ExxonKnews
September 5, 2025
In the shadow of President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in the nation’s capital, House Republicans are attacking the District of Columbia’s ability to police an industry that helped put the president in power.
The District’s lack of statehood has allowed Republicans in Congress to regularly insert policy riders, or add-ons, aimed at undermining local D.C. policies to the end of must-pass legislation. But when the House Appropriations Committee released a draft spending bill in late July, attached at the tail end of the 204-page document was a specific new provision to prohibit the nation’s capital from using funds to enforce its consumer protection law against “oil and gas companies for environmental claims.”
That language targets a lawsuit filed by D.C.'s attorney general five years ago charging oil majors BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell with “systematically and intentionally misleading District consumers about the role their products play in causing climate change.” If Congress approves the version of the bill with that language, the lawsuit — which survived the companies’ attempt to dismiss it earlier this year — could come to an abrupt end before ever reaching trial.