Sen. Wiener Bill to hold ‘Big Oil’ Responsible for California’s Natural Disasters Killed

California Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill in February to hold “Big Oil” responsible for natural disasters in California. You read that right – Senator Wiener is blaming the oil and gas industry for natural disasters, or disasters that should have been mitigated by the State of California.

Senate Bill 222 would allow the state FAIR Plan, insurance companies, and individuals to sue oil and gas companies for wildfire damages.

Sen. Wiener proclaimed that “The fossil fuel industry is fueling climate change,” and then announced Senate Bill 222 to force the oil and gas industry to pay for all disasters in the state – and in doing so, will allow insurance companies and victims of fires, floods, rain and sleet, wind events, mudslides, and earthquakes to sue fossil fuel companies for damages, the Globe reported in January.

Sponsoring Wiener’s bill is the the Rockefeller-backed Center for Climate Integrity, which brags that they are “Exposing Big Oil’s Lies & Demanding Accountability.” The Center for Climate Integrity is a Washington DC non-profit. …Wondering how much funding they have received from USAID…

Immediately following the Leno’s Law bill Tuesday in the Senate Transportation Committee, which the Globe reported on, Wiener’s SB 222 only got a 5 to 7 vote and will not move forward. Opposition was bipartisan. 

As Energy In Depth Climate and Environment reported:

A March 2025 report from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) projects that if plaintiffs’ attorneys succeeded in recouping damages under SB 222, household energy costs could rise 15%, slashing $2,915 in purchasing power per household and eliminating nearly 140,000 jobs statewide. The broader impact? A 1.2% hit to economic growth and $8.3 billion in lost government revenue.

An earlier analysis of SB 222 from the California Center for Jobs & The Economy also shows the legislation could dramatically increase the state’s cost of living. Kyla Christoffersen Powell, President of the Civil Justice Association of California, writes:

  Despite the proponents’ claims, SB 222 does nothing to help Los Angeles rebuild, and it simply will not fix California’s broken insurance market. The Legislature must reject this bill. We need to find real pathways to rebuild Los Angeles and help fire victims without massively increasing the cost of living here.

As the Globe reported in February:

the Center for Climate Integrity claims, that “California voters support recovering insurance losses from Big Oil, new poll finds.”

Really?

What is this new poll? Why it’s a poll conducted by the Center for Climate Integrity and Data for Progress of 656 likely voters.

“From January 28 to 30, 2025, Data for Progress and the Center for Climate Integrity conducted a survey of 656 likely voters in California, including an oversample of Los Angeles County, using web panel respondents,” Center for Climate Integrity says.

Even Democrat Senator Angelique Ashby, a former Sacramento City Councilwoman and attorney warned during the Transportation Committee hearing that Wiener’s bill would “drive up the cost of gas” and questioned whether suing oil companies was the right tactic:  

“And I think in the end, this bill—at least for me—is too much about a private right of action and a litigation strategy. It’s too much money spent on lawyers and courts and not enough on people. I know it’s intended to be a form of accountability, and we’re sitting in the Judiciary Committee. I went to law school. I get it. That’s what the legal system is supposed to do—accountability.

“But sometimes that mechanism of accountability can get turned upside down. It costs so much that it becomes part of the problem. I truly believe this bill would drive us to that space.” 

As EID correctly concludes, as the Globe did in February, “SB 222 was never about fixing wildfires or protecting Californians – it was a cash grab for trial lawyers and climate lawfare activists. Legislators on both sides of the aisle saw right through it.”

San Francisco Senator Scott Wiener is always on the wrong side of issues important to Californians, authoring the most extreme issues, and pleased to carry water for the most radical non-profits.

The legislative system worked in the case of such a radical and extremist bill in SB 222. Now we have to make sure that Senator Wiener doesn’t bury this bill within the budget bill in June.