WASHINGTON: A group of bipartisan US senators on Wednesday said they have reintroduced legislation to pressure the OPEC oil production group to stop making output cuts.

The so-called No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels, or NOPEC, bill was reintroduced by senators Chuck Grassley, a Republican, and Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, and others on the Judiciary Committee.

If passed by the committee, both chambers of Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, NOPEC would change US antitrust law to revoke the sovereign immunity that has protected OPEC+ members and their national oil companies from lawsuits over price collusion.

Several attempts to pass NOPEC over more than two decades have long worried OPEC’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia, leading Riyadh to lobby hard every time a version of the bill has come up.