*

Justice Department calls planned laws, lawsuits an

overreach

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Lawsuits challenge New York and Vermont climate

"superfund" laws

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Hawaii sued fossil fuel industry after Justice Department

case

(Adds details on new lawsuit by Hawaii, comment from New York

attorney general in paragraphs 5-9, 15, 17)

By Nate Raymond

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, Chevron ( CVX ), Exxon Mobil ( XOM )

and Shell, 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.