Gun Manufacturers Won the Ultimate Legal Shield. Big Oil Wants That, Too.

Mr. Jones was California’s insurance commissioner from 2011 through 2018.

As far back as the 1970s, some of the world’s largest oil corporations were aware that burning their products could have potentially catastrophic consequences. But they withheld the evidence, carried out a decades-long campaign that misled the public about climate science and fought the transition to cleaner and cheaper energy sources.

Eventually scientists and activists took oil and gas companies to court to try to get them to pay for their deceptive campaign and the potentially trillions of dollars in damages from disasters made worse by a climate warmed by their products.

Now the fossil fuel industry has mounted a carefully orchestrated campaign to stop these cases. Backed by the Trump administration, the industry is seeking to block all climate lawsuits that seek compensation from fossil fuel producers for damages. Last month Utah became the first state to enact a law that shields companies from such climate-related claims, and Republican lawmakers have introduced similar bills in Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee. But the biggest prize the industry is after would come from Congress: total legal immunity from liability in climate cases.

Putting any industry above the law — especially one responsible for creating many of the greenhouse gas emissions that have helped fuel climate-related destruction of homes, businesses and whole communities — would be beyond dangerous. If Big Oil gets its wish, it would be an injustice with lasting and cascading harm.

The question of whether the industry can be held accountable for the damage from climate change is coming to a head in part because at the end of February — following the urging of the Trump administration and over 100 House Republicans — the Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments about whether the industry can be sued under state law over its role in global warming. The industry has asked the court to dismiss a Colorado Supreme Court decision that allowed a lawsuit filed by Boulder and Boulder County to proceed. In that case, the city and county want Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy to pay for climate damage like that from the 2021 Marshall Fire, which destroyed more than 1,000 homes.

How the Supreme Court rules could have profound implications for dozens of other states and municipalities seeking similar recourse against oil companies. But the Supreme Court is not where the industry’s efforts to evade any accountability end. Oil and gas companies have also been lobbying Congress for a legal shield that would block communities from trying to hold them responsible for climate-linked damage. A Republican House member from Wyoming recently announced that she is working on legislation to establish such a shield.

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