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 presidentâs bid to make America the worldâs undisputed energy master. But at the same time, Landry is quietly backing fee-seeking private lawyers â who are also his campaign donors â in lawfare suits alleging oil and gas companies are responsible for the erosion of the Gulf coast because of 80-year-old production practices.
Landryâs alliance with his trial lawyer donors puts a red state in league with far-left climate litigants fast at work sabotaging the presidentâs popular energy agenda. There is an obvious charm to the good old boy club and to Louisianaâs 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 Trumpâs plans to make America the worldâs 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 $300,000Â from the law firm Talbot, Carmouche, and Marcello during Landryâs 2023 campaign for governor. Landryâs predecessor, former Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, was elected after being heavily backed by the same firm.
The trial lawyer cabalâs influence also extends to Louisianaâs courts. Since 2012, Talbot, Carmouche, and Marcello and 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 the judge, Michael Clement, who presided over last yearâs landmark trialâ$15K for a judicial candidate running unopposed in a parish with 20,000 residents.
If the $745 million judgement stands, Clement will also decide on attorneyâs fees. That is, Clement will decide how much his own donors recoup off 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 stateâs political subdivisions are litigants. That agreement forbids Louisiana from supporting any defense raised by the corporate defendants, no matter how convincing. The sheriff doesnât usually hand his badge over to an outsider, but thatâs just what happened here.
If Louisianaâs trial lawyers prevail, and thereâs reason to think they wonât, expect them to roll a portion of his proceeds into future races. Itâs simply too good.
Perhaps sensitive about all these facts (and how could he not be?) â the governor recently unveiled a state energy strategy. The official announcement trumpets an alignment of state agencies and private industry around Trumpâs energy agenda and promises to establish Louisiana as âthe nationâs industrial power leader.â
The strategy is useless for so 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 Landryâs 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 Louisianaâs activist trial lawyers and their climate lawfare scheme.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and attorney. He posts on X at @JunkScience.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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