The bill, if passed, would open up Opec members and partners to lawsuits over collusion on crude oil prices.
A US Senate committee has passed a bill that could open the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and its partners, including Russia, to lawsuits for collusion on the rise in crude oil prices.
The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels (Nopec) bill, sponsored by Republican Chuck Grassley and Democrat Amy Klobuchar, passed 17-4 in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
However, it will need to pass the full Senate and House and be signed by President Joe Biden in order to become law.
The bill would change US antitrust law to revoke the sovereign immunity that has long protected Opec and its national oil companies from lawsuits.
By doing so, the US attorney general would then have the power to sue Opec, its members such as Saudi Arabia or its partners like Russia, in federal court on charges including market manipulation.
"I believe that free and competitive markets are better for consumers than markets controlled by a cartel of state-owned oil companies ... competition is the very basis of our economic system," Klobuchar said in a statement.