Republicans at the state and federal levels are working to shield fossil fuel companies from laws and legal claims that aim to make them pay for some of the damage caused by climate change.
Lawmakers and oil-industry advocates are running a two-track campaign, in statehouses and in Congress, to pass laws to protect companies from paying some of the costs of intensified wildfires, storms, floods and other effects of global warming. The goal is broad immunity, similar to what Congress granted to gun manufacturers two decades ago.
The effort comes as major fossil fuel companies including Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips face a wave of lawsuits from cities, states and individuals who say the companies knew their products would dangerously warm the planet.
The companies, which did not respond to a request for comment, are also battling new “climate superfund” laws, so far enacted in Vermont and New York, that hold them liable for emissions. New York is seeking $75 billion over 25 years. Similar laws are under consideration in a dozen other states.
Last week, Utah became the first state to enact a law that shields companies from climate related claims. Republican lawmakers in at least four other states, including Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Iowa, are working on similar bills.
In February, Rep. Harriet Hageman, Republican of Wyoming and an outspoken supporter of the fossil fuel industry, said at a hearing that she was working on a bill that would protect energy companies from climate lawsuits and superfund laws. Ms. Hageman, who is running for the U.S. Senate, did not respond to a request for comment.
As greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of oil, gas and coal continue to warm the planet, weather is growing more extreme and destructive. In 2025, frequent and severe thunderstorms and the Los Angeles wildfires drove U.S. disaster damage costs above $100 billion, reaching that level for the fifth time in the past six years, according to Climate Central, a nonprofit group.
States and communities have been struggling to cope with the financial burden of disasters and increasingly have been trying to hold fossil fuel companies to account. But the industry and its allies in government argue that costly verdicts and penalties could bankrupt companies that are vital to national security and the American economy.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was fired by President Trump on Thursday, took the unusual step last year of preemptively suing Michigan and Hawaii to try to prevent them from suing energy companies over climate claims. (Both states went ahead with their lawsuits.) On the same day, the Justice Department also sued Vermont and New York over their “climate superfund” laws, asking judges in those states to block them from taking effect.
Shortly after that, a group of Republican attorneys general sent Ms. Bondi a letter outlining a plan for crafting what the letter described as a “liability shield” to protect the industry. They suggested modeling the law on the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, the federal law that protects gun makers, distributors and dealers from most civil liability lawsuits when their products are used in crimes.
A department spokesman declined to comment earlier this week on whether the agency would push for such a measure.
The attorneys general also recommended that the federal government cut funding to states and cities that sued the energy industry. In their letter, they dismissed the growing number of climate lawsuits as “lawfare” designed to damage the industry.
Last July, Republicans in Congress launched an effort, which ultimately failed, that would have made it more difficult for the District of Columbia to use its local consumer-protection laws “against oil and gas companies for environmental claims.”
Now, the question is how lawmakers might go about trying to enact a nationwide measure that would block the laws and lawsuits or penalize municipalities that pursue them.
Oil and gas companies have been courting Republicans for years. In 2024, Mr. Trump encouraged oil executives and lobbyists to donate $1 billion to his campaign, promising to roll back environmental regulations and support their industry if elected.
During the first 15 months of his presidency, he has overseen a broad rollback of the country’s pollution controls, penalizing the renewable energy business and working to promote coal, oil and gas companies. “These guys are getting their billion dollars’ worth,” said Jay Inslee, the former Washington governor and a Democrat who is working to thwart the immunity-shield effort.
The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s main lobbying group, has said one of its top priorities this year was to “protect U.S. energy producers and consumers from abusive state climate lawsuits and the expansion of climate ‘superfund’ policies.” Last year it reported lobbying Congress on “draft legislation related to state efforts to impose liability on the oil and gas industry.” The group declined to comment further.
In April last year, Trump issued an executive order instructing the attorney general to identify laws, policies and suits that threaten fossil fuel production and “take all appropriate action” to stop them.
And in February, the Supreme Court said it would hear a lawsuit, Suncor v. Boulder, in which the oil industry is claiming it shouldn’t be sued in state courts over its role in global warming. The industry argues that emissions are a national issue that cannot be litigated under state laws. The Trump administration had filed a in the case brief asking the Supreme Court to rule in the companies’ favor.
Other industries, including cigarette makers and gun manufacturers, have sought protection from liability shields in the past when facing lawsuits. “It’s not a shield,” said Mr. Inslee, who met last week with members of Congress to discuss the issue. “It’s a sword that can take away the right to a jury trial. It’s an offensive attack.”
Mr. Inslee is working with the Center for Climate Integrity, a nonprofit group, opposing the efforts to protect the fossil fuel companies. The group organized a letter last year signed by nearly 200 nonprofit groups to Democratic leaders asking them to oppose a liability shield.
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David Gelles reports on climate change and leads The Times’s Climate Forward newsletter and events series.
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