The Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, has filed lawsuits against several Democratic-led states for attempting to undermine President Donald Trump and his administration’s energy policies.
The lawsuits were filed on Wednesday against Hawaii and Michigan for legal action they plan to take against fossil fuel companies for what they said are adverse effects on the environment.
Other lawsuits were filed against New York and Vermont over their laws that require fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds because of their previous greenhouse gas emissions.
“The Justice Department today filed complaints against the states of New York and Vermont over their ‘climate superfund laws.’ In separate actions, the Justice Department yesterday filed lawsuits against the states of Hawaii and Michigan to prevent each state from suing fossil fuel companies in state court to seek damages for alleged climate change harms,” it said in a press release announcing the legal actions it has taken.
“President Trump recently directed Attorney General Pamela Bondi to take action to stop the enforcement of state laws that unreasonably burden domestic energy development so that energy will once again be reliable and affordable for all Americans. These lawsuits advance President Trump’s directive in Executive Order 14260, Protecting American Energy from State Overreach,” the Department of Justice said in its press release.
“These burdensome and ideologically motivated laws and lawsuits threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security,” Bondi said. “The Department of Justice is working to ‘Unleash American Energy’ by stopping these illegitimate impediments to the production of affordable, reliable energy that Americans deserve.”
The DOJ referenced the Clean Air Act, a federal law that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air emissions. It stated that this law “displaces the ability of States to regulate greenhouse gas emissions beyond their borders.”
“When states seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authority, they harm the country’s ability to produce energy and they aid our adversaries,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said. “The Department’s filings seek to protect Americans from unlawful state overreach that would threaten energy independence critical to the well-being and security of all Americans.”
The DOJ has labeled the states’ superfund policies—modeled after the 45-year-old federal superfund law designed to address the dangers posed by hazardous waste sites—as “a transparent monetary-extraction scheme.”
New York is currently pursuing $75 million from fossil fuel companies, a move that has faced legal challenges from 22 states. Meanwhile, Vermont has yet to announce details regarding its own superfund policies.
“According to the complaints filed yesterday in the U.S. District Courts for the District of Hawaii and the Western District of Michigan, Hawaii and Michigan intend to sue fossil fuel companies to seek damages for alleged climate change harms. The government alleges that these anticipated actions are preempted by the Clean Air Act and violate the Constitution. Such lawsuits burden energy production, force the American people to pay more for energy, and make the United States less able to defend itself from hostile foreign actors,” the department said in its press release.
“Complaints filed today in U.S. District Courts for the Southern District of New York and for the District of Vermont challenge expropriative laws passed by New York and Vermont. These ‘climate superfund’ laws would impose strict liability on energy companies for their worldwide activities extracting or refining fossil fuels. The laws assess penalties for those businesses’ purported contributions to harms that those states allegedly are experiencing from climate change. The New York law seeks $75 billion from energy companies, while the Vermont law seeks an unspecified amount,” the Department of Justice said.
“The Justice Department seeks a declaration that these state laws are unconstitutional and an injunction against their enforcement,” it said.