Republican lawmakers attempt to shield big oil from climate lawsuits in ‘alarming’ bills | US news

Republican lawmakers are trying to prevent big oil companies from having to pay for their contributions to the climate crisis, alarming environmental advocates.

New House and Senate bills, led by Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, respectively, would give oil and gas companies broad legal immunity from policies and lawsuits aimed at holding the industry responsible for harm caused by its emissions.

Dubbed the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026, the proposal would shield the industry from liability. The law is similar to a 2005 law that largely blocked lawsuits against the gun industry for gun violence.

The Republican proposal aims to stop a wave of state and local climate accountability measures — which Hageman’s office called “left-wing legal crusades punishing legal activity” in a statement. In recent years, more than 70 states and local governments have sued oil companies for allegedly misleading the public about the dangers of their products. Meanwhile, New York and Vermont have also passed climate “superfund” laws requiring major polluters to pay for damages caused by past emissions, while other states are considering similar policies.

If passed, the new federal legislation would dismiss current climate liability lawsuits, undo all climate superfund laws and block similar future efforts.

The proposals attempt to undermine the very foundations of climate accountability measures, said Delta Merner, senior scientist in the science hub for climate litigation at the science advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists.

Hageman, for example, said in a statement that his bill would “affirm” that the federal government has sole authority and jurisdiction over greenhouse gas regulation, but legal experts dispute that, Merner noted. The language attempts to “remove the possibility that local harms will be decided at the local and national level,” Merner said.

Cruz’s bill, meanwhile, attempts to discredit climate attribution studies — scientific analyzes quantifying the extent to which the climate crisis has changed the likelihood or intensity of specific extreme weather events — on which some climate legal claims are based.

“Trying to legislate science out of the way is a really alarming thing,” Merner said.

This year, America’s main oil lobby, the American Petroleum Institute (API), said blocking “abusive” climate lawsuits was a top priority. A few months earlier, 16 Republican attorneys general asked the Justice Department for a “liability shield” for oil companies. And last year, API and energy giant ConocoPhillips also lobbied Congress on a bill to limit climate liability.

“Immunity is clearly something the industry is looking for,” said Cassidy DiPaola of the pro-climate fund group Make Polluters Pay. “We’re in a period where there’s a Republican trio that’s going to bow to industry, and I think they see this moment as one of their biggest opportunities to get it.”

Industry groups welcomed the federal proposal. In a joint statement, API CEO Mike Sommers and Chet Thompson, CEO of the influential fuel lobbying group American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, thanked Hageman and Cruz for the legislation, saying, “Congress should act decisively to reassert federal authority over national energy policy and end this state overreach.”

Asked about advocates’ concerns about the new policy proposal, API referred the Guardian to its previous statement.

The introduction of these bills comes as red states also propose blocking climate lawsuits and superfund laws. Last week, Tennessee passed a measure blocking accountability efforts by big oil companies, and Utah green-lighted a similar law earlier this month. Other states are considering similar policies, but none are as clear about their goals as the federal proposals, DiPaola said.

“Honestly, it’s shocking how blunt federal lawmakers are with their wording,” she said. “We kind of expected it to be a little more low-key, but they’re not hiding the ball at all. They’re saying it up front: ‘You can’t hold us responsible.'”

The industry and its allies have made various other attempts to thwart climate accountability efforts, including challenging superfund laws in court and attempting to have litigation dismissed.

“In some ways, this federal bill feels like the cornerstone [of the] multi-layered strategy that we have seen unfold, in which the fossil fuel industry is tackling climate responsibility on several fronts at once,” Merner said.

The industry has seen mixed results. Some climate disputes, for example, have been dismissed. But last week, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration that sought to preemptively block Hawaii from suing Big Oil companies.

“The industry knows it’s vulnerable,” Merner said. “They are not completely sure that they can win cases on the merits. »

Jay Inslee, former Washington governor, recently raised concerns about the fossil fuel industry’s desire for liability relief, particularly since Hageman indicated in February that a federal proposal was in the works.

“All elected officials who care more about the interests of their constituents than those of corporate polluters should oppose this shameful proposal,” Inslee said in a statement.

It’s unclear whether Republicans could muster the votes to pass the legislation as written. But the bills could help lay the groundwork for a similar measure that would be slipped into broader mandatory-pass legislation, or through the reconciliation process when measures can pass with a simple majority rather than the filibuster threshold of 60 votes.

“We don’t think the strategy is to pass this bill as a standalone bill,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, which supports the lawsuit against the oil industry. “But bad things can happen at any time, and we have to prepare for them.”

The introduction of the federal legislation, Wiles said, “demystifies” the goals of the oil industry’s allies.

“If there was any doubt that they would attempt to do something so outrageous and so damaging to the justice system and the rights of citizens to go to court to seek redress for harm done, there is no longer any doubt,” he said.