Last month, I warned that Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill had turned her back on MAGA energy dominance by siding with climate trial lawyers in their $745 million shakedown case against the energy industry. Some might have thought I was being too harsh. But events since then have proven me exactly right: Murrill’s position is not just misguided — it’s directly at odds with President Trump’s agenda, Louisiana’s economy, and basic common sense.
The Supreme Court battle over the Plaquemines Parish lawsuit has now placed these issues squarely into the national spotlight. And with the Trump administration filing a brief in defense of energy companies, there is no longer any doubt about where conservatives stand.
The President has made American energy dominance a defining feature of his second term. He is not about to endorse Democrat-style lawsuits that threaten drilling, jobs, and growth in a state where oil and gas are the lifeblood of the economy. Yet this is precisely what Murrill has done. By teaming up with Democrat-aligned trial lawyers, she has imported California-style climate lawfare into Louisiana. For a self-described Republican to play this role in a deep red state is an astonishing betrayal.
Murrill has repeatedly tried to dress up her position as a concern for Louisiana’s coast. But that pretense collapsed the moment Trump’s Department of Justice weighed in. The President and his energy team have made it crystal clear that these lawsuits are not about environmental restoration; they are about foisting liability on oil companies and bleeding them of cash to bankroll the climate lobby. The fact that Murrill, Louisiana’s top law enforcement officer, cannot or will not admit what is plain to the White House speaks volumes about her priorities.
Her insistence on repeating debunked claims shows just how compromised this effort has become. Most notably, she continues to push the trial lawyer narrative that energy companies dumped “four billion gallons of toxic waste” into Louisiana marshes. This characterization is pure political theatre.
The “waste” in question was so-called “produced water” — a routine byproduct of drilling that is mostly just salty water. Its discharge was explicitly lawful, permitted by the state of Louisiana at the time, and overseen by federal regulators as well. There was nothing secret, nothing unlawful, and nothing resembling the horror story she now invokes.
Only after the state aligned itself with contingency fee lawyers looking for a jackpot did anyone suddenly declare this routine practice to be “toxic.” The goal is to shock the public into blaming energy companies for existing onshore and offshore erosion, not to uphold the truth.
Why keep pressing such obviously flimsy claims? Because without them, the case evaporates. Murrill’s case has always been about scapegoating oil companies while ignoring a century of history that actually explains Louisiana’s coastal erosion. The real story is one of government engineering – the levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers after the great Mississippi flood of 1927, which stopped sediment from reaching the delta. Far less silt flowed into the marshes, and the coast began eroding. This has been well documented by scientists and acknowledged by politicians of all stripes until trial lawyers sniffed an opportunity to rewrite history for profit. To now pretend energy companies are responsible is not simply bad law; it is historical fraud.
What makes this tragedy worse is what Louisiana stands to lose if Murrill’s line of attack succeeds. Energy producers support more than 300,000 jobs in the state, contribute $77 billion annually to the economy, and generate nearly $3.5 billion a year in tax revenue — fully one-fifth of Louisiana’s budget.
Every attack on energy companies is an attack on schools, healthcare, public safety, and the very environmental programs Murrill claims to care about. Energy companies have already shown that they are willing to walk away from hostile states. Chevron has left California. If this litigation cancer festers, why should they not conclude that Louisiana is the next California?
A state that owes a quarter of its economy to oil and gas should not be chasing its employers out the door. Yet Murrill would rather advance the agenda of radical climate activists and fill the wallets of trial lawyers than defend the jobs and futures of her own constituents. That much is no longer in dispute. The President himself has just made the choice crystal clear by siding firmly and unequivocally with energy companies.
This is a victory for real science, a victory for Louisiana workers, and a victory for President Trump’s commonsense energy agenda. Murrill has isolated herself, parroting trial lawyer slogans already rejected by the commander-in-chief. Conservatives in Louisiana should take note. The contrast could not be sharper: President Trump is fighting to save America’s oil industry. Liz Murrill is helping to destroy it.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, posting on X as @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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