government ministries, and state-aligned law firms while operating in an environment where cooperation with Chinese intelligence services is mandated by law. The result is a one-way vector that attacks American energy security while advancing China’s geopolitical interests. This puts U.S. national security at risk.
This arrangement benefits China in two ways in the type of classic ‘win-win’ scenario where the CCP wins twice. First, American energy security is damaged and America is left more reliant on Chinese ‘red tech’ that analysts find comes full of backdoors and kill switches, such as with their solar inverters. Next, ELI’s relationship with China provides China with updates on administrative and regulatory developments in the U.S. that serve almost like intelligence briefings. This all begs the obvious question: if ELI is motivated by the thought that it can change China’s behavior through its information exchanges, why wouldn’t China believe it can influence American energy policy through ELI?
At best, ELI is a useful idiot for the CCP, and at worst, it is intentionally advancing Chinese interests. Congress and the Trump Administration should open investigations into ELI to bring transparency to its China operations to ensure they do not imperil our national security.
The latest State Armor report follows a June 2025 Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing that came after an earlier State Armor report on Energy Foundation China and alleged Chinese support for climate litigation targeting American energy producers. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, and Capital Research Center President Scott Walter discussed CCP-linked funding, lawsuits against energy companies, and climate-related judicial training. Cruz said Energy Foundation China had funneled upwards of $12 million to groups that routinely filed lawsuits seeking to “block pipelines, ban gas-powered vehicles, and bankrupt oil and gas companies on paper,” while Kobach said such litigation “increased costs for consumers and taxpayers.”
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