Bill stops lawsuits against fossil fuel companies for climate harm.
S. 4340 — Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026 · Filed by Ted Cruz (R-TX) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 16, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill stops states and people from suing fossil fuel companies. It cancels state laws that let people sue for climate harm. It stops lawsuits already in court. Only the federal government can make climate rules.
Who it affects
People hit by floods, hurricanes, or wildfires lose the right to sue. States lose power to make their own climate laws. Fossil fuel companies are protected from these lawsuits.
One thing to notice
The bill stops all climate lawsuits in court right away. No judge will look at each case one by one.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 3 Republicans.
- Apr 16, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Apr 16, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
7 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 7 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $5,934,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 10 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 86% of bills with any report.
Ted Cruz, who sponsored the bill, received $525,365 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- American Petroleum Institute — $2,780,000 in 1 report
- Koch Government Affairs, LLC — $2,760,000 in 1 report
- Pbf Holding Company LLC — $200,000 in 1 report
- Sierra Club — $100,000 in 1 report
- Earthjustice — $54,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- fossil fuel — Coal, oil, and gas dug from the ground and burned for energy.
- federal government — The main U.S. government in Washington, D.C., not state governments.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the full bill text on Jul 5, 2026; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 23, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-17.
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