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In a setback to the Trump administration’s extraordinary legal campaign against state climate action, a federal judge threw out the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to prevent the state of Hawaii from suing oil companies for damages.
Trump administration lawyers had claimed that Hawaii, by trying to sue fossil fuel companies, was standing in the way of the national effort to secure reliable sources of domestic energy.
But Judge Helen Gillmor of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii on Wednesday ruled that such a contention was too speculative to be the basis of a lawsuit.
“The United States’ alleged injury depends on multiple layers of unpredictable future events,” Gillmor wrote, noting the Trump administration filed the case without even seeing Hawaii’s lawsuit (the state filed it the following day). The nature of the lawsuit, whether Hawaii would win, what the fossil fuel industry would do in reaction and how that reaction would affect the United States all were unknown, the judge said.
“The allegations of such an unpredictable chain of events are ‘no more than conjecture’ at this time,” wrote Gillmor, dismissing the claim with prejudice. That means the Justice Department can appeal to a higher court, but it cannot amend and try to refile the case.
It was the second decision and the second defeat for the Trump administration in the seven lawsuits it has filed seeking to block state and local action on climate change. They add to the Trump administration’s losing record in the federal courts; Inside Climate News’ tracking of environmental lawsuits shows the Trump administration with 17 defeats and five wins in rulings so far involving its efforts to remake environmental policy. In 48 cases, there have been no rulings yet—that includes cases by the Trump administration challenging Vermont, New York and California climate laws and local ordinances in Petaluma and Morgan Hill, California.
The decision means that Hawaii can go forward for now with its litigation in state court against BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and other oil companies for negligence, nuisance, trespass and harm to “public trust resources.” The last claim was based on Hawaii’s constitution, which spells out that such resources are held by the state in trust for the benefit of its citizens.
“The climate crisis is here and Hawaiʻi taxpayers should not have to foot that bill when fossil fuel companies deceived and failed to warn consumers about the climate dangers lurking in their products,” Gov.