In a bold move to defend America’s energy security, on Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order slamming the brakes on the coordinated lawfare campaign targeting U.S. energy producers. The order, Protecting American Energy from State Overreach, takes direct aim at the Rockefeller-backed legal onslaught attempting to bankrupt the industry.
Legal and Legislative Efforts Threaten U.S. Economy, National Security
President Trump’s executive order called out the “extortion” of state climate litigation and superfund bills, and called on the federal government to respond before the efforts drive up energy costs and “undermine Federalism by projecting the regulatory preferences of a few states into all States.”
This move comes not a moment too soon. As EID Climate has previously covered, as climate lawsuits flounder, deep-pocketed activist groups have been shopping copy-paste climate liability bills in state legislatures. These bills seek to establish “climate superfund” programs, which would arbitrarily fine American oil companies to pay for states’ climate mitigation projects.
Now, the White House is calling it what it is: an unconstitutional end-run around Congress and federal authority:
“American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities.”
Translation: California, Vermont, or New York will no longer be able to force energy producers in Texas, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania to pay for their infrastructure projects. The order also warned of the damage these bills pose to the American energy economy:
“Many States have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.
… “These State laws and policies weaken our national security and devastate Americans by driving up energy costs for families coast-to-coast, despite some of these families not living or voting in States with these crippling policies.”
It’s a shot across the bow to climate activists who’ve relied on sympathetic courts, biased polls, and novel legal theories to push their coordinated agenda — all while cashing checks from the same deep-pocketed foundations pulling the strings.
Vermont and New York State Superfund Legislation Currently Under Litigation
Two states that have already passed climate superfund legislation into law – Vermont and New York — were both specifically mentioned in the Trump Administration’s executive order.
Vermont’s Climate Superfund Act is facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute (API). New York’s Climate Superfund Act is also facing a lawsuit from API, the National Mining Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. New York’s superfund litigation is not limited to industry, as the bill is currently facing a lawsuit from West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey and twenty other state Attorneys General.
New York’s superfund legislation was referred to as an “extortion law” in President Trump’s executive order:
“New York, for example, enacted a ‘climate change’ extortion law that seeks to retroactively impose billions in fines (erroneously labelled ‘compensatory payments’) on traditional energy producers for their purported past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions not only in New York but also anywhere in the United States and the world.”
With 21 attorneys general, formidable business advocacy groups, and now the President of the United States all pointing out the dangerous and subversive nature of coordinated state climate litigation and state superfund legislation efforts, the future for both New York and Vermont’s superfund laws is not bright.
Past Refusal of Federal Involvement in Climate Litigation: A Different Future Under Trump?
The executive order also suggests that the Department of Justice may take aim at the climate lawfare campaign currently underway.
The order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify all state laws and policies that infringe on energy dominance and “expeditiously take all appropriate action to stop the enforcement of State laws and continuation of civil actions … that the Attorney General determines to be illegal.”
It is a sharp turn from the Biden Administration, which supported climate litigation plaintiffs and – at the behest of powerful billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and the Rockefellers – placed a pause on permitting for liquefied natural gas exports for over a year.
Bottom line: This is a win for American energy, and a signal that the era of backdoor regulation by lawsuit is coming to an end.
Read more on EID Climate here.
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