For Earth Day, GOP Propose Climate Killer Immunity

PRESENTED BY PUBLIC REDSHANKS

I should be at all the great DC Climate Week events today—I very unironically love Big Climate Data Sets—but I did do my version of a celebration today, taking a long walk through Rock Creek Park on this perfect, sunny, cool spring day, a brief interlude between the blasts of petro-heat waves sloshing around the planet.

If you’re in D.C. and are reading Hill Heat the moment it hits your inbox—as of course you should!—it’s not too late to head over to 1735 New York Ave NW for We Power DC’s 6 pm forum with the great Sandeep Vaheesen on The Missing Piece of the Climate Movement: Public Power.

As the carbon majors rake in windfall profits from Trump’s illegal Iran war, oil-soaked Republicans are doing their own kind of Climate Week celebration, by helping climate murderers hide the corpse. As the Center for Climate Integrity reports:

Sen. Ted “Cancun” Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Harriet “Don’t Call Her A” Hageman (R-Wyo.) are the lead sponsors of the “Stop Climate Shakedowns” Act of 2026 “to protect American energy from leftist legal crusades punishing lawful activity” and “defend American energy dominance.” Sen. Ted “Bundy” Budd (R-N.C.) is proud to “stand with Senator Cruz to end climate lawfare suits that only seek to harm U.S. energy producers and instead props up radicalized ‘green’ energy ideals.” “America’s energy producers take hit after hit from climate extremists who target them with excessive lawsuits,” frothed Sen. Mike “Oy” Lee (R-Utah).

The Union of Concerned Scientists’ Laura Peterson has explained how this legislation follows the gunmaker playbook. In the 1990s, lawsuits successfully reined in the tobacco industry after decades of their denial campaign about their deadly product, and the murderous firearms industry was looking like it was next. But in 2005, Senator Larry “Wide Stance” Craig (R-Idaho) and Rep. Cliff “Zombie” Stearns (R-Fla.) introduced the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, giving gun manufacturers immunity from any consequences for their death-dealing.

The Charles Koch-Leonard Leo network are also pushing climate-polluter-immunity bills in GOP-run states across the nation, Abrahm Lustgarten reports:

“If Big Oil were to secure immunity from liability for climate damage, the public would keep paying for the costs of climate change, while the fossil fuel companies most responsible for them would continue to pay nothing,” warns former California insurance commissioner Dave Jones, a leading advocate of making polluters pay. “As climate disasters mount, and the Trump administration slashes federal disaster response, the most important thing members of Congress can do is protect their constituents’ ability to make polluters pay.”

Hearings on the Hill:

• 9:30 AM: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
  Budget Request for the Department of Energy for Fiscal Year 2027

• 10:30 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
  Markup of Bills to Fast-Track Geothermal and Mining Projects, Combat Illegal Fishing, and Other Matters

• 11 AM: House Appropriations Committee
  Full Committee Markup of Fiscal Year 2027 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Bill and Fiscal Year 2027 Financial Services and General Government Bill, and Interim Subcommittee Allocations

Climate Action Today:

• 9 AM: Data Foundation and others
  Climate & Environmental Data Day

• 10:30 AM: Stop The Money Pipeline
  We the People - Not Data Centers

• 6 PM: We Power DC
  The Missing Piece of the Climate Movement: A Panel on Public Power

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