June 10, 2026
Re: No Immunity for Big Oil
To the following members of Maine’s congressional delegation:
Senator Susan Collins
Senator Angus King
Representative Jared Golden
Representative Chellie Pingree
As Maine and other states across the country advance lawsuits to hold Big Oil companies accountable for deceiving the public about the climate harms of their products, we are alarmed by the recently-introduced federal legislation that aims to give the fossil fuel industry legal immunity and block communities’ access to justice. The bills, introduced by Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate after months of fossil fuel industry lobbying, seek to block laws and lawsuits from anyone trying to hold Big Oil companies accountable for their climate wrongdoing — including Maine’s climate deception lawsuit that is moving forward in state court.
We’re urging you to protect our right to hold Big Oil accountable and reject any proposal that would shield fossil fuel companies from the legal and legislative efforts to hold them accountable for the damages they’ve knowingly caused. If successful, these efforts could block existing and new legal action against the fossil fuel industry over climate damages, void climate superfund laws that have been passed and introduced in states across the country, and prevent state-level regulation of greenhouse gasses and climate change.
The mounting threat of climate change is already being felt in Maine as worsening floods, heat waves, storms, and other extreme weather events devastate communities throughout the state, saddling everyday Mainers and local governments with skyrocketing costs to recover, respond, and adapt to the growing crisis. The record-breaking extreme weather events walloping our communities with increasing frequency and intensity are a result of fossil fuel pollution enabled for decades by Big Oil companies and their coordinated campaign of climate deception. Oil and gas companies knew that their products posed “potentially catastrophic” risk to the climate — but instead of disclosing this knowledge, they chose to run an ongoing campaign to deceive the public, protect their profits, and delay our transition to cleaner and cheaper energy.
Maine is one of dozens of communities suing oil companies for concealing their knowledge about the consequences of the increasing use of fossil fuels on Maine’s people, economy, and environment.5 The state’s lawsuit seeks to recover damages for both past and future climate harms caused by fossil fuel companies, as well as stop the companies’ deception and make them disgorge profits made through illegal activity. Maine lawmakers also recently passed a bill
directing the state to study how much climate change is costing taxpayers, laying the groundwork to require the polluters most responsible for the costly climate impacts to help pay for the damage they’ve caused. But these critical efforts are currently under massive threat from
a coordinated lobbying campaign to shield Big Oil.
H.R.8330 and S.4340 seek to give the fossil fuel industry sweeping immunity from accountability efforts, effectively putting the industry above the law. As written, the bills follow a recommendation from sixteen Republican attorneys general last year that called for a legal liability shield for Big Oil modeled after the 2005 law that granted legal immunity to gun manufacturers. The American Petroleum Institute — the largest oil and gas trade association in the country and a defendant in several climate accountability lawsuits — announced that stopping “abusive state climate lawsuits and the expansion of climate ‘superfund’ policies’” is a
top priority for the industry. State bills aimed at blocking communities from pursuing any accountability measures against the fossil fuel industry have been introduced and passed in several states. A Congressional appropriations bill introduced this year includes language that would prohibit the District of Columbia from using any funds to enforce its consumer protection laws “against oil and gas companies for environmental claims,” clearly targeting D.C.’s ongoing climate accountability lawsuit against ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and other oil majors.
The climate crisis is escalating every day and our communities across the country are bearing the brunt of the financial, environmental, and personal impacts. As the costs worsen and extreme weather events become more commonplace, governments, businesses, community members, and others must retain access to legal and legislative tools to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the damage they knowingly caused.
There are many ongoing fights to protect justice, democracy, and fundamental rights that demand your attention — and we thank you for fighting to keep our communities’ rights intact. If we do not also protect Americans’ right to hold bad actors accountable in court, we will be handing Big Oil a get-out-of-jail-free card and setting a dangerous precedent that puts wealthy corporations above the law.
We, the undersigned organizations, respectfully urge you in the strongest possible terms to fight for climate accountability and our communities’ access to the courts, and draw a line in firm opposition to any Congressional efforts to bail out climate polluters from facing legal and legislative consequences for their role in fueling the climate crisis.
Thank you for standing on the side of justice and accountability.