Detroit (AP) – The United States Ministry of Justice has brought prosecution against four states this week, saying that their climatic actions are in conflict with the Federal Authority and the President Donald TrumpEnergy domination agenda.
On Wednesday, the DoJ brought prosecution against Hawaii and Michigan for their legal action provided against fossil fuel companies for damage caused by climate change. Thursday, the Doj continued New York and Vermont, contesting their Laws on the superflost climate that would be Force fossil fuel societies To pay state -based funds based on previous greenhouse gas emissions.
“These laws and proceedings motivated by ideologically motivations threaten American and national economic and national security independence,” said Prosecutor General Pamela jumped in a statement. “The Ministry of Justice strives to” release American energy “by stopping these illegitimate obstacles to the production of affordable and reliable energy that Americans deserve.”
The legal proceedings of the DoJ, 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 states to maintain the power to take climate measures without federal opposition.
The DOJ’s judicial files have declared that the plans and policies of the States “regulate in an imperceptible manner the greenhouse gas emissions outside the state and obstruct the complete framework of the federal state of the Clean Act and the regulatory discretion of the EPA.”
The DoJ cited the Clean Air Act – a federal law authorizing the environmental protection agency to regulate air emissions – claiming that it creates “a program for regulating air pollution in the United States and” moves “the capacity of states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions beyond their borders.”
The DoJ argued on Wednesday 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 expected dispute of states against oil and gas companies for alleged climate damage.
Last year, Attorney General of Michigan Democrat Dana Nessel Private law firms Go after 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 fuel companies that he said should assume responsibility For their role in the climatic impacts of the State, including the 2023 Mortel Lahaina Forest Fire.
When burned, fossil fuels release emissions such as carbon dioxide that warm the planet.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Governor of Michigan. Gretchen Whitmer The office postponed to Nessel when 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.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s deposits called on the superfundant acts of states – modeled on the 45 -year -old federal law adopted to respond to damage associated with hazardous waste sites – “a transparent monetary extraction system”. Trump suggested that the laws on superfund “extort” the payments of energy entities.
New York is looking for $ 75 billion and has previously been Contested by 22 states for the law; The Vermont did not specify what he is looking for. Both The laws were approved last year.
“By pretending to regulate the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change, the act necessarily reaches far beyond” of New York and Vermont states, argued the MJ, saying that states are wrongly seeking to regulate airspace on a national and global scale.
The offices of the Governor of New York Kathy Hochy, the Attorney General of Letitia James, the Governor of Vermont Phil Scott and the Attorney General of Vermont, Clark, did not immediately return to requests by email.
“At a time when states should contribute to a national effort to guarantee reliable sources of inner energy”, the four states choose “to obstruct,” said the four files.
In his deposits, the DoJ repeated the statements of the Republican President on the US urgency and the American energy crisis.
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 combinations comply 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 of the cases of Hawaii and Michigan. “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 aggressive targeted climate policy in the Investment name of fossil fuels. Federal agencies have announced plans Strengthen the power of coalRoll back History regulations of water and airblock renewable energy sources and double Expansion of oil and gas.
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The writer Associated Press Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan. Contributed to this report.
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Alexa St. John is a journalist by Associated Press Climate. Follow it on x: @alexa_stjohn. Touch it (Protected by e-mail).
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