STEVE MILLOY: Louisiana Larceny And President Trump’s Lousy Friends
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…
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. 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 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 year’s landmark trial—$15K for a judicial candidate