A new executive order from President Donald Trump, which is part of his effort to invigorate energy production, raises the possibility that his Department of Justice will go to court against state climate change laws.
Trump’s order, signed Tuesday, comes as U.S. electricity demand ramps up to meet the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing applications, as well as federal efforts to expand high-tech manufacturing. It also coincides with “climate superfund” legislation gaining traction in various states.
“American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities,” Trump said in the order.
He said the attorney general should focus on state laws targeting climate change, an order that puts blue states in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice.
Michael Gerrard, director of the Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said it would be an “extraordinarily bold move” for the federal government to go to court to try to overturn a state climate law.
Gerrard said the quickest path for the Department of Justice is to try to join ongoing lawsuits where courts are deciding whether states or cities are exceeding their authority by trying to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the cost of damages from climate change.
Vermont and New York are currently fighting challenges in federal courts to climate superfund laws passed last year. Trump suggested the laws “extort” payments from energy companies and “threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.”
Separately, the Department of Justice could join lawsuits in defense of fossil fuel industries being sued, Gerrard said.
Those lawsuits include ones filed by Honolulu, Hawaii, and dozens of cities and states seeking billions of dollars in damages from things like wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms.
Democrats say they won’t back down
Democratic governors vowed to keep fighting climate change.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Trump of “turning back the clock” on the climate and said his state’s efforts to reduce pollution “won’t be derailed by a glorified press release masquerading as an executive order.”
The group Climate Mayors, which includes the mayors of America’s biggest cities, said in a statement from its chair, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, that the federal government is overreaching its authority and ignoring the “enormous costs of continued environmental destruction and the political and social harm of retreating American leadership.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, which includes 22 governors, said, they “will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis.”
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and natural gas industries, applauded Trump’s order, saying it would “protect American energy from so-called ‘climate superfunds.’”
“Directing the Department of Justice to address this state overreach will help restore the rule of law and ensure activist-driven campaigns do not stand in the way of ensuring the nation has access to an affordable and reliable energy supply,” it said.
Trump’s order set off talk in state Capitols around the U.S.
That includes Pennsylvania, where Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is contesting a court challenge to a regulation that would make it the first major fossil fuel-producing state to force power plant owners pay for greenhouse gas emissions.
John Quigley, a former Pennsylvania environmental protection secretary and a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, wondered if the Department of Justice would begin challenging all sorts of state water and air pollution laws.
“This kind of an order knows no bounds,” Quigley said. “It’s hard to say where this could end up.”
The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.
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