A national security organization, State Armor, is urging Congress to investigate the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) due to its past and ongoing partnerships with Chinese government-affiliated entities. The group alleges that these ties could compromise U.S. national security and judicial impartiality, particularly concerning ELI's Climate Judiciary Project, which has trained over 2,000 American judges on environmental law since 2018.
State Armor, led by lobbyist Michael Lucci, argues that ELI's decades of work in China have advanced Chinese strategic interests while potentially harming American national security by favoring energy sources dominated by the People's Republic of China (PRC) and constraining domestic energy producers. The organization maintains that any educational initiative funded or influenced by entities with relationships to a foreign adversary could cast doubt on the perception or reality of judicial impartiality.
ELI, in a statement to Fox News Digital, rejected the criticism, asserting that its programming in China, which concluded in 2024, involved sharing evidence-based environmental regulation practices and did not advance specific government interests. The organization also stated that its Climate Judiciary Project has never conducted programming in China. ELI, founded in 1969, aims to develop environmental law and policy solutions across borders and sectors.
Despite ceasing direct programming in China, State Armor points to recent activities, including the publication of a paper by Chinese academics from state-run universities in ELI's journal and the hosting of a Chinese legal scholar who has worked on ministry-level environmental legislation projects in China. ELI did not comment on these specific instances.
State Armor's report highlights ELI's historical engagement with Chinese entities, including the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy (PRCEE), which is affiliated with China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment. ELI also collaborated on the China International Business Dialogue on Environmental Governance (CIBDEG) with Chinese law firm JunHe and Latham & Watkins, with claims of involvement from China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
Furthermore, ELI has partnered with universities that have faced scrutiny from the U.S. government for ties to China's military, such as Tianjin University, which was placed on the Commerce Department's Entity List over alleged trade-secret theft. ELI stated it was not involved in any purported intellectual property theft.
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has been a vocal critic of ELI, alleging that the organization, through its Climate Judiciary Project, engages in "ex parte indoctrination" and pressures judges to adopt a specific political narrative that harms U.S. energy producers. State Armor's report echoes this concern, claiming that the frameworks ELI promotes disproportionately favor regulatory constraints on U.S. domestic energy production, constituting a form of "unilateral disarmament in energy security and industrial production."