News & Analysis
April 1, 2026
Former Washington Governor Jay Inslee is sounding the alarm about Big Oil’s lobbying campaign for legal immunity, warning of the harm to communities, affordability, and democracy if the fossil fuel industry is placed above the law.
Last week, Inslee and Center for Climate Integrity staff briefed members of Congress about the oil industry’s push to secure a legal shield that would block communities across the country from holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for its climate deception and the damages it has fueled.
“I am playing the role of Paul Revere here,” Inslee told members of the House of Representatives’ Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. “The British aren’t coming but the oil and gas industry is.”
Big Oil and its allies have spent the past year waging a coordinated campaign to secure legal immunity from Congress that would stop any laws or lawsuits that could hold the industry accountable for its role in the climate crisis.
Oil lobbyists have stated that killing climate liability efforts is one of their top priorities this year, and U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) said in February that she is working with members in “both the House and Senate to craft legislation tackling” the growing number of climate accountability lawsuits and climate superfund laws Big Oil is facing. Last year, 16 Republican attorneys general called for a “liability shield” for Big Oil modeled after the 2005 law protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits, and lawmakers in several states have introduced state-level legal shields for fossil fuel companies modeled off of draft legislation from a pro-fossil fuel group.
Inslee, a former three-term governor, House member, and trial lawyer, also appeared on multiple national news networks to denounce Big Oil’s pursuit of a get-out-of-jail-free card.
“Oil and gas executives are terrified of having to face their own record,” Inslee told CNN. “They are terrified of being cross-examined and read the things they wrote back in the ‘70s and ‘80s that predicted this catastrophe that we are now experiencing."
“This is all a part of a corrupt scheme,” Inslee said. “[Big Oil is] gouging Americans for electricity prices and gas prices, and then turn[ing] around and say[ing] ‘we’re exempt from all the laws, we’re above the laws, and we don’t have to be accountable for our deception.’ Americans should revile that action and we should not allow it.”
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said in a social media post after Inslee’s visit that pushing to immunize Big Oil in Congress would be a dealbreaker for ongoing permitting reform talks.
“If they want to blow up permitting reform, making this nonsense national would be the way to do it," Whitehouse posted on social media in response to news that Utah had passed the nation’s first state-level legal shield for fossil fuel companies. “Rule of Law must fall before Fossil Fuel?”
A growing number of groups, elected officials, and community members are calling on Congress to oppose any efforts to put Big Oil above the law. Nearly 200 organizations, including CCI, have urged Democratic leaders in Congress to oppose any form of a legal shield for the oil and gas industry, calling on leaders to “ensure both justice today and the right of future generations to hold polluters responsible for decades of deception.”
