Public Justice Foundation

Public Justice has opposed the use of zero carbon nuclear energy. ⁴

Background

The Public Justice Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization that supports Public Justice, a left-of-center nonprofit legal advocacy organization that specializes in high impact lawsuits challenging government agencies and private firms to seek increased market regulations. ²

It was originally founded as Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (TLPJ). ⁵ TLPJ was founded in 1982 at the urging of left-wing activist Ralph Nader. ⁶ In 2006, TLPJ became the Public Justice Foundation. ⁷

Projects

The Public Justice Foundation argues that businesses are necessarily corrupt and that increased government intervention into the marketplace will supposedly limit this corruption and protect citizens. As such, the foundation embraces left-of-center market regulations. ⁶

Food Project

The Food Project is Public Justice Foundation’s largest investment, with the foundation spending $1,451,611 on the project in 2019. ⁸ Under this project, Public Justice Foundation attorneys litigate and advocate against large food producers. The project claims that corporate food producers have taken over the food system and use methods to increase their bottom lines while disregarding risk and animal suffering. The project seeks to impose greater, left-of-center regulations on food production. ¹

Access to Justice

Public Justice spent $773,062 on Access to Justice in 2019. ⁸ The project focuses on legal and advocacy efforts to eliminate non-disclosure agreements, arbitration agreements, and the practice of keeping court documents private, claiming that they block people’s rightful access to courts. ^{9 10}

Debtor’s Prison Project

The foundation’s third largest project was the Debtors Prison Project, on which it spent $435,572 in 2019. ⁸ The Public Justice Foundation has claimed that the prison system targets low-income people and people of color, alleging that they go to prison because they cannot afford court fees. ¹ The foundation has supported class action litigation on behalf of low-income criminals. ⁹

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

In May of 2021, Public Justice was one of 715 groups and businesses listed as a co-signer on a letter to the leadership of the U.S. House and Senate that referred to nuclear energy as a “dirty” form of energy production and a “significant” source of pollution. The letter asked federal lawmakers to reduce carbon emissions by creating a “renewable electricity standard” that promoted production of weather dependent power sources such as wind turbines and solar panels, but did not promote low carbon natural gas and zero carbon nuclear energy. ⁴

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ¹¹ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ¹²

Financials

In 2019, the Public Justice Foundation received over $6 million in contributions and grants. The foundation spent 46% of its total income on salaries and other compensation, including over half a million dollars paid out as salaries to chairman Arthur Bryant and executive director Frank Paul Bland. ^{13 14}

Most of the foundation’s funding is sourced through memberships, which are primarily held by plaintiff attorneys and law firms. There were 1,515 donors to the foundation in 2020. ¹

Senior Staff

Dan Bryson, a left-progressive attorney, was named president of the Public Justice Foundation on July 21, 2021. ³ He has been a founding partner at Whitfield Bryson & Mason LLP since 2011. ¹⁵

Chairman Arthur Bryant started at the foundation when it was still known as Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in 1984. He became chair in 2014, a position which he held until 2019. ¹⁶ Executive director Frank Paul Bland joined the Public Justice Foundation in 1997. ¹⁷

Jessica Culpepper is director of the Food Project, the organization’s largest project. She was previously a staff attorney at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), a large left-of-center vegetarian advocacy organization. ¹⁸