Twenty-four states have joined the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce as plaintiffs in their lawsuit against Vermont’s climate superfund law .

“It’s different parties making the same argument,” said Anthony Iarrapino, an attorney who lobbied for the law’s passage on behalf of Conservation Law Foundation. “We knew this was coming, and there are not any new legal points.”

The office of Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark did not comment because the addition of plaintiffs does not change the arguments that the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce originally outlined in the suit against the state in December, and the state does not need to adjust course.

West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey leads the coalition of states involved in the suit, which includes Louisiana, Texas, Missouri and Wyoming, among other states with strong ties to the fossil fuel industry. A similar group of Republican attorneys general targeted New York’s own climate superfund law with a lawsuit in February .

The group of attorneys general joined the suit right after the U.S. Department of Justice raised its own challenge against the Vermont climate law Thursday.

VTDigger reached out to representatives from all 24 state attorneys general’s offices, and none of the plaintiffs responded to a request for comment before publication. The legal counsel cited in the suit were unable to comment on the record, citing ongoing litigation.

It’s likely that the two suits could be consolidated, explained Pat Parentau, an emeritus professor at Vermont Law School’s Environmental Law Center, since they rely on such closely aligned arguments. The Department of Justice also argues that the state law clashes with the federal government’s power over foreign affairs, an argument unique to its case.

Both suits draw on arguments that the federal Clean Air Act preempts the state law and the federal government’s role in regulating commerce among states.

But that argument misses the point of what the law actually addresses, Iarrapino said. “The crux of the fight comes down to how you characterize this law,” he said. “Vermont’s legislators have been very clear about the purpose of this law from the very beginning. States who are joining the fossil fuel industry’s lawsuit are saying this is something very different. They’re trying to mischaracterize this law about controlling emissions going forward, and that’s not correct.”

The climate superfund , which became state law last year, places a retroactive, one-time fee on fossil fuel companies in accordance with their role in climate-driven damages, like floods or heat waves, experienced between 1995 and the end of 2024. The federal Clean Air Act attends to future emissions and air pollution.

In their challenge, the attorneys general argue that those “self-described retroactive fines on traditional energy producers for their purported past contributions to greenhouse-gas emissions, […] were lawful operations endorsed and even promoted by both federal and State authorities.”

Here, the case becomes “head spinning in the contradiction and hypocrisy,” Iarrapino said. The attorneys general argue that the “Clean Air Act gives the federal government the chief role in determining interstate emissions standards” — meaning federal policy preempts any state laws on emissions standards.

Yet, this suit is helmed by the same state that argued in a precedent-setting case for a significant limit in the scope of the Clean Air Act. In West Virginia v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the federal law does not give the Environmental Protection Agency the ability to regulate sector-wide greenhouse gas emissions.

“Now (West Virginia is) turning around and saying that the state of Vermont has no room to regulate greenhouse gas emissions,” Iarrapino said.

He also questioned the plaintiffs’ claim that the law will raise prices on consumers of fossil fuels, in other states, citing research by economics professors at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity which outlined that oil companies are unable to pass on one-time fixed payments for past actions to consumers, leaving prices instead subject to production levels and economic competition.

“These are just shameless arguments,” Parentau said of both West Virginia’s and the Department of Justice’s involvement. EPA Director Lee Zeldin announced he intends to repeal the clause of the Clean Air Act that includes greenhouse gases , and the federal government has withdrawn the U.S. from the international Paris agreement to limit carbon emissions.

“So how can you, with a straight face, say this is interfering with international relations?” Parentau asked.

The federal government’s filing of its own case is surreal to Parentau, who has been working in environmental law for nearly 50 years. “Normally, what you would see is the state passes the law to impose costs on an industry, and the industry resists, and that’s it. So it’s two parties. But this has the feel of a Netflix movie,” he said. “I just have never seen anything quite like this.”

One claim the suits make that does hold merit, Parentau added, is what he called the “pot calling the kettle black argument.”

The suit notes that Vermont has high fossil fuel consumption and is seeking to offset that outside of itself: “Vermont seeks to have its cake and eat it too, by both reaping the benefits of affordable and reliable fuel, yet penalizing the entities that help produce such fuel billions of dollars for their trouble,” the attorneys general write in the suit.

“Vermont has something to answer to,” Parentau said. “The state is having a hard time implementing its Global Warming Solutions Act, whether it’s already off track or not, it certainly isn’t in any shape to achieve those goals. So don’t get so up-high on your high horse, Vermont.”

The additional plaintiffs and the Department of Justice’s suit come as the state Agency of Natural Resources and Office of the State Treasurer, both of which are tasked with implementing the law, are in the middle of asking the Legislature for additional cash to hire top-of-the-field climate scientists to complete the damage assessments. That scientist should be prepared to testify in court, representatives from the offices added in April testimony to the Senate Natural Resources Committee. The Agency of Natural Resources also hopes to allocate additional funds to hire an attorney who can navigate the lawsuits.

The real impact of these additional plaintiffs and the Department of Justice suit will have on the state is one of scale, Parentau said. “Now they’re going to have teams of lawyers – there are 24 state attorneys general offices, and then you have the Department of Justice. The point is, there’s just no end to the number of lawyers creating mischief.”

This is the consequence of the state being the first in the country to pass such legislation, Parentau said.

“My grandfather, an old Irish farmer, had a great expression. He said, Patrick, just remember, the higher you climb on the flagpole, the more people can see your arse,” he said.

The Agency of Natural Resources, whose secretary Julie Moore and Climate Action Office director Jane Lazorchak are specifically named as defendants in this case, referred VTDigger to the state Attorney General’s Office for comment.