Trump DOJ seeks to halt Minnesota’s climate fraud case
The Trump administration’s Justice Department moved Monday to stop Minnesota’s climate change lawsuit against oil companies, arguing in a federal filing that the Constitution bars Minnesota from regulating greenhouse gas emissions in a way that would reach beyond the state. The request was filed in federal court in Minneapolis and challenges Minnesota officials’ attempt to pursue the case after the lawsuit was brought in state court in June 2020.
DOJ attorneys argued that the federal government—not states—has authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. In the filing, the department said, “The Constitution does not tolerate such a conflict,” and also said, “Nor does it allow Minnesota to national its regulatory powers.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, brought the suit in state court against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and Flint Hills Resources, a Koch subsidiary. The complaint accused the defendants of consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices related to climate change, according to the Associated Press account.
At least 15 other states also filed similar lawsuits, including Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, the report said. Ellison issued a statement Monday calling the Justice Department’s action meritless, saying the American people deserve a DOJ that “fights for us” and that it is “a tremendous shame that Trump’s DOJ would rather sell us out to Big Oil.”
Messages left by The Associated Press for officials at ExxonMobil, Koch Industries and the American Petroleum Institute were not immediately returned. ExxonMobil previously said, when Ellison sued in 2020, that the action was baseless, and the American Petroleum Institute said at that time that the industry provides reliable energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing its environmental footprint.
The filing is another flashpoint in what the Associated Press described as escalating friction between the Trump administration and Minnesota officials. The report said the two sides have been at odds since January, when federal immigration officers killed two Minneapolis residents in separate incidents during a crackdown in the city, and it added that federal agents in April conducted searches connected with an investigation into publicly funded social programs for children.
The case also unfolds as the administration continues to shift climate policy. In February, the administration revoked a scientific finding that has been a central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gases and address climate change: a 2009 EPA “endangerment finding” that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare, according to the report.