BREAKING NEWS: Oregon Congressional Delegation Demands Repeal of Trump Executive Order Shielding Big Oil

July 21, 2025 — In a powerful rebuke of President Trump’s controversial Executive Order 14260, the entire Oregon Congressional Delegation (except one member) sent the below July 18, 2025 letter demanding that the Trump Administration rescind its April 8, 2025 directive that seeks to block state laws and civil lawsuits aimed at holding fossil fuel companies accountable for climate damages.

Issued under the title “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach”, Trump’s Executive Order instructs the U.S. Attorney General to identify and halt any state or local effort—including civil tort claims—that seek to make Big Oil pay for the costs of extreme weather disasters fueled by greenhouse gas emissions. The Oregon delegation calls this an “unprecedented and illegal” attack on state sovereignty and an unprecedented attempt to strip state courts of their authority over traditional tort actions.

The delegation’s letter directly supports Multnomah County’s landmark climate lawsuit filed against major oil companies, which accuses them of long-running deception and demands accountability for damages tied to climate-driven events including the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. President Trump’s executive order—clearly a product of Big Oil’s billion-dollar 2024 campaign contribution bargain—seeks to bolster the industry’s own efforts to derail the County’s claims, to which the County has recently responded with force, filing no fewer than 26 briefs in opposition to the defendants’ sweeping motions to dismiss and strike. 

President Trump’s Executive Order 14260 is deeply flawed—legally, constitutionally, and ethically—and threatens serious harm to state sovereignty, judicial independence, and public welfare. A detailed memorandum outlining these legal and policy deficiencies is available here.

We applaud the Oregon Congressional Delegation for forcefully condemning Executive Order 14260 and recognizing that climate accountability is a matter of public health, safety, and justice.