The Louisiana Legislature is moving on a bill that would prohibit anyone from suing oil and gas companies for damages, injuries, or deaths attributed to pollution-driven climate change. House Bill 804, sponsored by Rep. Brett Geymann (R-Lake Charles), advanced out of the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment on Thursday, April 24, 2026 with unanimous support. Geymann is the committee's chair.
Geymann calls his proposal the Louisiana Energy Protection Act. It would effectively give energy companies legal immunity from liability related to illnesses, injuries, deaths, or other damages stemming from the climate effects of industrial air pollution. Carve-outs are narrow: the prohibition would not apply to damages from violations of regulatory air permits or the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The general grant of immunity is broad.
The reference case driving the bill: a Washington-state lawsuit blaming seven fossil-fuel companies for the death of Juliana Leon, 65, who died of heat stroke on June 28, 2021 during the Pacific Northwest heat dome that spiked temperatures to 108°F. Some scientists linked the heat spike, reported to cause more than 650 deaths in North America, to industrial-driven climate change. The lawsuit, still pending, is the first seeking to hold the fossil-fuel industry accountable for an individual's death. HB 804 is structurally a preemptive defense against that case being replicated in Louisiana. Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association: “somewhat of a preemptive strike against the frivolous lawsuits making their way through liberal cities throughout our country."
Geymann said HB 804's language is drawn in part from the federal Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026 (Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, and Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-WY). Similar state-level laws have already passed in Utah and Tennessee. Louisiana's bill would extend a coordinated legal-immunity framework now in development across multiple Republican-controlled states and at the federal level.
Cameron Sholty, a Heartland Institute lobbyist: “It would make as much sense to sue the tooth fairy.” His substantive argument: “These lawsuits are not really about compensating a cleanly traceable injury. They're about using litigation to punish lawful energy production and to force policy change through the bench.” John West, a Vernon Parish resident, was one of three who testified against: “considering people is last and considering economics is first.” Rep. Marcus Bryant (D-New Iberia) voted for the bill but compared climate-litigation logic to suing a golf course for a gust of wind. The unanimous bipartisan vote sent the bill to the House floor. Geymann told colleagues no one asked him to sponsor it, but climate-change lawsuits “was mentioned in a recent work group meeting he had with oil and gas executives."
The Louisiana context for what HB 804 would shield. The Data Center, a New Orleans research nonprofit, found 11 years of $90 billion in industrial investment in Louisiana (2015–2025) produced 0.18% net job growth (vs. ~10% nationally), population decline in industrial parishes, and 30% more toxic spills reported to state regulators. HB 804 does not change those underlying conditions. It changes whether the people experiencing them can sue.