New York Times confirms Big Oil’s “brewing effort” to secure immunity from climate lawsuits

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that lobbyists for the oil and gas industry were “urging members of Congress to consider granting legal protection for oil companies against lawsuits over their contributions to climate change.”

Now the New York Times confirms that this lobbying campaign to secure legal immunity is a “priority” for the fossil fuel industry in the current Congress. 

In a story about the Trump administration’s efforts to help Big Oil companies avoid paying for climate damages, Karen Zraick reports that:

There is also a brewing effort to get Congress to pass a federal shield law protecting fossil fuel companies from litigation, similar to the measure that immunizes gun manufacturers. In a letter to the Justice Department in June, 16 Republican state attorneys general asked the administration for such protections for the fossil fuel industry. [...] The liability shield they have proposed for fossil fuel companies is modeled on a 2005 law that protects gun manufacturers from litigation when their guns are used in crimes.

Communities across the country are paying nearly $1 trillion per year for damages from extreme heat, floods, wildfires, and rising seas and other extreme weather events that fossil-fuel driven climate change is making more intense, deadly, and destructive. Major oil and gas companies knew decades ago that their products would fuel these climate damages, but they orchestrated a Big Tobacco-style campaign of deception to mislead the public and protect their profits. More than 1 in 4 Americans now live in a state or community taking Big Oil companies to court to hold them accountable for this deception and make polluters pay for the harm they have caused.

A legal shield for Big Oil could forever shut the courthouse doors for all Americans, forcing the rising bill for climate change onto taxpayers, and setting a harmful legal precedent that protects corporations instead of communities.

“It’s a nonstop effort by the oil and gas industry to somehow get a get-out-of-jail-free card in regard to these cases,” CCI President Richard Wiles told The Times.

But as the paper noted, a growing number of voices are calling on Congress to make clear that Big Oil should not be above the law:

This year, nearly 200 nonprofit groups signed a letter to Democratic leaders asking them to oppose a liability shield.

And, over the summer, the National Association of Counties, which includes more than 3,000 counties, passed a resolution opposing “any legislation that would limit or pre-empt counties’ access to courts or give companies immunity from lawsuits over damages and costs.” The resolution noted that extreme weather events were straining municipal budgets and resources.

No industry should be above the law — especially one with a documented history of deceiving the public. Congress must oppose the fossil fuel industry’s lobbying efforts and keep the courthouse doors open for communities seeking accountability.