Lawsuits Are Quietly Driving Up Energy Prices for American Families

The rising cost of energy is being driven by a wave of politically motivated lawsuits aimed at oil and gas companies. While these cases often make headlines about “holding producers accountable,” the real cost ultimately falls on consumers.

Recently, the United States scored a win by delaying a proposed carbon tax on the shipping industry at a United Nations meeting. It was a reminder that taxes on energy, no matter how they are packaged, ultimately hit working families. But while diplomats were fighting to shield Americans from new international fees, here in the U.S., states and municipalities have been pursuing their own legal campaigns against domestic energy producers, and those costs are being passed on to every household that puts gas in a car or turns on a light switch.

For nearly a decade, cities and states have filed lawsuits claiming that energy companies should pay massive damages for global climate change. These cases are coordinated and well-funded, backed by networks of state attorneys general, university legal centers, and philanthropic donors. Their own legal strategists have admitted the goal: to cripple the oil and gas industry financially.

Whether these lawsuits succeed or fail almost doesn’t matter. The legal costs alone are enormous. As economist Wayne Winegarden has shown, when you add up the damages plaintiffs are seeking across multiple cases, even at a conservative $100 billion, it amounts to an additional 31 cents per gallon for consumers. That’s an extra $326 per household per year, on top of everything else families are already paying.

These costs operate like a shadow tax. They are not debated in Congress, not voted on by the public, and not reviewed for economic impact. Instead, they are imposed through court filings and legal maneuvers that bypass the legislative process entirely. It’s a backdoor way to raise energy prices while avoiding accountability for the consequences.

President Trump and Congressional leaders have urged the Supreme Court to step in and reinforce that lawmakers, not local courts, must set energy policy. If these lawsuits continue unchecked, energy prices will keep climbing, economic growth will slow, and consumers will be left footing the bill for political battles they never asked to fund.