How labor killed a bill to let California wildfire victims sue Big Oil for climate change

Oil companies had their hackles up this year after Sen. Scott Wiener introduced a controversial bill that would allow victims of wildfires and other climate disasters to sue them for causing climate change.

Facing potentially billions of dollars in losses, Big Oil had a lot to lose.

But oil companies took a back seat last week when it came time to persuade environmentally friendly lawmakers to kill the legislation.

Instead, Big Oil’s most influential allies in California’s Democratic-controlled Legislature – the unions that represent oil industry workers – led the opposition. They successfully persuaded a committee made up of pro-labor Democrats to kill the measure, which had support from nearly every California environmental organization.