AG Actions Database

Last updated on February 15, 2024.

State attorneys general are working to advance clean energy, climate and environmental laws and policies. Use the filters below to search actions of regional and national significance taken by state AGs since 2017. We strive to include all relevant AG activity, but cannot guarantee that this database is comprehensive. To alert us to any potential updates, please email [email protected].

A pie chart with two sections: a larger, teal green section labeled 73.6%, and a smaller dark pink section labeled 26.4%

Pro-Environment Federal Litigation by AGs


See a breakdown of pro-envi­ron­men­tal federal lit­i­ga­tion brought by AGs dur­ing the Biden and Trump admin­is­tra­tions. This includes cas­es in which AGs fought against the admin­is­tra­tion, as well as cas­es in which AGs defend­ed the admin­is­tra­tion’s pro-envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies.

Description of Fields & Filters

Note: The filters are inclusive, not exclusive. For example, if you check both California and New York under “States,” the results will include all actions from California and all actions from New York (rather than showing only actions that involve both states together).

Date
This is the date that the action was taken. If a single entry includes a series of actions (such as a lawsuit and a settlement), the listed date is the date of the earliest action in the series.

State
A state is tagged if that state’s attorney general participated in the action. This does not include other state agencies or any local parties. For example, if New York City joined a lawsuit, but the New York AG did not, New York would not be listed as a participating state in the entry.

Lead State
The state or states that led a multistate action.

Single-State/Multistate Action
This field indicates whether the action was taken by one state (single-state action), or a coalition of states (multistate action).

Agency
This field lists the agencies that the AGs targeted in the action (e.g. agencies that AGs sent comments to, filed a lawsuit against, etc.). This does not include agencies that may have joined the AGs in the action (e.g. agencies that signed a comment letter along with AGs, etc.).

Issue
This field indicates the issue area(s) that the action addresses. Issues are organized into larger umbrella categories, such as “Fossil Fuels” and “Toxics.” Some of these umbrella categories also contain sub-categories, which allow you to look for actions related to more specific issues. Please note that actions can have multiple issue types.

Administration
This denotes federal administration that AGs engaged with on the action, if applicable. The administration corresponds to whoever was president when the rule at issue was promulgated, even if the case didn’t start until a new president was in office. Actions that were not taken at the federal level are tagged as “non-federal.”

Document Type
This field denotes the types of documents included in the entry (which does not necessarily line up with the types of documents from the action). For example, if an entry is about a lawsuit that was settled, but the settlement documents are not publicly available, the entry would not be tagged with “Settlement” since we do not provide the settlement in our entry. Instead, the entry would just be tagged with “Press Release,” since that is where the information on the settlement was obtained.

Action Type
This is the type of action that AGs took. Entries can have multiple action types. For example, if an AG files a lawsuit against a company for breaking an environmental law, the action type would be listed as both “Environmental Enforcement” and “Litigation.”

Outcome
This field only appears when the “Action Type” field is set to litigation (since it is only applicable to litigation entries). A case is counted as a win if the state AGs won a preliminary injunction, summary judgment, or the majority of the relief they asked for was granted; or if the agency withdrew the rule at issue after litigation was filed. A case is counted as a loss if the relief was not granted or the agency won a motion to dismiss or summary judgment, or if the rule at issue was revoked for another reason (such as in another case) but the AGs lost on their demands within the specific case at hand. A case is tagged as a partial win if some of the relief was granted and some of the relief was not granted. Pending cases indicate that the outcome hasn’t been determined yet. To submit updates, please email [email protected].

1162 actions match your search.   Download as CSV