President Donald Trump has plenty of targets to choose from to begin his war against blue state lawsuits and legislation designed to punish energy companies for their role in climate change.
On April 8, Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting American Energy From State Overreach” instructing his administration to investigate state-level attempts to sue or otherwise extract massive payouts from energy companies in the name of climate change. Some of the states Trump is poised to target under the new executive order will likely include New York, California and other Democrat-dominated jurisdictions that have sought to extract billions of dollars from the energy sector to line government coffers.
“American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities,” the executive order states. “For example, when States target or discriminate against out-of-State energy producers by imposing significant barriers to interstate and international trade, American energy suffers, and the equality of each State enshrined by the Constitution is undermined. Similarly, when States subject energy producers to arbitrary or excessive fines through retroactive penalties or seek to control energy development, siting, or production activities on Federal land, American energy suffers.” (RELATED: Energy, Business Groups Ask Supreme Court To Stop California From Forcing EVs On The Rest Of America)
Attorney General Pam Bondi will have 60 days to provide a report to Trump outlining laws, lawsuits and other policies to target with legislation or other actions. The Justice Department declined to comment.
Trump specifically referenced California’s “cap and trade” emissions scheme and New York’s so-called “Climate Change Superfund Act” in his executive order as the types of policies he wants his administration to probe and fight back against. The “cap and trade” law limits greenhouse gas emissions statewide and allows polluters to trade emissions permits among themselves, while New York’s law requires energy companies to give the state $3 billion annually for 25 years so that the state can use the cash to advance green energy and climate-focused projects.
Both laws have drawn scrutiny from critics who contend that they each impose needless restrictions and costs on energy producers, which are then more inclined to pass on costs to consumers or to leave the state altogether.
The state of California, in addition to several of its municipalities, has filed a lawsuit against several major oil corporations seeking massive settlements, alleging that the corporations internally knew that their products drive climate change while misleading the public. Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta also filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil in September 2024 alleging that the company misled the public about the efficacy of its advanced recycling techniques, though Bonta struggled to defend the litigation during an interview on CNBC that same month.
It’s not just California and New York that have used the judiciary and the legislature to go after energy producers.
Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island all have launched their own similar climate change lawsuits against oil and gas companies, and a number of Democrat-run cities and counties — including Chicago and Honolulu — have pursued similar litigation against energy producers. (RELATED: Trump Admin Moves To Purge ‘Climate Zealotry’ From Defense Department)
