This past July, Brown made a deal with the Trump administration to restore the University’s federal funds. But the deal was not the end of threats to Brown’s research funding.
On Aug. 11, Brown received a letter from Marzulla Law, a law firm with close ties to the conservative legal movement, on behalf of Green Oceans, a local anti-offshore wind group. In the letter, the law firm demanded the University retract three publications from 2023 and 2024 authored by researchers at the Climate and Development Lab, claiming that the publications contained “materially false claims” about the nonprofit and caused “significant harm.”
In the letter, which was obtained by The Herald, the firm stated they are “preparing coordinated reports to key public and private funding bodies,” including the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and the Mellon Foundation. The letter stated that “Green Oceans will consider all available legal remedies” if the University does not comply.
In an email to The Herald, Barbara Chapman P’18 P’20, a Green Oceans trustee and member of the litigation team, wrote that the organization believes it has the grounds for further legal action.
“The publications contain provably false statements that have damaged Green Oceans’ reputation and fundraising and have been amplified by others,” Chapman wrote.
In a statement to The Herald, University Spokesperson Brian Clark affirmed Brown’s commitment to “academic freedom” and the right of faculty to “shape their own research and course of instruction at Brown.”
Marzulla Law’s threats of endangering federal funding would likely not apply to the CDL, which is privately funded and does not receive support from the sources that the law firm listed in its letter, according to the head of the center, Timmons Roberts, who is a professor of environment, society and sociology.
As a think tank that studies climate change policy based within the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, one of the CDL’s primary research areas is the “seemingly grassroots and sometimes actually grassroots” organizations that oppose the development of offshore wind plants in the northeastern United States, said undergraduate CDL researcher Charlotte Calkins ’27.
This includes tracking the connections between anti-offshore wind groups, their lawyers, the fossil fuel industry and right-wing think tanks, Calkins continued.
In an interview with The Herald, Roberts said the CDL aims to understand what players are blocking climate change and how they are doing so. The original assumption of climate researchers was that as scientists discovered solutions to climate change, people would “naturally, automatically” shift away from using fossil fuels, he said.
“But of course, that was quite naive,” Roberts added.
Fossil fuel companies stand to lose revenue as reliance on renewable energy grows, he said. “So they are actively engaged in trying to undermine, stop, slow and roll back that transition that just has to happen.”
Since the CDL began publishing research about Green Oceans a few years ago, they have received multiple complaints from the group, which organizes against the development of offshore wind turbine farms in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Green Oceans has also demanded that academic journals remove research conducted by the CDL. But the August letter was the first time they directly threatened Brown’s research funding, according to Roberts.
Isaac Slevin ’25, the first author on two of the targeted papers, called anti-wind groups’ criticism of his research “unsubstantiated.” The CDL has also sent letters pushing back against the claims and have faced no subsequent legal action.
Roberts feels confident that the CDL will be safe against legal threats.
“There’s some language in here about documented, ongoing harm, and it’s quite hard to imagine that this is real harm,” he said. He pointed to the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” raised by Green Oceans and their substantial national influence as evidence of the group’s success.
Green Oceans disagrees.
“The harm has escalated,” Chapman wrote. “The CDL publications have been widely amplified, used to exclude our participation in public forums, and have contributed to a hostile environment.”
It remains unclear if Marzulla Law actually has the sway necessary with public or private sources to pose an actual threat to Brown’s research funding. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.
Chapman wrote to The Herald that Green Oceans is “not asking anyone to stop supporting research at Brown,” but rather “asking funders and administrators to ensure that work bearing Brown’s name meets basic standards of accuracy, disclosure, and fairness.”
On Sept. 2, Green Oceans filed a memorandum in support of the Trump administration’s order halting construction on Revolution Wind, a $4 billion project to construct a wind farm that would have powered over 350,000 homes across Rhode Island and Connecticut. The construction of Revolution Wind was 80% complete when construction was halted.
Nancie and Roger Marzulla, co-founders of Marzulla Law, were listed as their attorneys on Green Oceans’s memorandum. Green Oceans also provided recommendations to senior officials in the Interior Department about how to cancel offshore wind leases, according to emails obtained by Politico.
In an Aug. 27 statement, they claimed that they “have never received funding from the fossil fuel industry or related organizations.”
But the CDL’s research never claimed that Green Oceans directly received funding from fossil fuel companies, according to Roberts, Slevin and Calkins. A key point in the research, Slevin said, is that the connections between local anti-offshore wind groups and fossil fuel companies extend far beyond the money.
Following the funds that groups receive from companies with anti-renewable energy interests, such as fossil fuel corporations is useful, but “cannot be the only framework that we work through, because it writes local agencies out of the picture,” Slevin told The Herald.
The CDL’s research instead explores “information subsidies,” which are lines of reasoning, talking points and terminology that “trickle down” to local groups from fossil fuel-funded think tanks, Calkins explained. Although the local groups may not directly be tied to fossil fuel companies, their lawyers and information sources may be closer, the CDL’s research posits.
In their statement to The Herald, Green Oceans maintains that the CDL’s research is false.
“Questioning whether offshore wind delivers real climate benefits while inflicting undeniable environmental harm is not spreading misinformation; rather it represents responsible science and public advocacy,” Chapman wrote.
According to Roberts, legal complaints like the Aug. 11 letter appear to have the “intent to silence our voices.” But he and his team feel even more inclined to continue their work.
Less than two weeks after the Aug. 11 letter, the CDL published a new report showing the Marzullas at the center of a web of “anti-environmental litigation and lobbying, and deep ties to fossil fuel interests,” the report says. The firm has a history of environmental litigation in federal courts, defending clients such as developers and local coalitions, according to the CDL report.
A version of the paper had already been drafted when they received the letter, Roberts said, and the notice “made me want to quickly put it up.”
Slevin said he feels that it symbolizes a bigger “political vibe shift” where universities are targets of “bullying.”
“I think if you’re doing effective environmental work, I would hope that you’re pissing off arms of the fossil fuel industry and their allies,” he added.
Elise Haulund is a science & research editor and sophomore from Redondo Beach, CA. Concentrating in English and biology, she has a passion for exploring the intersection between STEM and the humanities. Outside of writing, researching and editing, she enjoys ballet-dancing, cafe-hopping and bullet-journaling.
