Gov. Jeff Landry
Recent initiatives by the energy industry and Gov. Jeff Landry are helping to resolve longstanding coastal erosion lawsuits filed by parishes against oil and gas giants, but the secrecy surrounding the agreements has led to pushback and uncertainties.
Last month, BP said negotiations with Louisiana officials resulted in an agreement to bring the remaining coastal erosion lawsuits involving the multinational energy company to a close. No further details were disclosed in the company’s Oct. 23 announcement, but Landry has stressed that he is working to improve the state’s litigation environment by addressing the legacy lawsuits, which many parishes filed more than a decade ago.
“We have now disposed of claims and settled with all but one of the major defendants in these coastal cases,” Landry said in a statement.
The last of the major defendants not covered by agreements is apparently Chevron, which last year was ordered by a jury to pay a $744 million verdict to Plaquemines Parish as a result of past degradation caused by industry activities in the coastal wetlands. A U.S. Supreme Court decision, however, later concluded the case should be transferred to federal courts, putting that verdict in question.
Lana Venable, executive director of Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch (LLAW), said she had not seen the terms of the BP settlement, but LLAW expressed caution about such legal agreements.
“... It is concerning whether these confidential settlements end up being used as a pricing benchmark against other defendants still involved in coastal cases, rather than ending the cycle,” Venable told the Louisiana Record in an email.
She added that a new wave of lawsuits is forming over inland oil and gas operations.
“In an effort to beat the Sept. 1, 2027, sunset date on legacy lawsuits established last year, more than two dozen suits have been filed in the past year,” Venable said. “Eight of these were filed in October alone, and many name the same major producers. Some of these claims reach back to operations from the 1920s.”
One plaintiffs' law currently has a countdown clock on its website to prod potential clients to sue before the legislative reforms take effect, she said.
“That's not a problem winding down,” Venable added. “It's a rush to the courthouse.”
In June, Landry posted on X, formerly Twitter, that “we’ve reached a final agreement with ExxonMobil, resolving years of litigation and delivering tangible results for our coast and communities.”
Two months later, the governor announced a major deal with SpaceX to build a spaceport on land previously owned by ExxonMobil along the Gulf coast in Vermilion Parish, whose coastal erosion lawsuit against ExxonMobil was recently dismissed by a federal judge. Details about the agreement remain confidential, prompting the Vermilion Citizens Coalition last month to file a state lawsuit accusing parish officials of violating the state’s open-meeting law..
“The efforts to keep the public in the dark are so extreme that after the Vermilion Parish Police Jury signed a settlement agreement with ExxonMobil, the Governor’s Office sent a staff member to take away every single copy of the agreement – so that Vermilion citizens cannot even review what their elected officials agreed to,” the lawsuit filed in the 15th Judicial District Court states.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to void the parish’s approval of the SpaceX agreement, which took place at the police jury’s Aug. 25 meeting.
“... It is vital that Vermilion Parish citizens and taxpayers be able to participate in the discussion of the proposed project, and that all governmental meetings about the project be open to the public for comment and input,” the legal complaint says. “But that has not happened.”
Despite such concerns about agreements to resolve the coastal erosion lawsuits, Louisiana’s energy industry is hopeful that the financial burdens from the lawsuits will be lifted soon.
“The coastal lawsuits have been devastating to oil and gas production in Louisiana’s inland waters; not just for producers, but for state royalties and severance taxes,” Mike Moncla, the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association’s president, said in a statement emailed to the Record. “Once the hundreds of defendants have been released from these lawsuits, we are hopeful that Louisiana can turn the page from frivolous lawsuits and attract investment again.”
