News & Analysis
May 2, 2025
Hawaiʻi this week became the tenth state to sue Big Oil companies to make them pay for lying about the climate harms their products cause. The state’s filing came just hours after the U.S. Department of Justice sued Hawaiʻi and Michigan in what Michigan’s attorney general called a “frivolous” attempt to stop both states from taking Big Oil companies to court.
“The climate crisis is here, and the costs of surviving it are rising every day,” said Hawaiʻi Governor Josh Green on Thursday. “Hawaiʻi taxpayers should not have to foot that bill. The burden should fall on those who deceived and failed to warn consumers about the climate dangers lurking in their products. This lawsuit is about holding those parties accountable, shifting the costs of surviving the climate crisis back where they belong, and protecting Hawaiʻi citizens into the future.”
The complaint charges ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other major fossil fuel companies with mounting “a decades-long campaign of deception to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change,” creating doubt in the public’s minds about the very real climate threats caused by burning fossil fuels, and delaying the necessary transition to cleaner and cheaper energy in order to increase and protect their industry’s profits.
Hawaiʻi Attorney General Anne Lopez is now the 12th attorney general in the U.S. to sue Big Oil companies for climate deception. She said her office was undeterred by the Trump administration’s efforts to attack the state’s case before it was even filed.
“The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing and is a direct attack on Hawaiʻi’s rights as a sovereign state,” Lopez said. “The state of Hawaiʻi will not be deterred from moving forward with our climate deception lawsuit.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who last year also announced plans to take fossil fuel companies to court, similarly vowed to press on, calling the Justice Department’s 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 said. She added that “perhaps if [Big Oil companies] are desperate enough to request this unprecedented preemptive intervention, they are more concerned over our potential claims than they have led on.”
Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that oil executives asked President Trump in a White House meeting to help protect their companies from the growing number of climate lawsuits they face. Industry lobbyists are also reportedly lobbying Congress for immunity from such lawsuits.
With Hawaiʻi’s filing, one in five states in the U.S. are now suing Big Oil to demand they be held accountable for their climate lies. The City and County of Honolulu and the County of Maui separately filed their own climate deception lawsuits against Big Oil companies in 2020. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court denied fossil fuel industry requests to review Honolulu’s case, keeping it on track toward discovery and trial.
Photo credit: U.S. Army National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Matthew A. Foster via Flickr
