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DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department filed lawsuits against four
states this week, claiming their climate actions conflict with federal authority and President Donald Trump’senergy dominance agenda.

The DOJ on Wednesday filed lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan over their plans for legal action against fossil fuel companies for harms caused by climate change. On Thursday, the DOJ sued New York and Vermont,
challenging their climate superfund laws that would force fossil fuel
companies to pay into state-based funds based on previous greenhouse gas emissions.

“These burdensome and ideologically motivated laws and lawsuits threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national
security,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement, noting the
office hopes to stop “these illegitimate impediments to the production of affordable, reliable energy that Americans deserve.”

The DOJ lawsuits, which legal experts called unprecedented, mark the
latest of the Trump administration’s attacks on environmental work and
raises concern over states’ abilities to retain the power to take climate action without federal opposition.

The DOJ’s four filings said the state efforts undermine the federal
government while “increasing energy costs and disrupting the national
energy market.” It said the states’ plans and policies are
unconstitutional, violate the federal foreign affairs power and are
preempted by the Clean Air Act — a federal law authorizing the
Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air emissions.


The DOJ argued the act “creates a program for regulating air pollution in
the United States and ‘displaces’ the ability of States to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions beyond their borders.”

It said Wednesday that Hawaii and Michigan battling oil and gas companies
for alleged climate damage conflicts with EPA authority and obstructs the agency’s discretion to regulate greenhouse gases.

When burned, fossil fuels release emissions such as carbon dioxide that
warm the planet.

Spokespeople for Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green and Hawaii Attorney
General Anne Lopez confirmed the state filed its lawsuit against seven
groups of affiliated fossil fuel companies and the oil and gas trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, Thursday, alleging harm to public trust resources, negligence and more.

Green said he is targeting fossil fuel companies that should take responsibility for their role in the state’s climate impacts, including
2023’s deadly Lahaina wildfire.

“This lawsuit is about holding those parties accountable, shifting the
costs of surviving the climate crisis back where they belong, and
protecting Hawaii citizens into the future,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel last year
tapped private law firms to go after the fossil fuel industry for
negatively affecting the state’s climate and environment.

“This lawsuit is at best frivolous and arguably sanctionable,” Nessel said
in a statement Thursday. Nessel noted that Michigan hasn’t yet filed its lawsuit, but confirmed her intent to, and said the White House and the oil industry “will not succeed in any attempt to preemptively bar our access
to make our claims in the courts.” A spokesperson for Democratic Michigan
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office deferred to Nessel when asked for comment.

Thursday’s filings called the states’ Superfund Acts — modeled after the 45-year-old federal superfund law enacted to address the harm associated
with hazardous waste sites — “a transparent monetary-extraction scheme.”
Trump has said the superfund laws “extort” money from energy entities.

New York is looking for $75 billion and has been previously challenged by
22 states for its law; Vermont hasn’t specified its target amount. Both
laws were approved last year.

The DOJ argued the states’ acts are also looking to regulate greenhouse
gas emissions — nationwide and globally — violating federal government authority, along with discouraging “investment and innovation in the
fossil fuel industry, further burdening interstate commerce.”

A spokesperson for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said the
governor “believes corporate polluters should pay for the damage done to
our environment — not everyday New Yorkers. We will not back down, not
from Big Oil, and not from federal overreach.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James said the state’s climate superfund
law “ensures that those who contributed to the climate crisis help pay for
the damage they caused.”

Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark said she looked forward to
representing Vermont in this case. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott’s office did
not immediately respond to request for comment.

In its filings, the DOJ repeated the Republican president’s claims of
America’s energy emergency and crisis.

“At a time when States should be contributing to a national effort to
secure reliable sources of domestic energy,” all four states are choosing
“to stand in the way,” the filings said.

Legal experts raised concern over the government’s arguments.

Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of the Columbia University
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said it’s typically the case that the
DOJ asks a court to intervene in pending environmental litigation — as is
the case in some instances across the country.

While this week’s suits are consistent with Trump’s plans to oppose state actions that interfere with energy dominance, “it’s highly unusual,”
Gerrard told The Associated Press of the cases of Hawaii and Michigan.
“What we expected is they would intervene in the pending lawsuits, not to
try to preempt or prevent a lawsuit from being filed. It’s an aggressive
move in support of the fossil fuel industry.”

Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the University of
California, Los Angeles, who has previously consulted on climate
litigation, noted that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said his agency is
seeking to overturn a finding under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse
gases endanger public health and welfare.

“On the one hand the U.S. is saying Michigan, and other states, can’t
regulate greenhouse gases because the Clean Air Act does so and therefore preempts states from regulating,” Carlson said. “On the other hand the
U.S. is trying to say that the Clean Air Act should not be used to
regulate.”

Trump’s administration has aggressively targeted climate policy in the
name of fossil fuel investment. Federal agencies have announced plans to bolster coal power, roll back landmark water and air regulations, block renewable energy sources and double down on oil and gas expansion.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-doj-climate-states-policy-lawsuits- a5228e1dd6348f09d2a70f460142531a

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