Mikey finally got caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

A group housed at the New York University School of Law and backed by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg quietly closed its doors in late August amid congressional scrutiny into its funding and operations. The so-called State Energy and Environmental Impact Center’s signature initiative involved placing paid, climate-focused “fellows” in Democrat-controlled state attorney general offices nationwide as those offices sued the oil industry and other energy providers.

The center’s sudden closure comes as a surprise: It continued to update its public database tracking state attorney general actions relevant to its climate priorities until Aug. 31, the date of its apparent closure. It also released an episode of its in-house podcast, Recharged with the State Impact Center, less than three weeks prior to that date. And in its 2025 “year in review” report released last December, the center indicated that it would continue operating throughout 2026.

But prior to its closure, the center was coming under increased pressure for effectively paying the salaries of state law enforcement agencies that were pursuing lawsuits in line with the center’s priority of going after energy providers.

Bloomberg-funded assistant attorneys general in various states were not hired to represent the people of those states. Their real assignment was to file lawsuits or implement regulations against fossil fuel companies, charging them with producing the products that cause climate change, in order to clear the path for renewable-energy programs.

In effect, state AG offices were being turned into a tool environmental groups could not wield on their own: the police power of the states, aimed at fossil-fuel producers. So far, courts have dismissed every lawsuit trying to link fossil fuel production to climate change.

The sue the manufacturer approach is not limited to climate activists. Had Bloomberg’s campaign succeeded, it would have crippled oil refining and could have driven fossil-fuel companies out of the United States the same way light-aircraft manufacturing was driven out—with large job losses as a result.

Michael Bloomberg is widely associated with holding millions of dollars in fossil-fuel investments while also backing a range of environmental campaigns. One reading of that combination is a billionaire using regulation to shrink competition and protect his own returns—an old pattern that keeps repeating.