The left-wing environmental nonprofit Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) is bankrolling a study commissioned by Maryland governor Wes Moore (D.) to “assess the undue burden Marylanders are paying for extreme weather events,” records show. [some emphasis, links added]
The group says the study is the first step in passing a law that would require oil companies to pay the state billions of dollars in climate damages.
When Moore announced he would move forward with the study in December, he touted $30,000 in “philanthropic funding” but did not disclose [its source].
Maryland’s 2027 state budget shows that RFF provided the $30,000 grant, which, along with $470,000 in state funds, will be used to “illustrate the extent of the damage done by increasingly intense weather events along with other environmental shifts related to climate change.”
Moore initially vetoed the bill in May 2025, which created the study, but reversed course seven months later.
RFF cheered the move, saying in a press release that the study would “lay the groundwork for a Maryland climate superfund bill, which would require fossil fuel companies to pay for a portion of the state’s climate adaptation costs identified through the study.”
It also credited one of its grantees, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, for getting the study over the “finish line,” but did not disclose that it was funding the study.
The RFF’s involvement in the study raises questions about its impartiality.
The fund—established in 1967 by the liberal great-grandchildren of John D. Rockefeller, whose Standard Oil Company included entities that became ExxonMobil and Chevron when it was broken up in 1911—says oil companies “advance a business model that accelerates the climate crisis.”
It also funds a slew of left-wing climate organizations, including the Hollywood-based Climate Emergency Fund—which is the top backer of Climate Defiance, a radical group known for carrying out illegal demonstrations to “defeat” what it calls “fossil fuel fascism”—and Covering Climate Now, which works with media organizations like ABC and MSNBC to “make climate a part of every beat in the newsroom.”
The study, which will calculate past and future costs associated with climate change, was initiated in March and will be completed by the end of the year.
It is being conducted by the Center for Climate Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based group that conducts global research on climate change, including in collaboration with Chinese government agencies.
The center lists the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, which has taken in $640,000 from the RFF in recent years, as one of its “key partners.”
“We were happy to chip in to help the state understand the enormous cost of climate adaptation that Marylanders will be paying for as far as the eye can see,” RFF director Lee Wasserman said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.
“The Rockefeller Family Fund had no role in selecting the Center for Climate Strategies to do the study, and we will have no role whatsoever in the study’s completion.”
Moore’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Read rest at Free Beacon
