A dark-money advocacy group funded through Leonard Leo’s Freedom & Opportunity Fund.

§ 1 · Background & fossil-fuel ties

The Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) is a Virginia-based conservative advocacy organization that has become an active opponent of climate deception litigation. Although it describes itself as a defender of free markets and limited government, CFIF is financially connected to Leonard Leo's judicial advocacy network and has repeatedly partnered with Koch-funded organizations on campaigns opposing climate regulation and carbon pricing.

Between 2016 and 2018, Leo's Freedom & Opportunity Fund awarded $915,500 to CFIF, according to IRS grant records. The Freedom & Opportunity Fund was one of the principal organizations in Leo's dark-money network before its activities shifted to successor groups such as the 85 Fund and Concord Fund, which have continued financing conservative legal advocacy and litigation campaigns.

CFIF has also worked alongside the Koch political network on climate policy. In 2018, it joined a coalition of organizations supporting a congressional resolution opposing carbon pricing. According to Media Matters, 42 of the 51 organizations participating in that campaign had received funding from the Koch network.

§ 2 · Record of fronting

In recent years, the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) has become an active advocate against climate accountability litigation, portraying lawsuits seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable as a form of "climate lawfare" and "climate shakedowns." Through articles, commentary, and litigation, CFIF argues that state consumer protection and tort lawsuits against oil companies are an illegitimate attempt to reshape national energy policy through the courts rather than through Congress.

CFIF has strongly backed federal legislation to block climate accountability lawsuits, including the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act, and has applauded court decisions limiting where those cases may be heard. On its website, the organization argues that lawsuits brought by states and local governments are designed to "extract massive settlements" from energy companies and characterizes them as ideological attacks on "law-abiding energy producers."

CFIF advanced those same arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court by joining an amicus brief supporting Exxon and Suncor in Suncor Energy Inc. v. Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County. The brief argues that state consumer protection laws should not be used to pursue climate deception claims because they allegedly interfere with national energy policy and interstate commerce. Rather than addressing the underlying allegations that fossil fuel companies misled the public about climate risks, CFIF argues that these lawsuits should be barred as a matter of constitutional and federal law.

§ 3 · The cover story, debunked