Lawfare In The Big Easy Is Putting Trump’s Energy Agenda At Risk

President Donald Trump has a lousy friend in Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.

The governor recently unveiled a new plan purporting to align Louisiana with the president’s bid to make America the world’s undisputed energy master. [some emphasis, links added]

But at the same time, Landry is quietly backing fee-seeking private lawyers – who are also his campaign donors – in lawfare suits alleging oil and gas companies are responsible for the erosion of the Gulf coast because of 80-year-old production practices.

Landry’s alliance with his trial lawyer donors puts a red state in league with far-left climate litigants fast at work, sabotaging the president’s popular energy agenda.

There is an obvious charm to the good old boy club and to Louisiana’s colorful history of rent-seeking and riverboat racketeering. Huey Long died a popular man. But the romance fades with a closer view of the facts.

The first of over 40 coastal erosion lawsuits reached a verdict last year, resulting in a $745 million judgment against energy providers. Billions more are at stake, capital that would otherwise support Trump’s plans to make America the world’s energy superpower.

The lead trial lawyer in the coastal erosion cases has thrown big money around Louisiana politics for years.

A Landry-aligned super-PAC collected $300,000 from the law firm Talbot, Carmouche, and Marcello during Landry’s 2023 campaign for governor. Landry’s predecessor, former Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, was elected after being heavily backed by the same firm.

The trial lawyer cabal’s influence also extends to Louisiana’s courts.

Since 2012, Talbot, Carmouche, and Marcello, plus other trial lawyers involved with coastal litigation, have poured $3 million into judicial races at every level of the Louisiana courts, according to the good government advocacy group Louisiana Swamp Watch.

The firm even steered $15,000 in donations to Judge Michael Clement, who presided over last year’s landmark trial—$15K for a judicial candidate running unopposed in a parish with 20,000 residents.

If the $745 million judgment stands, Clement will also decide on attorney’s fees. That is, Clement will decide how much his own donors recoup from the case.

The campaign contributions have gone far.

In 2016, then-Attorney General Landry signed a joint prosecution agreement with the private trial lawyers representing the parishes, effectively giving them control of the case, even though the state’s political subdivisions are litigants.

That agreement forbids Louisiana from supporting any defense raised by the corporate defendants, no matter how convincing. The sheriff doesn’t usually hand his badge over to an outsider, but that’s just what happened here.

If Louisiana’s trial lawyers prevail, and there’s reason to think they won’t, expect them to roll a portion of their proceeds into future races. It’s simply too good.

Perhaps sensitive about all these facts (and how could he not be?), the governor recently unveiled a state energy strategy.

The official announcement trumpets an alignment of state agencies and private industry around Trump’s energy agenda and promises to establish Louisiana as “the nation’s industrial power leader.”

The strategy is useless as long as Louisiana backs the coastal erosion suits. If those lawsuits succeed, untold billions that would otherwise be spent opening new wells or building critical infrastructure will wind up in the pockets of Landry’s campaign donors and their clients.

The promise of new jobs will sink into the bog of corruption. The national knock-on effects are hard to predict comprehensively, but they will be significant.

What of Louisianans? How can the state seriously expect to attract long-term investment if its political leaders are seen to run errands for their campaign donors? Energy markets are especially sensitive to political risk. Capital flees jurisdictions where retroactive liability is unlimited.

Remember, the erosion lawsuits are about energy production that happened 80 years ago.

Landry cannot credibly present Louisiana as a safe harbor for long term energy investment while outsourcing state power to fee-seeking trial lawyers.

If Landry truly means to be an ally to the president on energy, he should find ways to withdraw state backing for Louisiana’s activist trial lawyers and their climate lawfare scheme.

Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and attorney. He posts on X at @JunkScience.

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