As Attorney General, Healey defended privately funded lawyers working in her office: “They’re free” and “a good thing”

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance today responded to the reported closure of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, the Bloomberg-backed program that paid the salaries of attorneys working inside state attorney general offices, including the office of then-Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

“This was a troubling arrangement from the beginning. A privately funded organization was paying lawyers working inside public law enforcement offices on the very climate and energy issues that organization was created to advance,” said Paul Diego Craney, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. “Maura Healey didn’t just participate in that arrangement. She publicly defended it. Now that the organization has shut down amid renewed scrutiny, Governor Healey should explain whether she still thinks allowing outside interests to pay the salaries of lawyers inside the Attorney General’s Office was ‘a good thing.’”

The State Energy and Environmental Impact Center was launched in 2017 with millions of dollars in funding from Michael Bloomberg. Its fellowship program paid the salaries and benefits of attorneys placed in state attorney general offices to work specifically on clean energy, climate, and environmental matters.

The arrangement drew scrutiny because private money was funding attorneys carrying out official government functions. In Massachusetts, two fellows working in Healey’s office were paid $72,450 and $94,500 by the State Impact Center rather than through the state payroll, according to 2019 reporting by CommonWealth Beacon.

Healey acknowledged at the time that the fellows made quarterly reports to the State Impact Center and that her office communicated regularly with the organization.

But she dismissed concerns about the outside funding.

“They’re free. The fact that Michael Bloomberg and others came together through NYU Law School to provide additional resources in this space is a good thing,” Healey told CommonWealth Beacon in 2019.

Questions surrounding the arrangement did not disappear. The Washington Free Beacon reported Monday that the center faced a congressional investigation into its funding and operations, as well as scrutiny in Wisconsin over a center-funded attorney working in that state’s Department of Justice. Two Wisconsin dairy groups also sued the Wisconsin Attorney General over the arrangement, alleging that it gave the center improper access and influence. Those allegations remain contested.

The center has now ceased operations. Its website says it is preserved only as “historical material as it existed on August 31, 2026” and will no longer be updated.

“The fact that Massachusetts taxpayers weren’t paying these lawyers did not make them free. It meant somebody else was paying the bill,” said Craney. “Government law enforcement should be accountable to the public it serves. Governor Healey owes taxpayers an explanation for why she believed this arrangement was appropriate then and whether she would allow it again today. There should also be a full public accounting of the work these privately funded attorneys performed in Massachusetts, including a review of any actions they took or policies they advanced that may have contributed to higher energy costs for Massachusetts ratepayers. The public deserves to know exactly what these outside-funded lawyers did, who benefited from it, and what it ultimately cost Massachusetts families and businesses.”