The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Justice Department to weigh in on state laws that allow energy companies to be sued over their contributions to climate change.

The justices are trying to decide whether to hear two cases out of Hawaii, where Honolulu is challenging oil companies it says lied about the impacts of fossil fuels.

Energy companies argue that federal law reigns supreme when it comes to national and international problems like global warming. The companies said state laws that allow lawsuits would upend the energy industry.

“This case presents the Court with its only foreseeable opportunity in the near future to decide a dispositive question that is arising in every climate-change case: whether federal law precludes state-law claims seeking redress for injuries allegedly caused by the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate,” the oil companies said.

They said courts in the past have found interstate emissions to be a legal area controlled by federal law.

But Honolulu said Congress has invited states to play a role. The city also said it isn’t trying to regulate the emissions themselves, but rather the companies’ “deceptive” claims about fossil fuels.

The Supreme Court of Hawaii sided with Honolulu.

The city urged the U.S. Supreme Court to let the matter percolate in lower courts for a while, saying it’s not yet ripe for the justices to get involved.

The justices asked the solicitor general to file a brief giving the national government’s views.

Among the oil companies involved are Shell, Sunoco, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Marathon, BP and ConocoPhillips.

The justices on Monday also asked for the Justice Department’s views on a redistricting case out of North Dakota involving the state Legislature and seats drawn to give American Indian voters more say in their representatives.

North Dakota has asked the Supreme Court to use the case to look at the Voting Rights Act and whether race can play a helping role for minorities when jurisdictions are drawing their legislative maps.

“The Court should use this case to make clear that attempting to comply with a statute, even a statute as important as the VRA, cannot be a compelling justification to engage in racial gerrymandering prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment,” North Dakota argued.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.