The Ministry of Justice continues Hawaii, Michigan on plans to pursue fossil fuel companies for climate damage

By Alexa St. John

DETROIT (AP) – The United States Ministry of Justice brought prosecution against Hawaii and Michigan on Wednesday for their legal action against fossil fuel companies for damage caused by climate change, affirming that state actions are confronted with the Federal Authority of the Government and President Donald Trump on the Dominance of Energy Program.

The proceedings, which, according to legal experts, are unprecedented, mark the last of the Trump administration attacks against environmental work and raises concerns about the capacities of the States to maintain the power to take climatic measures without federal opposition.

In court documents, the DoJ said that the Clean Air Act – a federal law authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air emissions – “creates a full program to regulate air pollution in the United States and” move “the capacity of states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions beyond their borders.”

The DoJ argues that Hawaii and Michigan violate the intention of the act which allows the authority of the EPA to set national standards for greenhouse gases, citing the underlying dispute of states against oil and gas companies for alleged climate damage.

Last year, the Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel operated private law firms to continue the fossil fuels industry for negatively affecting the state’s climate and environment.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, plans to target fossil fuels companies which, according to him, should take responsibility for their role in the climatic impacts of the State, in particular the fire fires Deadly Lahaina of 2023.

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

The two states of the States Act “regulate in an imperceptible manner the greenhouse gas emissions outside the State and obstruct the complete framework of the federal state of the EPA -regulatory and regulatory discretion,” said the DOJ court documents.

The DoJ has also repeated the claims of the Republican President on the US urgency and the American energy crisis.

“At a time when states should contribute to a national effort to guarantee reliable sources of inner energy”, Hawaii and Michigan “choose to obstruct,” said the documents.

A spokesperson for the Governor’s Governor Democratic Office Gretchen Whitmer resumed Nessel when he was asked for comments.

“This trial is at best frivolous and undoubtedly sanctionable,” said Nessel in a statement, which noted that Michigan had not filed a trial. “If the White House or Great Oil wish to contest our claims, they can do it when our trial is filed; They will not succeed in preventing preventively our access to make our complaints before the courts. I am not discouraged with my intention to submit this trial, the president and his big donors of oil are afraid. ”

The Green office and the Hawaii Attorney General Office did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

But legal experts have been concerned about government’s arguments.

Michael Gerrard, founder and director of the faculty of the Columbia University Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said that the usual procedure is the Doj asking a court to intervene in waiting environmental disputes – as is the case in some cases through the country.

Although this week’s prosecution complies with Trump’s plans to oppose the actions of the state that interfere with the domination of energy, “it is very unusual,” Gerrard told the Associated Press. “What we expected is that they would intervene in the current prosecution, not to try to pre -empt or prevent the filing of a complaint. This is an aggressive decision to support the fossil fuel industry.

“It raises all kinds of eyebrows,” he added. “It is an intimidation tactic, and that said to the fossil fuel companies how Trump loves them.”

Ann Carlson, professor of environmental law at the University of California in Los Angeles, who previously consulted the climate disputes, said that this week’s prosecution looked like the Doj entering the straws “, noting that the EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said that his agency was looking to cancel a conclusion under the clean air act Endanger Public Health and Welfare.

“So, on the one hand, the United States say that Michigan and other states cannot regulate greenhouse gases because the Clean Act Act the fact and therefore prevents states from regulating,” said Carlson. “On the other hand, the United States is trying to say that the Clean Act should not be used to regulate. Hypocrisy is quite astonishing. ”

Trump administration has actively targeted climate policy in the name of the investment of fossil fuels. Federal agencies have announced its intention to strengthen the power of coal, to reduce the regulations of water and air, to block renewable energy sources and to double the expansion of oil and gas.

Find out more about the AD climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment.

The writer Associated Press Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan. Contributed to this report.

Alexa St. John is a journalist by Associated Press Climate. Follow it on x: @alexa_stjohn. Join her at ast.john@ap.org.

The climate and environmental coverage of the Associated Press receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP standards to work with philanthropies, a list of supporters and coverage areas financed at AP.ORG.

Originally published: May 1, 2025 at 1 p.m.