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AMERICA’S AUTO STATE IS SUING BIG OIL  
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Emily Sanders
January 29, 2026
ExxonKnews
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_ The Trump administration failed to stop Michigan’s new antitrust
lawsuit against oil companies. _

, ddatch54/Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

 

Imagine, if you will, a parallel universe. The state of Michigan, home
of America’s auto industry, is a thriving hub for electric vehicles.
They are not “a fringe technology or a luxury alternative,” but
rather, “a common sight in every neighborhood — rolling off
assembly lines in Flint, parked in driveways in Dearborn, charging
outside grocery stores in Grand Rapids, and running quietly down
Woodward Avenue.”

That Michigan could have existed by now, a new lawsuit
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brought by state Attorney General Dana Nessel argues, if four major
oil companies and their biggest trade group hadn’t conspired to
block it for decades.

The Michigan case, filed last week in federal court, accuses
ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute
of engaging in a decades-long conspiracy to block the development of
clean energy and electric vehicles in order to ensure that their
fossil fuel products dominated the market.

The case is distinct from the dozens of other climate deception
lawsuits brought by state and local governments against oil and gas
giants, arguing that the companies violated state and federal
antitrust laws. Acting as a “cartel,” the defendants robbed
consumers of energy and transportation choices in “one of the most
successful antitrust conspiracies in United States history,” the
complaint says.

But Michigan’s lawsuit also represents the Trump administration’s
latest failure
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quash climate lawsuits against Big Oil. After President Trump last
year directed
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Attorney General Pam Bondi to “take all appropriate action” to
stop such suits, the Justice Department preemptively sued Michigan to
stop Nessel from filing a lawsuit against fossil fuel companies, as
she had pledged to do in 2024. At the time, Nessel called the DOJ
lawsuit “arguably sanctionable” and said she was “undeterred”
in her “intention to file this lawsuit the President and his Big Oil
donors so fear.”

Days after her lawsuit was filed, a federal district court dismissed
the Trump administration’s case. U.S. Judge Jane Beckering skewered
the DOJ for “fail[ing] to cite any case in which a court has
preemptively enjoined a party from bringing a broad swath of
unspecified claims against unspecified members of a given industry
simply because that party has begun investigating whether a litigation
strategy may have merit.”

The DOJ’s lawsuit “represents an escalation in a decades-long
series of clashes between state attorneys general and industry
groups,” including lead paint, tobacco, and opioids, Beckering
wrote.

In a statement Tuesday, Nessel said, “My office will not be bullied,
and we will continue to stand up for the people of Michigan, no matter
how domineering the interests we face.”

HOW OIL COMPANIES STIFLED THEIR COMPETITION

Michigan’s case argues that renewable energy and transportation
markets have failed to evolve “not because clean alternatives are
not viable, but because Defendants have suppressed the conditions for
their otherwise-inevitable deployment and adoption.”

Oil companies purchased solar and EV patents to ensure others
couldn’t use them, solicited control of renewable markets and then
abandoned them, and funded powerful institutions to promote false
solutions, all while using trade groups to downplay the harms of
fossil fuels, according to the complaint.

The alleged conspiracy began after 1979, when Exxon’s internal
research concluded
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that renewable energy would need to account for at least 50% of the
energy supplied worldwide by 2010 in order to maintain planetary
warming at “a relatively safe level.” Instead of competing to
develop clean energy technologies, the companies coordinated to thwart
them under the “CO2 and Climate Task Force
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a group established by the American Petroleum Institute, Michigan
alleges.

The Task Force was used to share information among the companies, who
began what Michigan’s complaint calls a “capture-and-kill”
strategy of buying up solar and electric vehicle patents and then
allowing them to lapse.

Exxon, for example, obtained key patents for developing public
charging stations for EVs — but never used them. After developing
the first hybrid vehicle prototype, the oil giant abandoned its
cutting-edge EV and solar technology research and ventures in the
early 1980s. The other defendants similarly retreated in concert from
their EV and solar innovations, and used patent litigation against
their rivals to “deter new market entrants” from deploying the
technology.

The companies went on to run advertising and lobbying
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attacking EVs, and falsely promoted themselves
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leading the energy transition while instead pushing for technologies
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that they knew would continue to bolster fossil fuels, other reports
show.

Michigan’s lawsuit is also the first to include reference to an
elaborate hack-for-hire ring
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targeted climate activists as part of the alleged conspiracy. The
hacking scheme has been linked to DCI Group, Exxon’s longtime
lobbying group, and is under investigation by federal prosecutors
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The defendants restrained the energy transition, “raised prices for
Michigan consumers, and caused the United States to fall behind China
and other foreign markets,” the lawsuit says.

Nessel’s case taps into the national political conversation about
affordability by directly attacking the narrative that fossil
fuel-derived energy is “affordable” energy
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an energy affordability crisis as our home energy costs skyrocket and
consumers are left without affordable options for transportation,”
Nessel told
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the New York Times. “These out-of-control costs are not the result
of natural economic inflation, but due to the greed of these
corporations who prioritized their own profit and marketplace
dominance over competition and consumer savings.”

AN “INFLECTION POINT” FOR CLIMATE LAWSUITS

Michigan was the first of eleven states with climate lawsuits against
the oil industry to include antitrust claims. Other lawsuits brought
by Puerto Rico municipalities included antitrust claims, but they were
dismissed last year after a judge ruled they were time-barred by
statute of limitation requirements. Plaintiffs in those cases have
appealed.

Michigan’s lawsuit goes into significant detail about the alleged
antitrust violations, said Aaron Regunberg, a lawyer and director of
Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project. “It’s an
extremely effective and precise way to describe the fossil fuel
industry’s campaign of climate denial, and its ongoing strategies to
block the clean energy transition,” he said. “I think it could be
a real inflection point in the fight for climate accountability.”

Some other defendants in recent antitrust lawsuits include New Jersey
landlords
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accused of colluding to raise rents, Tyson Foods
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accused of price-fixing beef and pork, and tech giants
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of monopolistic behavior.

“These are powerful laws,” said Regunberg. “Now people are
starting to apply them to this vast conspiracy that we’re all living
the consequences of. In the United States, these big oil corporations
have incredible anti-competitive sway.”

Ryan Meyers, senior vice president and general counsel for API, told
outlets that the lawsuits were a “coordinated campaign against an
industry that powers everyday life, drives America’s economy, and is
actively reducing emissions,” despite evidence
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that
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fossil fuel emissions are on the rise. “This lawsuit also ignores
the fact that Michigan is highly dependent on oil and gas to support
the state’s automakers and workers,” Chevron’s lawyer, Ted
Boutrous of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
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told
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the New York Times.

Elise Otten, a spokeswoman for Exxon, told outlets that “This is yet
another legally incoherent effort to regulate by lawsuit.”

According to Exxon
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assistant general counsel Justin Anderson, the lawsuits are “a
problem” for the industry. The company has a petition pending
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the Supreme Court in one of the lawsuits, brought by Boulder,
Colorado, to intervene in the cases and toss them out.

AN ESCALATING EFFORT TO KILL THE CASES

Oil companies and their allies have ramped up efforts to shut down
climate lawsuits over the past year. As new cases are filed and others
continue to move toward trial
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the industry is escalating its push for Congress to grant it complete
legal immunity from climate lawsuits. A new agenda from the American
Petroleum Institute, a defendant in Michigan’s lawsuit and many
others, listed “protect[ing]” oil companies from “abusive state
climate lawsuits” as a top policy priority
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for 2026.

That could become the primary strategy for the industry if the Trump
DOJ’s efforts continue to fail. Hawaiʻi, the other state to be sued
by the DOJ for a planned climate lawsuit, filed its case against
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companies the following day. The DOJ’s lawsuit against the state is
still pending.

The DOJ’s loss in Michigan is a reminder that the will of the Trump
administration and the oil industry is not a final decree, said
Regunberg: “Sometimes, what the law is can still matter.”

* Oil Industry
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* Michigan
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* Electric Cars
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