5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Climate
Climate Defenders Warn GOP Immunity Bill Puts 'Big Oil Above the Law'
“Such corporate impunity would twist the knife of the climate crisis that is already directly harming people across the country," said one campaigner.
Apr 17, 2026
Green groups warned Friday that Big Oil-backed Republican legislation would give fossil fuel companies immunity from laws or lawsuits aimed at holding them accountable for their role in causing the climate emergency.
On Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a bill co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Budd (R-NC), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) that, if passed, would "prohibit liability against those engaged in the mining, extraction, production, refinement, transportation, distribution, marketing, manufacture, or sale of energy for damages or injunctive or other relief from the use of their products, and for other purposes."
Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) on Friday introduced the House version of the legislation, dubbed the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026, "to protect American energy from leftist legal crusades punishing lawful activity," as her office put it.
🚨After months of fossil fuel industry lobbying, Republican lawmakers have introduced federal legislation that would give oil and gas companies immunity from any laws or lawsuits that aim to hold them accountable for their role in the climate crisis. Time to get loud: 📣 NO IMMUNITY FOR BIG OIL 📣
[image or embed]
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climateintegrity.org) April 17, 2026 at 12:30 PM
If passed, the legislation would ban retroactive climate liability lawsuits, dismiss any such litigation pending upon the law's enactment, void all state energy penalty laws, and affirm that the federal government maintains exclusive authority and jurisdiction over the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and other interstate environmental standards.
Other Republican-controlled states including Tennesseee and Utah have recently passed such legislation, and others—including Iowa, Louisiana, and Oklahoma—have introduced similar bills.
“This blatant championing of some of the world’s largest polluters shows how far certain elected officials will go to undermine democratic policymaking and deny people and communities access to justice," Kathy Mulvey, climate accountability campaign director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Friday.
"No company should be above the law, especially those that planned, funded, and continue to engage in a coordinated decadeslong campaign to protect their profits by deceiving the public and blocking climate action," Mulvey continued.
"Such corporate impunity would twist the knife of the climate crisis that is already directly harming people across the country," she added. "Congress must not capitulate to wealthy special interests. Communities deserve the right to hold polluters accountable for the deadly and costly harms they are causing.”
Former Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement that “every elected official who cares about the interests of their constituents more than those of corporate polluters should oppose this disgraceful proposal."
"Juries are a fundamental bastion of democracy, and it’s beyond dangerous to allow powerful and wealthy corporations to shield themselves from ever having to face jurors’ judgment," he added.
The Center for Climate Integrity said the bill "would put Big Oil above the law."
“Big Oil companies have raked in massive profits at the pump while lying to the American people about the catastrophic harm of their products, and now they want to deny Americans their rightful day in court and stick taxpayers with the bill for the mess they made," Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles said Friday. "If fossil fuel companies have done nothing wrong, why do they need immunity?”
While these and other climate advocates denounced the bill, their congressional sponsors—and those lawmakers' fossil fuel industry campaign donors—applauded its introduction.
“Energy security is national security, and we will not self-sabotage our critical industries with a cascade of costly lawsuits and extreme penalties that jeopardize American drilling,” Hageman said in a statement. “America’s energy producers should be protected from the dangerous legal precedent that would be set by the retroactive punishment of lawful activity.”
American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers president and CEO Chet Thompson and American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Mike Sommers said in a joint statement, "We thank Sen. Cruz and Rep. Hageman for introducing legislation to stop a growing patchwork of state laws and lawsuits that threaten American energy and risk raising costs for consumers.”
“These efforts to retroactively penalize companies for lawfully meeting consumer demand are misguided and counterproductive," the lobbyists added. "Congress should act decisively to reaffirm federal authority over national energy policy and end this activist-driven state overreach.”
Eleven states—California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont—along with the District of Columbia and dozens of city, county, and tribal governments have ongoing lawsuits seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for lying to the public about their products’ role in causing and worsening climate change.
On Friday, the right-wing US Supreme Court unanimously issued an important procedural ruling that certain environmental damage lawsuits—in this case, one challenging Chevron's destruction of coastal wetlands in Louisiana—can be moved from state to generally friendlier federal courts. This, after a jury in Plaquemines Parish ordered Chevron and two other companies to pay $744 million in damages for harming coastal wetlands, a verdict that was appealed.
The US Supreme Court's decision came as its justices prepare to hear Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a case in which the plaintiffs—three Suncor entities and ExxonMobil—are seeking to relocate a climate damages lawsuit from Colorado to federal court.
Big Oil-backed efforts to relocate cases to friendlier forums come amid wins for climate defenders, most notably Held v. Montana, a historic 2024 state court ruling in favor of youth-led plaintiffs based on the Montana Constitution's right to "a clean and healthful environment."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Wyden Denounces 'Highly Questionable' $370 Million Tax Giveaway to Gas Giant by Trump IRS
Sen. Ron Wyden called the IRS' decision to grant Cheniere Energy a massive tax windfall "extremely troubling" given that it was one of the companies President Donald Trump promised to help during the 2024 campaign.
Apr 17, 2026
Sen. Ron Wyden is calling foul over a $370 million tax break that the Trump administration recently gave to Texas-based gas company Cheniere Energy.
In a letter to Cheniere CEO Jack Fusco, Wyden (D-Ore.) demanded more information from the company about the windfall it received after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) signed off on what the senator described as a "novel and highly questionable tax position."
According to Wyden, the IRS determined Cheniere was eligible to receive the Section 6426 credit—intended to incentivize the use of "alcohol fuel, biodiesel, and alternative fuel mixtures"—which the energy company said it used to power its liquified natural gas (LNG) transport carriers.
Taking advantage of the tax credit in this manner, Wyden argued, is a complete distortion of what it was intended to accomplish.
"The alternative fuel tax credit that Cheniere claimed is for alternative fuel mixtures in 'motorboats,'" wrote Wyden. "'Motorboat' is defined elsewhere in federal regulations as a vessel '65 feet in length or less.' LNG carriers are closer to one thousand feet in length, and the 'alternative fuel' that Cheniere's carriers were powered by was reportedly LNG boiloff that would have been wasted if it were not used to power the carriers."
Wyden emphasized this point by adding, "If Cheniere’s carriers are in fact 'motorboats,' then the Titanic was a dinghy."
The Oregon Democrat said the IRS' decision to grant Cheniere this tax credit was "extremely troubling" given that the gas giant "was among the oil and gas companies then-candidate [Donald] Trump promised to give a free hand in rulemaking" during the 2024 presidential election campaign.
Wyden then demanded that Cheniere provide him a copy of the closing letter the IRS sent to the firm following its review of the alternative fuel tax credit claim; a list of each carrier, complete with the carrier's length and displacement, that Cheniere has designated as a "motorboat"; and an explanation for "how $370 million in alternative fuel costs was calculated for the periods 2018 to 2024."
Keep Reading
Show Less
US Supreme Court Hands Big Oil Major Win in Battle Over Destruction of Louisiana Coast
Allies of fossil fuel companies are celebrating the development as a step toward "stopping the endless wave" of lawsuits against the climate-wrecking industry.
Apr 17, 2026
US fossil fuel giants have long sought to shift litigation over industry harms from state to friendly federal courts, and the country's top court unanimously handed polluters a big win on Friday, allowing such a move in a case centered on environmental damage in coastal Louisiana.
Cases can be removed from state court when they are against federal officers or persons "acting under" them, "for or relating to any act under color of such office." Although the US Supreme Court has previously rejected multiple removals requested by Big Oil, the justices sided with the industry in Chevron USA v. Plaquemines Parish.
The company argued that its challenged production was sufficiently related to its contractual duties to refine crude oil into aviation gasoline, or avgas, for the US military during World War II. A federal district judge and the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rejected Chevron's argument, but the high court bought it.
"Chevron has plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged conduct and the performance of its federal duties—not a tenuous, remote, or peripheral one," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson penned a concurring opinion.
Justice Samuel Alito recused himself shortly before arguments. As with some other cases involving Big Oil, he bowed out due to his stock in ConocoPhillips, whose subsidiary Burlington Resources Oil and Gas Company is involved in the case at the district court level.
This fight before the high court stemmed from dozens of cases filed over a decade ago. As NOLA.com detailed Friday:
In 2013, a group of local parishes and the state filed 42 lawsuits against energy companies whose predecessors sought and produced crude during World War II. They argued that the oil and gas companies damaged wetlands and failed to get or comply with the proper permits.
After a three-week trial, a Plaquemines Parish jury sided with the state in one of those cases and awarded a $745 million verdict against Chevron and two other companies.
But the companies challenged the verdict, saying the lawsuit should have been heard in federal court, not state court.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, the Plaquemines Parish case may now be retried in a US district court. Company spokesperson Bill Turenne said in a statement that "Chevron looks forward to litigating these cases in federal court, where they belong."
There are also potential implications for other legal battles involving the industry that is fueling the global climate emergency—as American Energy Institute CEO Jason Isaac, a former Republican state representative in Texas, celebrated in a Friday statement. He described the decision as "a critical step toward restoring sanity to our legal system and stopping the endless wave of politically motivated lawsuits designed to punish the very industry that powers our economy and national security."
The Supreme Court's decision notably came as the justices prepare to hear ExxonMobil and Suncor's request to move a 2018 lawsuit filed by the city of Boulder, Colorado—seeking financial damages for the companies' role in creating the climate crisis—from state to federal court. Alito has not yet recused himself from that case.
Fossil fuel companies largely have support from the Republican Party, which controls the White House and both chambers of Congress. President Donald Trump returned to power last year with help from the industry's campaign cash, and his administration has supported the companies being challenged in Louisiana.
As The New York Times noted Friday, the local communities' lawsuits "have gained support from Louisiana Republican leaders, including those who have otherwise endorsed President Trump's 'energy dominance' agenda. Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, both Republicans, have supported the legal challenges."
However, ahead of the November midterm elections, Republicans in Congress are working on shielding oil and gas companies from what they call "abusive state climate lawsuits." As Common Dreams reported Friday, US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) introduced the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act this week.
"Big Oil companies have raked in massive profits at the pump while lying to the American people about the catastrophic harm of their products, and now they want to deny Americans their rightful day in court and stick taxpayers with the bill for the mess they made," said Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles. "If fossil fuel companies have done nothing wrong, why do they need immunity?"
There are related legislative efforts at the state level. As the Times detailed earlier this month, Utah recently "became the first state to enact a law that shields companies from climate-related claims." Tennessee swiftly followed suit, and Republican lawmakers in states including Iowa, Louisiana, and Oklahoma are working on similar legislation.
Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, warned earlier this year that "a federal liability shield for fossil fuel companies would not lower energy prices or ease the cost of living. It would simply shift more of the financial burden onto working families and local governments while insulating one of the most profitable industries in history from accountability."
"Congress should not close the courthouse doors to communities seeking redress," said DiPaola. "Big Oil is not entitled to special immunity from the consequences of its conduct."
This article has been updated to include updates on state legislation and Common Dreams' reporting on a bill that would shield the fossil fuel industry from liability.
Keep Reading
Show Less
'Time for Half Measures Is Over': Study Warns of Terrifying Atlantic Ocean Current Collapse
"We must avoid this collapse at all costs," said a leading current researcher, who warned that "the stability of the entire planet" is at stake.
Apr 16, 2026
The global climate crisis is causing a critical Atlantic Ocean current system to weaken much sooner than previously predicted, according to a study published on Thursday. If it stops, scientists say it could pose catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is one of the most important current systems in the world for maintaining the delicate balance of the global climate. It helps to keep colder regions like Europe and the Arctic mild by moving warm water northward and pushes large amounts of carbon deep into the ocean, keeping it out of the atmosphere.
Scientists have feared AMOC's decline for some time. Previous studies have shown it to be at its weakest point in 1,600 years. But research published this month suggests that a collapse may come much sooner than anticipated.
One study, published Thursday in the journal Science Advances, used climate models and current data to predict the decline in the coming decades.
Researchers found that the system is on course to slow by more than 50% by the end of the century and could pass a significant tipping point by mid-century, at which point its decline would become irreversible.
"We found that the AMOC is declining faster than predicted by the average of all climate models," said lead researcher Valentin Portmann, of the Inria Research Center of Bordeaux South-West. "This means we are closer to a tipping point than previously thought.”
A major driver of its slowdown has been the rapid melting of Greenland's freshwater ice sheet into the Atlantic, which has diluted denser saltwater, making it harder to transfer northward.
He explained: “The more rapidly Greenland melts, the more freshwater floods the North Atlantic. This disrupts the sinking process, effectively applying the brakes to the entire system.”
This research followed another study published last week by scientists at the University of Miami, which found that AMOC has been weakening at four latitudes in the Atlantic.
Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, a leading AMOC researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who was not involved in either study, called it "an important and deeply concerning result" that "confirms that the ‘pessimistic’ climate models—those projecting a severe weakening of the AMOC by 2100—are the most accurate."
"The most dramatic and drastic climate changes we see in the last 100,000 years of Earth history have been when the AMOC switched to a different state," Rahmstorf explained.
A shutdown of the current system poses what Canadian climate activist and marine conservationist Paul Watson described as a "domino effect of climatic upheavals."
Scientists have projected that temperatures in northern Europe could plummet dramatically, with winters in London sometimes reaching below -20°C (-4°F) and those in Norway reaching -48°C (-54°F). It also threatens to dramatically shorten growing seasons, putting food security in peril for hundreds of millions of people.
Tropical storms in the North Atlantic would also become more severe. As the current slows, sea levels are expected to rise, and the greater temperature difference between cooling Europe and the warming tropics can fuel more intense hurricanes and increase the risk of flooding in major coastal cities.
"We must avoid this collapse at all costs," Rahmstorf said. "The stakes are too high; this isn’t just about Europe’s climate, but the stability of the entire planet."
Such a dramatic change in the flow of global heat could scramble temperature and rainfall patterns worldwide, putting some areas at greater risk of drought and disrupting the monsoon season that fuels agriculture in many regions.
It also risks becoming self-perpetuating, as the large amounts of carbon released from the ocean could further accelerate AMOC's collapse. Research published last week found that carbon emissions from the Southern Ocean alone could increase global temperature by about 0.2°C.
"The science is clear: The AMOC is teetering on the edge of collapse, and the window to act is closing," Watson said. "Yet global leaders remain paralyzed by short-term politics and denial."
The conclusion of the most recent United Nations climate summit, COP30, has been described as woefully insufficient to address the mounting climate emergency. The roadmap for action released by the host nation, Brazil, excluded any mention of the phrase "fossil fuels" after the conference was overrun by industry lobbyists.
"The time for half-measures is over," Watson said. "The choices we make in the next decade will determine whether future generations inherit a manageable climate or a world plunged into chaos."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Most Popular