Let’s just stipulate one thing right off the top:
If Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Tim Walz of Minnesota, and JB Pritzker of Illinois are adamantly opposed to something involving energy policy, it’s a safe bet that what they’re fighting against is actually a really good idea.
That’s definitely the case for the Stop Climate Shakedown Act of 2026, recently authored and introduced in Congress by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) in the House of Representatives and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the Senate. This legislation is urgently needed to protect our economy, which is based on the continued use of domestically produced fossil fuels, from rabid leftists just like these governors.
Governors Newsom, Walz, and Pritzker were joined by seven colleagues from other blue states in sending a letter to Congress urging them to kill this legislation. They hate it because it would prevent environmental radicals from legislatively punishing energy companies for legal behavior and suing them into bankruptcy.
(In case you didn’t know this already, leftists want to squeeze every dollar out of energy firms, use the money to fund crazy liberal projects, and ruin the American and global economies while they’re at it.)
The Supreme Court will soon weigh in on a case from Boulder, Colorado, that demonstrates the need for Congressional action. In this suit, as in others, leftists argue that energy companies should foot the bill for public expenditures the locality says it must make to combat climate change in their community.
While this is occurring, some blue states are passing “climate superfund” laws that, again, go after energy companies for lawful behavior, in order to milk them of money that will be used to fund leftist priorities.
We simply cannot let individual states, cities, or counties impose backward-looking penalties on fully permitted activity. Not only would it cripple the American and world economies, but it would allow a nightmarish patchwork of radical energy policies among the states, rather than having a national direction set by Congress and the president.
Our national energy plan must acknowledge that our natural sources are the basis for both the U.S. and global economies, and they make life livable today. Modern hospitals run on reliable power, not intermittent wind and solar fantasies. Farms feed the world thanks to diesel tractors and natural gas fertilizers. People go to work in their cars and trucks, making the economy function.
We all know this as fact, yet Democrats keep pushing laws and lawsuits to punish the companies making it all possible.
Their goal is transparent: attack private firms until they bleed, cripple their operations, and jack up energy costs to force a painful transition to alternative fuel. Environmental radicals don’t want coexistence with fossil fuels; they want eradication.
Their logic, which is based entirely on negative emotions, collapses under basic scrutiny. They need the money from these companies to fund their own projects, but they are actively trying to destroy those same firms.
They are milking the cow while trying to kill it
The targeted energy companies didn’t break the law. They obtained all necessary permits and operated under government-imposed regulations, extracting, refining, and delivering energy under lawful authority. They helped build the modern economy and lift billions of people globally out of poverty.
Using this energy, America became the world’s top producer and the most prosperous nation in history. Now activists want to rewrite that success story as a crime and blow everything up in the process.
The left calls this environmental stewardship, but it’s really just activists projecting their anxieties onto everyone else and billing us for the therapy. It also offers a convenient workaround for blue-state budget disasters. After years of reckless spending, they need fresh revenue streams for priorities like free healthcare for illegal immigrants. Climate superfunds deliver that cash under the guise of justice.
Americans need affordable, reliable energy. Allowing open season on producers would raise costs for families, kill jobs across the nation, and increase our dependence on foreign suppliers.
If we value strength and independence, Congress must pass the Stop Climate Shakedown Act to defend consumers, workers, and our future.
Rep. Brandon Gill, a Republican, represents Texas’ 26th District in Congress
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