California and other state attorneys general are on the fence when it comes to joining New York’s climate lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, despite supporting the Empire State’s multi-year climate investigation that led to the case.

“We are familiar with the claims being made and look forward to talking to New York about it,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, on a call with reporters on Wednesday.

However, Becerra hedged when asked whether he would be joining the lawsuit, stating that California must still see if it has the legal basis to join.

“Each state has its own laws, and we have to make sure that we can apply the facts that can be marshaled in a way that we have for our particular state,” he said. “So, we’re going to take a close look at what New York has done.”

Exxon and other oil and gas companies have successfully fended off separate climate lawsuits brought by local and city governments in California and New York.

Becerra's predecessor and now senator, Kamala Harris, had been part of a coalition of Democratic attorneys general investigating Exxon Mobil over news stories that said it kept climate research it did 40 years ago from its investors. The company argues adamantly against the claims.

Becerra was joined on the call by Illinois Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan to discuss joint comments they are filing on Friday against the Trump administration’s clean car regulations and rollback of Obama-era fuel efficiency rules.

As for the Exxon lawsuit, Madigan explained that New York used a securities fraud law, the Martin Act, of which Illinois does not have the equivalent, making it difficult for her to join the lawsuit even if she wanted.

“I don’t have the same authority because I don’t have a Martin Act like they have in New York,” she said.

That decision would have to come from the Illinois secretary of state under the state’s laws and procedures.

New York sued Exxon earlier on Wednesday, arguing that it defrauded investors by not “factoring the risk of increasing climate change regulation into its business decisions," said New York Democratic Attorney General Barbara Underwood.

She explained that Exxon “built a facade to deceive investors into believing that the company was managing the risks of climate change regulation to its business when, in fact, it was intentionally and systematically underestimating or ignoring them, contrary to its public representations.”

Exxon spokesman Scott Silvestri called the allegations "baseless" and "a product of closed-door lobbying by special interests, political opportunism and the attorney general’s inability to admit that a three-year investigation has uncovered no wrongdoing."