As the President doubles down on authoritarianism and white nationalism, the waning days of the 119th Congress are a dangerous time. This month’s US election was a cry for help from voters struggling to make ends meet and a warning to billionaires and corrupt politicians who have tried to rig the system for their own benefit.
Few special interests have reaped more financial rewards than Big Oil in the first two years of the Trump administration. With regulatory rollbacks, assaults on clean energy, illegal US military incursions in Venezuela and Iran, and tens of billions of dollars in handouts, the 119th Congress—in lockstep with the Trump administration—has already been a boon for the fossil fuel industry. The election came on the heels of eye-popping profit reports by major oil and gas corporations—and the results were a sharp rejection of these profiteers, who President Trump gushed are “making a freaking fortune” at everyone else’s expense.
I’m hopeful that the incoming Congress will fulfill its responsibilities to advance climate progress, accelerate the transition to clean energy, and hold big polluters accountable for climate deception and damages. Look for a series of blogs from me and other leaders at Union of Concerned Scientists on priorities for the 120th Congress in the next several weeks.
In the meantime, between now and early January, corporate accountability advocates must remain vigilant and mobilize to ensure that the Big Oil tiger—ExxonMobil’s chosen mascot—doesn’t feast on this lame duck Congress.
Here are three priorities to prevent any more giveaways to big polluters by the 119th Congress:
1) No immunity for Big Oil
Among the clear messages US voters sent in the 2026 election: no one should be above the law, including Big Oil. As the clock ticks down on this session of Congress, fossil fuel interests are desperately pushing for legislation that would grant them immunity from laws or lawsuits that could hold them accountable for their role in the climate crisis.
This lobbying blitz is especially audacious after a record-breaking, deadly Triple Danger Season from May to October 2026. Climate extremes were compounded by the Trump administration’s rollbacks of systems that keep people safe—and by the affordability crisis forcing working families to make tough choices between paying for essentials like food and medicine and cooling their homes. In California, as my colleague Jeremy Martin has written, consumers face even higher gasoline prices as oil companies take advantage of supply constraints and market consolidation to charge consumers unfair monopoly prices.
Members of Congress should expect and repel a push to pass the sweeping liability waiver proposed by Ted Cruz in the Senate and his soon-to-be Senate colleague, Harriet Hageman, in the House—and ensure that none of its provisions slip into other bills considered during the lame-duck session. Not only would this bill (modeled on the 2005 gun industry liability waiver) grant the fossil fuel industry immunity from legal and financial liability for climate deception and damages, it also attempts to legislate away source attribution science—a robust field that enables us to trace how much emissions from the largest fossil fuel producers contribute to climate harms and damages.
A new poll from Boston University found little support for giving oil and gas companies immunity from liability for climate deception and damages: for example, 83% agreed that oil and gas companies should be subject to the same laws as other industries.
Click here to demand your representatives in Congress reject a liability shield for the fossil fuel industry.
2) Don’t settle for a permitting deal championed by Big Oil and the Koch network
As my colleague David Watkins wrote, the Senate Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) sponsored by Senators Capito, Whitehouse, Lee, and Heinrich—also known as the Senate permitting deal—is warped in favor of fossil fuel interests and would harm people, communities, and the environment if enacted.
Full-throated support for the bill by the fossil fuel industry and its allies is a flashing red warning light:
- A coalition of groups—many backed by the Koch family—urged the Senate to pass the bill to “protect property rights, promote energy abundance, and restore America’s ability to build.”
- Along with a liability waiver, permitting reform is a top 2026 priority for Big Oil’s chief lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute (API). API made no secret of its intention to use permitting reform as a vehicle to gut regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. (They inexplicably took to Washington DC earlier this week with a “BAAJA on the Hill” taco truck to push their support for the bill.)
- Now, President Trump has weighed in on his social media platform, promoting touting that the bill will “ensure that we can build Pipelines, Mines, and Power Plants faster than ever before.”
The Senate is expected to vote on a revised version of BAAJA as soon as next week. While an amendment released over the weekend improves the provisions to speed up transmission line deployment and tempers the lock-in of fossil fuel project permitting, it fails to address the fundamental imbalance of the legislation in favor of fossil fuels. Without further significant amendment, BAAJA would be the most significant legislative reversal in environmental and community protections in decades.
3) Protect free speech on public health and safety issues
Congress is also negotiating a deal to reauthorize the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration’s pipeline safety programs—an opportunity to improve the safety of hazardous liquid and gas pipelines that run through communities’ backyards, schools, parks, and waterways across the country.
In negotiating final text of the bill, Congress must keep out language from the House versions of the legislation—HR 9338 and HR 5301—that would broadly expose climate and Indigenous rights activists to criminalization for First Amendment-protected free speech, assembly, and the press, while redirecting attention away from the pipeline industry’s own problematic safety record.
Pipeline safety matters. Congress should focus on real pipeline safety issues like mitigating corrosion and equipment failure, rather than chilling free speech and discouraging people from speaking out about the public health and safety risks that oil and gas pipelines pose to communities. The dangers communities and pipeline workers face come from pipeline builders and operators, not from protesters.
As we gear up to demand that the 120th Congress restores science-informed public policymaking; investigates Big Oil’s corruption, disinformation, and inflated profits; reorients the nation toward a fair, fast phaseout of fossil fuels; and makes polluters pay their fair share, we must not take our eyes off the dangers that could come in a lame duck Congress.
ExxonMobil may have a tiger mascot, but it doesn’t have a monopoly on tigers. My team at UCS has a theme song: “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. Please join us in “rising up to the challenge of our rival.” Let’s stop Big Oil from making a fortune on its lies and corruption.