Power The Future Challenges Secrecy in Public Offices

October 19, 2023

We’re taking a stand. Power The Future has filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) lawsuit against the New York State Office of the Comptroller, challenging redactions and other withholdings of public records. We are seeking documents that could illuminate the Office’s coordination with environmentalist activist groups to advance their extreme agenda. 

Taxpayers and pensioners deserve to know how their funds are being used. Through three FOIL requests, we have asked for correspondence with certain green-group email domains and other records reflecting public officials’ discussions of opposition to the controversial practice of “ESG” investing of public funds. Previous emails obtained by Power The Future revealed that the activist climate group CERES ghost-wrote and even placed a New York Times op-ed under the name of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander arguing in favor of ESG climate regulation that will harm the pensioners that Lander is supposed to serve. 

Power The Future Founder Daniel Turner says it best these documents should not be hidden from taxpayers, 

“The fact that public officials are working and spending taxpayer dollars to keep information secret is revealing. Around the country we’ve seen radical environmental groups entrench themselves in taxpayer-funded offices and the people footing the bill should get to see what’s going on. The sad fact we have to go to court to fight for public documents speaks volumes.”