The Daily Fuckup

The Justice Department on May 4 filed a federal complaint aimed at stopping Minnesota from moving ahead with its climate-deception lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Flint Hills Resources and the American Petroleum Institute. The federal filing says the state case reaches into greenhouse-gas regulation, which the department argues belongs to the federal government, not a state court.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office first brought the case in June 2020. The state says the companies and trade group misled Minnesotans about climate change and the risks tied to fossil-fuel use. In its own court filings and public statements, the attorney general’s office has described the lawsuit as a consumer-protection case over alleged deception, not an attempt to write energy policy.

The state’s case has already survived a long series of procedural challenges. According to the attorney general’s office, a federal district court sent the matter back to state court in 2021, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in 2023, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in 2024. The attorney general’s office also said the Minnesota Supreme Court denied further review on April 15, 2026, clearing the way for discovery before the federal government stepped in this week.

The new Justice Department complaint follows a Trump administration executive order directing federal officials to push back on state actions seen as interfering with American energy policy. DOJ says Minnesota is trying to use state litigation to reach an area of exclusive federal control. Minnesota says the case belongs where it started: in state court, under state consumer-protection law.