Big Oil Is Trying to Make Itself Untouchable
Congressional Republicans introduced a bill to block lawsuits and nullify climate superfund laws
There was a period, not that long ago, when the fossil fuel industry at least felt the need to argue its case on the merits, back when the conversation was still about whether climate change was real, who was responsible, or what could reasonably be expected of companies that spent decades extracting and selling the fuels driving it. Even when those arguments were made in bad faith, they existed within a basic premise that the questions of responsibility and accountability would be decided somewhere, by regulators or lawmakers or courts, with evidence and testimony and consideration of the facts.
That phase is over.
Last week, Representative Harriet Hageman and Senator Ted Cruz introduced federal legislation that would shut down climate lawsuits across the country, erase state climate superfund laws, and prevent new ones from taking hold. (Which, if you’ve ever glanced at Cruz’s donor list, this is pretty on brand.)
If passed, the bill would dismiss cases already moving through the courts, some of them years in the making, brought by states and cities dealing with rising seas, extreme heat, and fires that are now wiping out entire communities. It would also close the door on future cases. On top of that, it would wipe out laws like those in New York and Vermont that are designed to make major polluters contribute to the costs tied to their emissions, and centralize authority at the federal level, pulling decisions further away from the communities that are living with the consequences.
If you’ve been following this Substack, none of this is surprising to you. The industry has been building toward this for a while. The Utah law we wrote about two weeks ago is a version of the same idea, not an outright ban on lawsuits but basically a rewriting of the rules so that most cases would fail before they really began, by changing the burden of proof just enough to make accountability extremely difficult. What’s different with the federal legislation is the scale and the willingness to say out loud that the goal is to make these cases disappear entirely.
At the same time, one of the biggest cases in this space, Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, is headed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The justices will decide whether state and local governments can pursue climate damages claims under state law. It’s a technical question on its face, but the outcome could shape dozens of lawsuits already in motion and many more to come.
The industry is working every possible angle at once. Move cases into federal court where possible. Argue they don’t belong in the legal system at all. And if that doesn’t fully work, go to Congress and try to shut the whole thing down in one broad stroke.
At a certain point, the argument stops being about facts and starts being about power, and about whether a set of companies can place themselves outside the normal expectations of the law, not because they are right but because they are influential (and rich) enough to try.
All of this is unfolding as global tensions push oil prices up and fossil fuel companies are once again pulling in enormous windfall profits, billions of dollars tied not to new production but to disruption and price spikes. In the first month of the war alone, the world’s top 100 oil and gas companies made an estimated $23 billion in windfall profits — more than $30 million an hour — simply because oil prices spiked. So at the exact moment they’re asking to be shielded from the costs of climate damage, they’re also cashing in on the instability that drives their profits higher.
This doesn’t stop with fossil fuels
It’s tempting to treat this as just a climate fight, but it will not stay contained to just climate. If Congress decides that one of the most powerful industries in the world doesn’t have to answer to courts or face juries, that precedent will reach across industries. Soon, everyone will want immunity. Chemical companies facing cancer lawsuits, pesticide manufacturers dealing with massive verdicts, tech companies under pressure for algorithmic harm or AI-driven damages. Once the idea takes hold that industries can ask for immunity when the consequences get too big, it becomes a playbook.
This fight is just getting started
It would be easy to read this as a sign that the industry is winning, but there’s another way to look at it. Industries tend to ask for this kind of protection when they feel exposed, when cases are advancing, when discovery starts to reveal secrets they don’t want out there.
In that sense, this legislation - and the entire full throated immunity push - is really just a reaction to something already underway.
What happens next is not settled. Bills like this do not pass automatically, and there is still plenty that can be done to stop it. People can sign the nationwide petition, contact their members of Congress, submit letters to the editor, sign the national letter if they represent an organization or hold office, and find other ways to get involved at NoImmunityForBigOil.org.
They are killing LIFE on EARTH and want to be thanked for it. Fuck oligarchs.