WASHINGTON (April 17, 2026)—U.S. Representative Harriet Hageman (R-WY) introduced a bill today seeking to grant sweeping immunity to the fossil fuel industry against legal and financial accountability for climate change damages. The congressional bill mirrors legislation recently passed in Tennessee and Utah and introduced in Iowa, Louisiana and Oklahoma. A ProPublica investigation revealed nearly all the bills have stemmed from a network of groups connected to prominent right-wing operative Leonard Leo. Obtaining a liability shield is a top priority for Big Oil’s chief lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, whose president and CEO joined with the head of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers in welcoming the bill’s introduction.
Below is a statement by Kathy Mulvey, climate accountability campaign director with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“This blatant championing of some of the world’s largest polluters shows how far certain elected officials will go to undermine democratic policymaking and deny people and communities access to justice. No company should be above the law, especially those that planned, funded, and continue to engage in a coordinated decades-long campaign to protect their profits by deceiving the public and blocking climate action.
“Such corporate impunity would twist the knife of the climate crisis that is already directly harming people across the country. Congress must not capitulate to wealthy special interests. Communities deserve the right to hold polluters accountable for the deadly and costly harms they are causing.”
Additional UCS Resources:
- Op-ed on the dangers of legal immunity for the fossil fuel industry
- Blog post on how Big Oil’s immunity push replicates the gun industry’s playbook
- Report detailing a decades-long climate disinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry
- Op-ed on escalating attacks on climate science in courtrooms
- Statement on fossil fuel immunity bills in Oklahoma and Utah
- Blog post on how climate superfund bills use science to make polluters pay