Busted.

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. […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee opened an investigation into the center last year, stating that its activities “raise questions as to whether participating state attorneys general are acting on independent judgement to best serve the interests of their states’ citizens.”

“The Bloomberg-NYU program effectively offers states partisan money from a billionaire to carry out official functions of their offices,” the panel wrote at the time. Bloomberg, it continued, “disguises his donations as ‘philanthropy'” and uses the impact center as a mechanism “to skirt legislative bodies and effect partisan policy.”