[Reuters Analysis] Trump administration sues four Democratic-led states to block climate laws, lawsuits

• Justice Department calls planned laws, lawsuits an overreach
• Lawsuits challenge New York and Vermont climate "superfund" laws
• Hawaii sued fossil fuel industry after Justice Department case

May 1 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration said on Thursday it is suing four Democratic-led states to prevent them from enforcing "burdensome and ideologically motivated" laws and pursuing lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry over the harms caused by climate change.

The U.S. Department of Justice in a pair of lawsuits argued that recent laws New York and Vermont adopted requiring oil companies to contribute billions of dollars into funds to pay for damage caused by climate change were unconstitutional.

New York alone hopes to raise $75 billion through its "superfund" law, which the Justice Department called a "transparent monetary-extraction scheme" designed to fund the state's infrastructure projects with money from out-of-state businesses.

The Justice Department filed those cases on Thursday, a day after it launched two preemptive cases seeking to stop Hawaii and Michigan from filing planned lawsuits against major oil companies over climate change, cases the administration said would imperil domestic energy production.

The Justice Department in its lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan said such lawsuits constitute an "extraordinary extraterritorial reach" that unlawfully undermine federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and the administration's foreign policy objectives.

Despite the Justice Department's announcement, Hawaii plowed ahead with filing a lawsuit on Thursday in state court against companies including BP BP.L, Chevron CVX.N, Exxon Mobil XOM.N and Shell SHEL.L, accusing them of failing to warn about their fossil fuel products’ climate change danger.

Numerous other Democratic-led states have in recent years filed similar lawsuits accusing the companies of deceiving the public about the role fossil fuels have played in causing climate change. The companies have denied wrongdoing.

Michigan has not filed a lawsuit to date, but Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel last year retained law firms to represent it in climate change-related litigation. In a statement, she called the Trump administration's preemptive lawsuit "at best frivolous and arguably sanctionable."

"I remain undeterred in my intention to file this lawsuit the President and his Big Oil donors so fear," Nessel, a Democrat, said.

The Justice Department's four 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 the 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.

“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.

The Justice Department's lawsuits said all four states 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.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, in a statement defended the state's superfund law, saying it "ensures that those who contributed to the climate crisis help pay for the damage they caused."

The laws New York and Vermont adopted to create an industry-financed "superfunds" are already the subject of ongoing legal challenges by Republican-led states and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which have sued to block the novel laws.

The climate-related litigation against oil companies by states remains in its 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.