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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 📣
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— 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."
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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.
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Our Global Food System Is on the Brink of Collapse
The impact on fuel prices due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is the canary in the agrifood coal mine.
Apr 17, 2026
What does Big Ag have to do with the Strait of Hormuz? A lot, actually, when you consider that almost every so-called efficiency that industrial agriculture relies on to operate flows through this waterway. And now it is closed, threatening global food security.
And what is the primary source of the problem? Our reliance on fossil fuels.
What do fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics have in common?
First of all, each is a leg of the stool that makes up the rickety foundation of our global agrifood system.
Plastics are involved in every stage of our food and farming systems from soil to spoon: plastic polymers are used in some mulches, agrichemical containers are generally made of plastics, harvest crates and produce packages are often plastic, most processed foods are packaged in plastic or plastic-lined containers, and single-use plastics are still widely used in plates, bowls, cups, straws, napkins, and utensils.
In the 1960s, the world used between 60 and 70 million tonnes of fertilizer (synthetic nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, plus organic nitrogen) per year. But that usage has steadily risen ever since: in 2023 we used nearly 183 million tonnes of fertilizer. This rise can be attributed in part to the rising needs of a growing global population, but it is more indicative of our over-reliance on fertilizers as a way to combat the increasing effects of climate change. This season, farmers are already reporting untenable increases in fertilizer prices.
Big Ag has and will continue to rely on Big Oil to make Big Money as long as they can, but the United States’ and Israel’s unconstitutional war on Iran starkly illustrates just how fragile this house of cards is.
Pesticides are the other side of the agrichemical input coin. Fertilizers and pesticides go hand-in-hand, when it comes to global agrifood systems. The foundation of industrialized farming is monocropping (growing a single crop over and over on the same piece of land). The problem with monocropping is that it is extremely input intensive because monocropped land is more vulnerable to pest and disease pressure. And over time, this vulnerability increases, requiring more and more pesticides as tolerance builds. This creates a vicious cycle called the Pesticide Treadmill that is hard for farmers to escape without support.
But, critically, synthetic plastics, fertilizers, and pesticides are all derivatives of fossil fuels, mass quantities of which must be funneled through one waterway before becoming various inputs and components of our centralized, industrialized agrifood system. Rather than curbing our use of climate-harming fossil fuel-derived plastics, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides, our agrifood systems use more and more each year, exacerbating the problem and further locking us into a fragile food system.
A Strait Chokepoint
According to the Congressional Research Service, over a quarter of the world’s supply of oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz, impacting farmers’ ability to get seeds in the ground and food to tables. Additionally, 20% of natural gas transits the Strait, which is a component of many agrichemical inputs. But, byproducts of oil and gas production also pass through the Strait, including helium which is used in semiconductor manufacturing (semiconductors like silicon are necessary for all modern technology), and urea, which is one of the most commonly used synthetic fertilizers. Over a third of the world’s urea must pass through the Strait.
In short, global agrifood systems rely intrinsically on fossil fuels and their byproducts to function, and when supply lines are disrupted, even briefly, the domino effects could be catastrophic. This article is not meant to be a metaphor, but an urgent warning and a window to our way out.
The most important—and maddening—thing to know is that our agrifood systems need not rely so heavily on fossil fuels and their byproducts to feed the world’s people.
Big Ag has and will continue to rely on Big Oil to make Big Money as long as they can, but the United States’ and Israel’s unconstitutional war on Iran starkly illustrates just how fragile this house of cards is. As countries around the world issue energy conservation mandates and brace for worsening inflation and supply chain instability, we should consider how agroecological farming practices could not only make our agrifood systems safer by reducing exposures of harmful pesticides and curb climate change, but also make the systems that feed us more resilient by decentralizing them, improving resilience to climate change-induced drought, floods, and pest pressures, and extricating them out from under the thumb of fossil fuel corporations.
Corporate greed has optimized humanity to the brink of mass starvation. But the principles of agroecology center food sovereignty (the opposite of corporate control), labor justice, and land stewardship.
Food systems grounded in agroecology are ones in which:
- All people have access to healthy, safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food.
- Farmers and agricultural workers work with the land to protect, restore, and sustain natural resources and ecosystems.
- Agriculture utilizes ecological management practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improving adaptation and resilience to climate change.
- Synthetic chemical inputs are reduced or eliminated whenever possible.
- The production, sharing, commerce, and consumption of food is built on an economy which prioritizes thriving communities, resilient local markets, and worker rights.
- Diverse cultures, identities, and knowledge systems are embraced along with equitable forms of social organization.
- Power in food and farming systems is redistributed; shifting away from transnational corporations so that the rights of food producers, farm workers, and agricultural communities are centered.
These principles are not far fetched; they’re economically viable solutions that are being practiced successfully around the world already. Systemic shifts toward global agrifood systems that prioritize the principles of agroecology could help us to solve the triple planetary crises of pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change.
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