Overview
- The Justice Department, which filed Monday in federal court in Minnesota, asks a judge to halt the state’s climate deception lawsuit against major oil companies.
- Federal lawyers argue Minnesota is using state law to regulate global greenhouse gas emissions, which they say is preempted by the Constitution and the Clean Air Act under a Trump executive order.
- Minnesota’s 2020 consumer-fraud case against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries and the American Petroleum Institute cleared a key hurdle on April 15 when the state supreme court allowed discovery to begin.
- Attorney General Keith Ellison called the federal suit frivolous and said he will seek dismissal to keep pursuing disgorgement of profits and funding for a climate education campaign.
- The filing is part of a wider push to curb state climate actions, as DOJ has targeted Hawaii, Michigan, New York and Vermont, and judges in Michigan and Hawaii have already dismissed similar federal complaints.