Adds further details on lawsuits in New York and Vermont in paragraphs 1-4, 8-11, 13-17

By Nate Raymond

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration said on Thursday it is suing four Democratic-led states to prevent them from enforcing "burdensome and ideologically motivated" laws and pursuing lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry over the harms caused by climate change.

The U.S. Department of Justice in a pair of lawsuits argued that recent laws New York and Vermont adopted requiring oil companies to contribute billions of dollars into funds to pay for damage caused by climate change were unconstitutional.

New York alone hopes to raise $75 billion through its "superfund" law, which the Justice Department called a "transparent monetary-extraction scheme" designed to fund the state's infrastructure projects with money from out-of-state businesses.

The Justice Department filed those cases on Thursday, a day after it launched two preemptive cases seeking to stop Hawaii and Michigan from filing planned lawsuits against major oil companies over climate change, cases the administration said would imperil domestic energy production.

Neither state has sued yet. Hawaii Governor Josh Green told a local TV station that his state plans to sue fossil fuel companies as soon as Thursday. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel last year retained law firms to represent it in climate change-related litigation.

The litigation filed by the U.S. Justice Department late on Wednesday in Hawaii and Michigan said the intended lawsuits by the states constitute an "extraordinary extraterritorial reach" that would unlawfully undermine federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and the administration's foreign policy objectives.

Numerous Democratic-led states have in recent years filed similar lawsuits against companies including Exxon Mobil XOM.N, Chevron CVX.N, ConocoPhillips COP.N, Shell SHEL.L and BP BP.L, accusing them of deceiving the public about the role fossil fuels have played in causing climate change.

The Justice Department's four lawsuits follow a pledge by Trump's campaign during the 2024 election to "stop the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists."

The Justice Department in the lawsuits cited an executive order that the Republican president signed on his first day back in office on January 20, declaring a national energy emergency to speed permitting of energy projects, rolling back environmental protections and withdrawing the United States from an international pact to fight climate change.

“These burdensome and ideologically motivated laws and lawsuits threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.

The Justice Department's lawsuits said all four states are standing in the way of the administration's efforts to boost domestic energy supply.

"This nation's Constitution and laws do not tolerate this interference," the lawsuits said.

Nessel, a Democrat, in a statement called the lawsuit a "surprising debasement" of the White House and Justice Department and said the filing of a lawsuit before Michigan had even sued was "at best frivolous and arguably sanctionable."

"I remain undeterred in my intention to file this lawsuit the President and his Big Oil donors so fear," Nessel said.

Attorneys general for the other three states did not respond to requests for comment.

The laws New York and Vermont adopted to create an industry-financed "superfunds" are already the subject of ongoing legal challenges by Republican-led states and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who have sued to block the novel laws.

Lawsuits filed by other states similar to the ones Michigan and Hawaii intend to bring have accused energy companies of creating a public nuisance or violating state laws by concealing from the public for decades the fact that burning fossil fuels would lead to climate change. The companies have denied wrongdoing.

Many of the cases remain in their early stages after years of litigation by oil companies over whether the states could sue in state courts rather than federal court.

The U.S. Supreme Court in March rejected a bid by 19 Republican-led states, led by Alabama, to block five Democratic-led states from pursuing such lawsuits. The Republican-led states raised similar claims as the Justice Department's case.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Franklin Paul, Will Dunham and Diane Craft)

((Nate.Raymond@thomsonreuters.com and Twitter @nateraymond; 347-243-6917))