Senators expose hypocrisy of Big Oil allies calling for industry immunity

As communities across the country get closer than ever to putting Big Oil companies on trial for decades of climate lies, fossil fuel industry allies are ramping up their efforts to secure blanket immunity for the industry and protect oil companies from facing accountability for their harmful deception. 

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, more than a dozen Republican attorneys general this month called on the Department of Justice to recommend legislation aimed at barring the courthouse doors for dozens of communities’ fighting to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their ongoing climate deception and the harm it has caused. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a “desperate” and “highly unusual” request from many of the same attorneys general that sought to block states from suing Big Oil. Having failed to escape accountability in court, Big Oil lobbyists have reportedly been urging members of Congress to pass legal protections for the companies.

The new letter includes a laundry list of legislative recommendations, including creating a “liability shield” for fossil fuel companies “similar to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005,” (PLCAA) — the notorious law that gave broad immunity to gun manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits for injuries “resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse” of a firearm. Victims of gun violence and their families have said that PLCAA has taken away their constitutional right to be heard in court and has shut down avenues for accountability and the healing it can bring. 

"This is simply the latest in a long line of desperate maneuvers to help the fossil fuel industry escape accountability in court for their well-documented climate deception and the astronomical damage it has caused,” said CCI President Richard Wiles about the letter. “They want dishonest and polluting corporations to be completely above the law, and if they get their way they would block access to the courts for communities, businesses, and their own constituents who have been harmed by Big Oil."

During a farcical Senate subcommittee hearing yesterday that sought to cast doubt on climate accountability cases, one of those attorneys general, Kris Kobach from Kansas, was pressed by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal about his opposition to lawsuits against Big Oil. Blumenthal pointed out that Connecticut and other states are suing ExxonMobil for lying about the harms of its products — just as Kansas is suing Pfizer for, in Kobach’s words,  making “certain representations about their product that turned out to be contrary to the information they had.”

Under questioning, Kobach conceded that "I'm not saying the claims [against Big Oil] are wrongly brought." But when he tried to blame individuals for their fossil fuel use, Blumenthal, who successfully sued tobacco companies as Connecticut Attorney General, pointed out the flaw in that logic. 

“I could take the words exactly that you’ve just uttered and substitute ‘tobacco,’ and they would be identical to what the tobacco industry was saying about our lawsuit at the time,” Blumenthal commented.

At the top of the hearing, Ranking Member Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island explained that climate accountability lawsuits come down to a simple question: Who should pay for climate damages? Taxpayers, or the fossil fuel companies responsible for the climate crisis?

Earlier this year, nearly two hundred groups, including CCI, called on members of Congress to oppose any efforts to shield Big Oil companies from legal accountability.