Statement by Dr. James Enstrom concerning unethical practices of the UCLA Law School 11/6/23

UCLA Law School Unethically Promotes an Anti-Science Climate Emergency

By Dr. James Enstrom – PhD in physics, Stanford University

Please read my November 2, 2023 email letter to the UCLA Law School Dean Michael Waterstone. It is very important to understand that the UCLA Law School has been unethically promoting an anti-science “climate emergency” and assisting in anti-science lawsuits in order to hurt fossil-fuel energy production in California and the US.  This promotion is being done by the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic.  The key personnel are Cara Horowitz, Executive Director of the Emmett Institute and Director of the Environmental Law Clinic and Ann Carlson, former Emmett Institute co-director and Senate-rejected Acting Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Since February 5, 2018 the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and attorneys James Hunter and Christopher Horner have submitted several California Public Records Act (CPRA) requests in their six-year effort to obtain all relevant UCLA correspondence that Horowitz and Carlson have had with state attorney generals, US government officials, environmental law firms, and environmental activists.  For instance, evidence has emerged that UCLA law students and staff are being inappropriately used to help the Sher Edling LLP law firm file numerous meritless anti-fossil fuel lawsuits based on dishonest scientific claims by “Climate Emergency Alarmists.”  The original November 8, 2018 CEI complaint is contained in my unanswered January 9, 2019 email letter to Dan Emmett, the primary funder of the Emmett Institute.  The most recent CPRA legal effort of James Hunter is his October 27, 2023 Energy Policy Advocates v UC Regents Opening Trial Brief.

The political activism of the UCLA Law School represents a direct violation of the California Constitution Article IX, Section 9 regarding the University of California. “The university shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom.”  The importance of fully disclosing this political activism is clearly stated in the June 27, 2021 Declaration by Princeton Professor of Physics Emeritus William Happer: “All Californians, whether they agree or disagree with the Climate Emergency Alarmists, have an interest in determining whether, and to what extent, the Regents, which is primarily supported by the taxes of its citizens, the UCLA Law School and/or any of its faculty, have been influenced, or subject to bias or an appearance of bias, in the research conducted, the papers published, the opinions expressed, the subjects taught, the scholarships awarded and other influences including a need or a desire to adhere to, or avoid impeding, the Climate Emergency Alarmists’ Agenda. . . . Not since Lysenko’s hijacking of biology in the Soviet Union has honest science been so thoroughly subject to political diktats as contemporary climate science. UCLA’s Emmett Center is part of this serious problem.”

Dr. James E. Enstrom is a retired Research Professor (Epidemiology) who held faculty positions at the UCLA School of Public Health and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has authored or co-authored 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on physics, epidemiology, and scientific integrity and is a proud member of the CO2 Coalition.