The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Minnesota on May 4, seeking to block the state’s long-running climate fraud case against major energy companies, a filing that comes just three weeks after the state Supreme Court authorized the same case to proceed to discovery.
Filed in Minneapolis-based U.S. District Court, the Justice Department says in its argument that Minnesota is trying to “regulate global greenhouse gas emissions” through state law, an authority the DOJ says belongs exclusively to the federal government under the Clean Air Act and the U.S. Constitution.
The Justice Department action targets Minnesota’s 2020 lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Koch subsidiary Flint Hills Resources and the American Petroleum Institute, which alleges the companies misled the public for decades about the causes and costs of climate change.
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Federal preemption to the dispute center
Justice officials framed the complaint as a constitutional and statutory conflict, saying Minnesota’s claims interfere with federal authority and involve “unique federal interests” that require a uniform national approach.
“The case we filed today against Minnesota is an attempt to stop yet another unconstitutional state effort to invade an area of exclusive federal control,” said Senior Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “Minnesota’s attempted overreach undermines our economic and national security to advance the climate agenda of politicians and activists.”
The filing advances President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14260, “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach,” which directed the justices to identify and challenge state laws that burden national energy development.
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The federal government’s complaint also says Minnesota’s lawsuit, which seeks to force energy companies to release a percentage of profits from global energy production, violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and raises foreign policy concerns seeking global remedies for emissions that could interfere with the country’s international negotiations related to energy policy.
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The case went to Discovery
Justice’s lawsuit comes at a critical time in the six-year history of the Minnesota lawsuit. On April 17, the state Supreme Court declined to hear further appeals from ExxonMobil, Koch and API, clearing the case to proceed to discovery after three successive rounds of failed delays.
So far, Minnesota courts have refused to accept arguments that claims are preempted by federal law. In February 2025, a district court in Ramsey County denied the motions to dismiss, finding that the state’s consumer fraud and failure to warn claims arose from alleged deceptive marketing conduct rather than emissions regulated by federal statute. The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in January 2026.
Minnesota’s filing is the latest in a series of Justice actions targeting state climate laws under Trump’s executive order directing the agency to protect domestic energy development from state interference. The case has been litigated in state court since 2020, surviving repeated removal efforts and jurisdictional challenges before reaching the discovery phase.
Last year, the department sued Hawaii, Michigan, New York and Vermont in cases related to state climate litigation or climate Superfund statutes.
The federal government’s track record on state litigation has not been successful: A federal judge in January dismissed the Justice Department’s attempt to block Michigan’s climate lawsuit, while another dismissed Hawaii’s action in late April, days before Minnesota’s lawsuit was filed. Across the country, six federal appeals courts have previously declined to find that such state law climate claims are preempted.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called Justice’s lawsuit an extension of the same delay tactics deployed by named defendants since 2020.
He has maintained throughout the litigation that the claims of the State will prevail. “This frivolous and meritless lawsuit is just her latest attempt to hide from accountability, and I’m going to move to have her dismissed immediately,” Ellison told a local Minnesota television reporter after the federal filing. “The American people deserve a Justice Department that will fight for us, and it’s a huge shame that Trump’s DOJ would rather sell us out to Big Oil.”
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The outcome of the department’s move has direct consequences if it loses: The Minnesota case, now approaching discovery, would require the named defendants to produce internal documents about what company officials knew about the climate risk and when they knew it.
Federal officials argue that allowing climate damage claims to develop at the state level would create a patchwork of liability standards that would affect fuel production, transportation and prices, complicating project planning and long-term infrastructure investment.
The department said it will seek injunctive relief to halt the Minnesota case while the federal lawsuit continues.
