By Nate Raymond
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration has sued Hawaii and Michigan to try to stop them from filing lawsuits against major oil companies over the fossil fuel industry’s role in climate change, accusing the Democratic-led states of overreach and imperiling domestic energy production.
Neither state has sued yet. Hawaii Governor Josh Green told a local TV station that his state plans to sue fossil fuel companies as soon as Thursday. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel last year retained law firms to represent it in climate change-related litigation.
The litigation filed by the U.S. Justice Department late on Wednesday in Hawaii and Michigan said the intended lawsuits by the states constitute an “extraordinary extraterritorial reach” that would unlawfully undermine federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and the administration’s foreign policy objectives.
Numerous Democratic-led states have in recent years filed similar lawsuits against companies including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell and BP, accusing them of deceiving the public about the role fossil fuels have played in causing climate change.
The Justice Department’s unusual preemptive lawsuits follow a pledge by Trump’s campaign during the 2024 election to “stop the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists.”
The Justice Department in both lawsuits cited an executive order that the Republican president signed on his first day back in office on January 20 declaring a national energy emergency to speed permitting of energy projects, rolling back environmental protections and withdrawing the United States from an international pact to fight climate change.
“As a result of state restrictions and burdens on energy production, the American people are paying more for energy, and the United States is less able to defend itself from hostile foreign actors,” the Justice Department said in the lawsuits.
It said Hawaii and Michigan are standing in the way of the administration’s efforts to boost domestic energy supply.
“This nation’s Constitution and laws do not tolerate this interference,” the lawsuits said.
Representatives for Nessel and Hawaii’s attorney general did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Similar lawsuits by state and local governments have accused energy companies of creating a public nuisance or violating state laws by concealing from the public for decades the fact that burning fossil fuels would lead to climate change. The companies have denied wrongdoing.
Many of the cases remain in their early stages after years of litigation by oil companies over whether the states could sue in state courts rather than federal court.
The U.S. Supreme Court in March rejected a bid by 19 Republican-led states, led by Alabama, to block five Democratic-led states from pursuing such lawsuits. The Republican-led states raised similar claims as the Justice Department’s case.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Franklin Paul and Will Dunham)
