Michigan Sues Oil and Gas Companies for Sabotaging Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles

For decades, major oil and gas companies have colluded to suppress renewable energy technology and forestall competition from electric vehicles, according to a new lawsuit filed by the State of Michigan. As a result of the scheme, according to the suit, consumers have had fewer meaningful choices for powering their cars and homes and paid more money for that energy while fossil fuel companies unlawfully inflated profits.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan, brings novel claims of anticompetitive conduct against BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and their chief lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute (API). It alleges that there was a conspiracy to delay the energy transition, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and Clayton Antitrust Act as well as the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act. 

“The State once again calls upon the antitrust laws for those protections here; by suppressing innovation and investment in renewable energy, EVs, and EV infrastructure, Defendants have reduced the production of renewable energy for transportation and home heating and cooling, raised prices for Michigan consumers, and caused the United States to fall behind China and other foreign markets in the race to pioneer cheaper and cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels,” Michigan says in its complaint. 

The filing comes amid rising concerns over energy affordability at a time when the Trump administration is pursuing an all-out campaign to realign the nation’s energy mix away from renewable solar and wind back to greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement announcing the lawsuit that her state is “facing an energy affordability crisis.” Big fossil fuel companies, she argues, are largely to blame. “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,” Nessel said. 

The complaint points to evidence that fossil fuel companies sabotaged competition from clean technologies in order to protect their market dominance. In 1979, according to the filing, ExxonMobil knew that the climate crisis was real, and that renewables would need to supply at least 50 percent of global energy by 2010 in order to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. Instead of shifting its business model based on the science, the company began planning a strategic response to the threat of a large-scale transition away from oil and gas. 

Big oil companies used API to coordinate and advance their conspiracy to prevent renewables and EVs from taking off. They abandoned their early investments in battery and solar technologies and used patent litigation to stifle innovation. And the companies implemented a campaign to disseminate disinformation about the viability of clean energy while funding university energy research and diverting capital spending away from renewable energy. 

This conduct, Michigan says, has amounted to “one of the most successful and lucrative antitrust conspiracies in the history of the United States.” 

Renewable energy sources now account for around 90 percent of new generation capacity, and they are cheaper than fossil alternatives. But in Michigan, as in other states, the vast majority of energy consumed still comes from fossil fuels. 

“Michigan ranks first among all 50 states in terms of residential sector consumption of propane, and even buildings that rely on electricity for heat overwhelmingly get that electricity from the grid’s fossil-fuel-dominated mix of primary energy sources,” the complaint explains. In the transportation sector, fossil fuels and gasoline-powered vehicles continue to dominate. Less than 2 percent of registered motor vehicles in Michigan (as of 2022) were EVs, and there are limited public charging stations compared with gas stations. 

The state’s lawsuit contends that it didn’t have to be this way. Renewable energy and EVs would have scaled much sooner had it not been for the deliberate action by oil companies to suppress these alternatives, the state argues. 

BP and Shell declined to comment, and ExxonMobil and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment. API senior vice president and general counsel Ryan Meyers slammed the lawsuit as part of a “coordinated campaign against an industry that powers everyday life, drives America’s economy, and is actively reducing emissions.” 

API recently revealed that stopping “extreme climate liability policy” and protecting the oil industry from “abusive state climate lawsuits” is one of its top priorities for 2026. The trade association is lobbying Congress on “draft legislation related to state efforts to impose liability on the oil and gas industry,” recent lobbying disclosure reports show. 

The oil and gas industry is currently facing dozens of climate liability lawsuits. Many were brought by municipal and state governments alleging that the industry deceived the public about the climate risks of its products and worsened costly climate impacts like extreme flooding and storms, deadly heat waves, and destructive wildfires. Michigan’s case focuses more on alleged manipulation of energy markets than on climate damages. 

That may make it more difficult for industry defendants to fend off, according to Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. “This suit is unlike any of the several dozen that have been brought against the oil companies related to climate change,” Gerrard told Sierra. “The defenses that have been troublesome in many of the other cases do not apply to this one.”

In a highly unusual, if not unprecedented, move, the Department of Justice, anticipating the Michigan lawsuit, preemptively sued the state. The DOJ cited a 2024 announcement by Nessel that she was seeking outside counsel to assist with looking into bringing climate-related claims against the industry. But as a press release from the state’s AG office explains, what started out as a probe into the costs to the state stemming from the industry’s deception around climate change “instead uncovered one of the most successful antitrust conspiracies in United States history that is now subject of the Attorney General’s lawsuit.” 

On January 24, just a day after Michigan filed its antitrust case in federal court, a judge from the very same court issued a ruling dismissing the Trump administration’s case against the state. The judge said the DOJ’s case was too speculative and premature, since there was no lawsuit brought by the state against the oil companies at the time the case was filed last year. 

“This lawsuit was a cynical attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate my office into abandoning our responsibility to hold powerful corporations accountable for putting profits ahead of the health, safety, and energy affordability of Michiganders,” Nessel said in response to the court’s dismissal. “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.”

“This action sends a clear message: Michigan families and communities must come before corporate profits.” 

Climate and environmental advocates applauded Nessel’s action to sue Big Oil over rising energy costs. 

“At a time when the federal government is rolling back critical environmental protections and families are facing an energy affordability crisis, we commend Attorney General Nessel for standing up for Michiganders and holding major fossil fuel companies accountable,” said Tim Minotas, legislative and political director for Sierra Club Michigan. “This action sends a clear message: Michigan families and communities must come before corporate profits.” 

“We know the fossil fuel industry has the primary goal of maximizing profits, and that comes at the expense of Michiganders’ pocketbooks and health,” Lisa Wozniak, CEO and president of Michigan LCV, said in a statement. “Michiganders are feeling the impacts of skyrocketing energy costs and we should not have to struggle while fossil fuel companies rake in massive profits year after year.”

Kathy Mulvey, accountability campaign director in the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the focus of Michigan’s lawsuit around energy affordability is “resonant in terms of what people are currently experiencing.” 

“Just as privatizing the profits of their fossil fuel business while socializing the costs of climate disasters has artificially inflated their profits, making sure that a fossil-centric energy system stays dominant is also driving up our costs and making everyone pay out of their own pocketbooks,” Mulvey told Sierra. She said it “seems smart to add another approach to the toolbox” in terms of legal strategies for holding polluters accountable.

Gerrard said that Michigan’s lawsuit is centered around a compelling argument, one that could open up new pathways for climate accountability. “Renewable energy is central to the fight against climate change, and this suit alleges that the companies have stood squarely in the way,” he said. “Michigan has opened up a whole new battleground in the climate fight.”