Polluters must not be above the law 

Until July 1, 2024, no one in the U.S. was above the law. The Supreme Court changed that by granting the president of the United States broad immunity. Since then, we have seen what happens when someone without a moral compass cannot be held accountable. 

Now, America’s dirtiest industry wants to be unaccountable, too. To the great detriment of the public, President Trump and several Republican state officials are helping it happen.

The industry in question — fossil fuels — should be held more responsible for the damage it causes, not less.

Oil, coal and natural gas have dominated the U.S. economy since about 1885. About 75 years ago, the industry realized its emissions were destabilizing the Earth’s climate. They responded by hiding that knowledge, greenwashing and using political muscle to suppress competition from cleaner energy.     

The heroes of the Industrial Revolution are now a principal cause of premature deaths, childhood asthma, air pollution and increasingly violent weather.   

Clean alternatives (including the windmills that so terrorize Trump) are available and preferable in every way. The industry still argues that America still has ample underground reserves of oil, coal and gas. Extracted and consumed, they would be worth trillions of dollars in profits to oil companies and investors.

But for the rest of society, the cost of using the reserves is much higher than that of keeping them in the ground.

Most Americans don’t realize this, because the real costs of fossil fuels are hidden. The prices consumers pay don’t show the true costs to society and the environment. Families bear these costs through medical bills, taxes, insurance premiums and property damages from extreme weather.

Fossil fuels are principally responsible for air pollution that costs the U.S. nearly $800 billion each year. Bloomberg reported last June that climate-related costs totaled nearly $1 trillion in the U.S. during the previous 12 months. When all costs were counted in 2022, they came to $2,243 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.

Extreme weather worldwide causes annual damages of $38 trillion, and those costs are increasing. The Potsdam Institute concludes that past pollution alone will “cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries,” including the U.S.  Climate change is the ultimate affordability crisis.

America’s households feel it. Last fall, pollsters found that most voters worry climate change and fossil fuel pollution directly affect their finances. Nearly 80 percent of voters, including 69 percent of Republicans, said oil and gas companies should be held accountable for pollution. 

The Trump administration, several red states, and the industry don’t see it that way. The Environmental Protection Agency has repealed the legal basis for federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Trump is pulling out all the stops on oil and gas production while suppressing the use of clean energy.

Many victims are turning to the courts. More than 3,300 lawsuits are underway against oil and gas companies in the U.S. as state and local governments try to recover the costs of climate-related damages.  

Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry uses lawsuits to intimidate its opponents. Now, it wants to quash legal liability altogether. Last month, Utah became the first state to shield the industry from liability for climate damages. Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Iowa are considering similar laws. 

Sixteen Republican attorneys general have asked the Justice Department to push for a nationwide liability shield for the industry. The department has sued several states that want to hold the industry accountable. The Supreme Court plans to consider a case in which two major oil companies want to stop climate liability suits. 

But legal warfare isn’t the solution. A global investment of about $4 trillion annually would finance the world’s shift to a net-zero carbon economy over the next 25 years.  That’s a small fraction of what the world already pays for the damages caused by fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency advises that the least-cost future is one powered by clean resources. 

Congress should reinstate the clean energy incentives it approved in 2022 and Trump rescinded last year. It should also codify two key legal principles. The first is the “polluter pays principle” that nations adopted in the Rio Declaration of 1992. The second is the Public Trust Doctrine, which obligates governments to protect natural and cultural resources that belong to all citizens, present and future. This doctrine should be incorporated into state and national constitutions and extended to the atmosphere and the Earth’s other vital life-support systems.

Until then, nature will continue to pass judgment and impose unaffordable penalties. Like it or not, nobody is exempt from its laws.  

William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs. He is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, a nonpartisan initiative that works with national thought leaders to develop recommendations on national climate and energy policies.

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