An Effort to Kill Off Lawsuits Against Oil Giants Is Gaining Steam

Over the past decade, some three dozen states and local governments have sued the biggest oil companies in the world, arguing that the industry hid what it knew about the dangers of global warming.

The suits are considered a major threat to fossil fuel companies, potentially on the scale of the tobacco industry settlement a quarter-century ago that held cigarette makers financially responsible for the health consequences of smoking for generations of people.

Now the campaign to stop the oil lawsuits is heating up.

In recent weeks, President Trump declared the lawsuits a threat to the American economy, calling them “ideologically motivated” obstacles to his goal of energy dominance. The Justice Department took the aggressive step of pre-emptively suing two states to try to prevent them from even filing lawsuits like these.

Environmentalists are growing concerned that the industry will rehash past efforts to lobby for a federal immunity provision, similar to the 2005 shield law that protects gun makers from liability when their weapons are used in crimes.

The lawsuits have taken on greater importance, their supporters say, as the Trump administration retreats from policies to fight climate change and wean the nation from burning fossil fuels. As states and cities face rising costs from flooding, wildfires and other disasters intensified by global warming, they view litigation as one of the few remaining ways to bolster their budgets.

“The climate crisis is here, and the costs of surviving it are rising every day,” said Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii this month as he announced that his state would join the parade of lawsuits. “The burden should fall on those who deceived and failed to warn consumers about the climate dangers lurking in their products.”

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