Judge Tosses Trump Effort to Block Hawaii Climate Suit

In Case of 'Gross Federal Overreach,' Hawaii Beats DOJ A federal judge in Hawaii has shut down a Trump-era legal maneuver that tried to stop the state from suing oil companies over climate change, before the Aloha State had even filed its case. Senior Judge Helen Gillmor ruled on Wednesday that the Justice Department didn't have standing to bring the case, writing that its claimed injury was an "abstract, theoretical future harm" and that predicting Hawaii's future legal tactics didn't amount to a real, present conflict, per the New York Times. The DOJ had asked the court to declare Hawaii's then-planned climate suit unconstitutional and to bar state courts from even hearing it. "At a time when States should be contributing to a national effort to secure reliable sources of domestic energy, Hawaii is choosing to stand in the way," the agency wrote in its complaint filed last April, per the Hill.