Hawaii Announced a Climate Lawsuit. So the Government Sued Hawaii First.

On Monday, Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii said his state intended to sue fossil fuel companies over their role in climate change to make them pay for damage from its effects, like the 2023 wildfires that devastated Maui.

“I guess this might be breaking news,” he said during an interview on local television. “We will be filing suit.”

On Wednesday, the Trump administration sued Hawaii first, seeking to block the lawsuit before it could even be filed.

The Justice Department also filed a nearly identical suit against Michigan, where Attorney General Dana Nessel has retained three private law firms to pursue climate change litigation but has not yet sued. The main thrust of the administration’s argument is that the federal government should determine national energy policy, not individual states.

Legal experts said it was highly unusual to sue to block other lawsuits that have yet to be filed.

Nine Democratic-led states have already sued fossil fuel companies over climate change, along with dozens of municipalities around the country. The oil industry and its allies have tried to get those cases thrown out by making similar arguments to the ones put forth in the Justice Department filings this week.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Its two lawsuits cite President Trump’s April 8 executive order, “Protecting American Energy From State Overreach,” which argued that state policies inhibiting the energy industry weaken national security and drive up costs for Americans. It also said that the other lawsuits already filed by states over climate change could result in “crippling” damages to oil companies being sued.

Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said it was “at least highly unusual” to try and preemptively block lawsuits. “The usual procedure would be to move to intervene in existing lawsuits,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a situation where a lawsuit is filed to seek an injunction against somebody else filing a lawsuit.”

He predicted that such a legal strategy would not fare well. “Procedurally, it’s wacky,” he said.

Both suits, filed in federal courts in Hawaii and Michigan, named the state, its governor and attorney general. The offices of Mr. Green and the Hawaii attorney general, Anne Lopez, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ms. Nessel called the lawsuit “at best frivolous and arguably sanctionable.” She said Mr. Trump had “made clear he will answer any and every beck and call from his Big Oil campaign donors” and called the lawsuits “perhaps the most surprising debasement of both the White House and D.O.J. yet.”

The states that have already sued are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.