MEMO: Sierra Club & Partners Rally to Make Polluters Pay for Climate Disasters

Summary of Week of Action and What to Expect Next

Washington, DC — Last week, Sierra Club joined partners from across the country for a “Make Polluters Pay” Week of Action, a coordinated set of advocacy actions and events dedicated to holding Big Oil and Gas companies accountable for their climate mess. The week of action included rallies, press conferences, petition deliveries, meetings with legislators about state climate superfund laws, social media sharing, and more.

Sierra Club Director of Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy Mahyar Sorour said, “Communities have borne the responsibility of dealing with the mess left by polluting fossil fuel industries for too long. From rising energy and health care costs from pollution, to cleaning up orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells, to picking up the pieces after climate catastrophes, taxpayers foot the bill while oil and gas CEOs get rich from high energy prices and government handouts. Oil and gas companies must be held accountable for their actions and made to pay their fair share. It’s time to make polluters pay!”

Background: Why do we need to Make Polluters Pay?

Fossil fuel corporations knew they were causing climate change in the 1950s and spent millions of dollars to mislead the public. A recent study found that climate costs for the U.S. economy will exceed $1 trillion this year. Yet taxpayers — not the corporations that fueled the crisis — are footing the bill.

Meanwhile, electricity prices have risen 13 percent since Trump took office and are expected to climb more this winter. Yet, Trump is canceling thousands of clean energy projects that would bring costs down and increase energy reliability.

Communities across the United States are struggling to recover from fossil fueled climate disaster events that are becoming more deadly and destructive, while Trump continuously cuts relief services.

But, the oil and gas industry is urging Congress to give fossil fuel companies total legal immunity from any laws or lawsuits that could hold them accountable for their role in the climate crisis.

Solutions: Big Oil and Gas must be held accountable for their climate mess. 

We’ve already seen massive victories due to strong grassroots advocacy. Climate Superfund legislation would make the largest fossil fuel companies pay into a dedicated fund to help communities recover from floods, fires, and storms.

In 2024, Vermont and New York passed Climate Superfund laws, and at least a dozen more states are exploring ways to shift the cost of climate damages back where it belongs — onto the corporations that knowingly caused the harm.

The week of action raised community awareness around the need to ensure fossil fuel companies pay their fair share for the damage they caused. Legislators in red, blue and purple states are now paying attention. The increase in climate disasters, including powerful Winter Storm Fern that ravaged much of the country last week, is making the problem hard to ignore.

Snapshot of Some Week of Action Events

• Leading up to the week of action, Sierra Club hosted an online webinar to help prepare and train activists to take part in the Week of Action. Several hundred people participated to post supportive messages on social media and submit opinion pieces to local news outlets during the webinar.
• More than 100 people with Sierra Club Connecticut, Sunrise New Haven and other environmental groups gathered on Wednesday, January 28th, in the bitter cold at the state capitol to demand accountability, climate justice, and an affordable future. Following the rally, attendees gathered for a letter-writing session, calling on legislators to enact legislation to hold polluters accountable for climate disasters.In her remarks at the event, Julianna Larue, an organizer with Sierra Club’s Connecticut chapter said, “We refuse to let polluters rewrite the rules and escape accountability. Let’s tell the truth. Big oil caused the climate crisis. They knew. They lied. And they profited off of us.”

  Read news coverage in the Hartford Courant and Connecticut News Service, as well as opinion pieces from Sierra Club volunteers and supporters in the CT Examiner, CT News Junkie, and The Day (CT).

• From January 26–30, people across Colorado came together for Climate Disasters Awareness Week to raise awareness and to demand bold, urgent action from our elected leaders. Advocates hosted a photo and art exhibit in the foyer of the State Capitol Building and collected stories of people impacted by climate disasters in Colorado. Sierra Club Colorado and dozens of partners closed the week with a rally and press conference [view the press conference recording] at the Colorado State Capitol on Friday. Impacted Coloradans and community leaders stood together and urged legislators to pursue policies that protect our lives, our homes, and our future.Conservation Chair for the Colorado Sierra Club Ramesh Bhatt said: “Climate change in Colorado is costing us a lot of money. The dramatic increase in home insurance rates, forest fires, droughts, snow shortfalls, air pollution, water pollution, and the ruining of our biological environment, are all costly–reaching into billions that are hard to comprehend. Every household in Colorado is paying for these costs, as are businesses, local governments, fire districts, transportation districts, and schools. We need to come up with a plan to meet these costs fairly and ensure polluters are held accountable for the damages.”

Preparing to Pushback

Big Oil and Gas and its allies are feeling the pressure and are urging Congress to give fossil fuel companies total legal immunity from the growing wave of climate deception lawsuits filed by communities demanding accountability for their climate lies. Recently, the American Petroleum Institute (API), the nation’s largest oil and gas trade association, said that one of its top 2026 priorities is to stop “state climate lawsuits.”

Last year, 16 Republican attorneys general proposed creating a “liability shield” for fossil fuel companies modeled on a 2005 law protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits, and state-level immunity bills for the fossil fuel industry have already been introduced this year in Utah and Oklahoma.

We will not back down against Big Oil and Gas and will work to hold Congress accountable, to ensure that our elected representatives remember they work for the people, not polluters.

If you are interested in learning more about Sierra Club’s work to make polluters pay or have story ideas related to this subject, please contact Shannon Van Hoesen to speak to our policy experts, impacted individuals, or local leaders.

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person’s right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.