EXCLUSIVE: How Louisiana trial lawyers could jeopardize Trump's energy policies
THE LOWDOWN:
While Louisiana is one of America’s most Republican states, energy experts are warning the Washington Reporter that a new lawsuit could destroy President Donald Trump’s energy agenda.
Ocean waters have eroded about 2,000 square miles of Louisiana land since the 1930s. “There’s little doubt those islands in the Gulf off the coast of New Orleans are disappearing,” one energy expert told the Reporter. The cause of the sinking is what is at issue.
Trial lawyers are relying heavily on what legal experts called a “triple bank shot theory of land loss liability,” blaming energy companies for dredging canals in coastal Louisiana during the 1940s and 1950s.
Another issue facing the trial lawyers’ case, a legal analyst noted, was that Louisiana itself “signed off on the oil production activity at the center of this case.”
While Louisiana is one of America’s most Republican states, energy experts are warning the Washington Reporter that a new lawsuit could destroy President Donald Trump’s energy agenda.
If trial lawyers in the state are successful in a suit faulting oil companies for coastal land loss in the state, it could drive energy companies away from investing in oil production and needed infrastructure upgrades if they fear those projects will get them sued.
This runs directly afoul of Trump’s pro-American energy independence campaign pledges, which are so popular that Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) jokingly told the Reporter in an interview that he has them tattooed on his arm.
Ocean waters have eroded about 2,000 square miles of Louisiana land since the 1930s. “There’s little doubt those islands in the Gulf off the coast of New Orleans are disappearing,” one energy expert told the Reporter. The cause of the sinking is what is at issue.
Trial lawyers are relying heavily on what legal experts called a “triple bank shot theory of land loss liability,” blaming energy companies for dredging canals in coastal Louisiana during the 1940s and 1950s.
That, the energy expert said, doesn’t hold water.
“All those islands are disappearing because after Katrina the Army Corp built so many levees and dykes to never have another Katrina that now no silt deposits run the Mississippi. Want proof? Neighboring Alabama and Texas are not sinking. Just Louisiana? There must be a hill of water somewhere.”
Another issue facing the trial lawyers’ case, a legal analyst noted, was that Louisiana itself “signed off on the oil production activity at the center of this case.”
The energy expert explained what’s really at stake in this case: money. “Oil companies have the money. And when you’re a trial lawyer hammer everything looks like a nail,” he said.
Despite the significant legal flaws in the anti-energy case, GOP insiders told the Reporter that the plaintiffs still have a significant path to victory, because “trial lawyers have powerful friends in Baton Rouge who campaign as MAGA but let the trial lawyers run the state.”
The stakes for Trump’s agenda couldn’t be higher, as Louisiana is on the cusp of becoming a liquefied natural gas (LNG) superpower — and junk lawsuits could jeopardize the industry’s growth at the worst possible time for Trump.
Presently, energy companies are funding dredging projects in Louisiana like the Calcasieu Ship Channel, a critical 36-mile waterway connecting the Gulf of America to Lake Charles LNG facilities; a major deepening of the Sabine-Neches Waterway to service the Sabine Pass LNG terminal; and a project to deepen the canal between the Gulf and Baton Rouge.
These three dredging projects together will support 70-80 million tons of LNG export capacity per year, analyses show; that massive energy production capacity is at risk if the trial lawyers have their way, and it would jettison a critical component of Trump’s plan to “drill baby drill.”
