Louisiana Senate Faces Crossroads On Climate Litigation Bill

Amendments Would Make HB 804 A Climate Litigation Protection Bill

Unfortunately, these proposed amendments threaten to fundamentally reshape HB 804. Critics likes Steve Forbes and Canary, Inc. CEO Dan Eberhart, warn that new language exempting lawsuits filed before the bill’s effective date would create dangerous carveouts. Rather than applying uniform protections against climate liability claims, the amendments would protect more than 40 ongoing coastal erosion lawsuits targeting American energy producers. The practical result would change a bill designed to stop climate lawfare to one that preserves one of the largest and most expensive litigation campaigns facing Louisiana’s energy sector.

This outcome would be perverse, preserving the very litigation the original bill was designed to limit. Coastal lawsuits blaming energy companies for erosion and land loss – despite decades of federal navigation projects, levee systems, and the natural processes of the Mississippi River Delta – have long been criticized as scientifically shaky attempts to extract massive settlements from productive industries. By carving out preexisting cases, the amendments would effectively shield these efforts from reform. Trial lawyers involved in those cases targeting one class of companies would be able to continue their campaign uninterrupted while the rest of the industry gains supposed protections. In short, the legislation risks being transformed from a shield for energy producers into a shield for their most aggressive opponents.

Those law firms and their supporting activist groups haven’t been shy about publicly supporting the amendments. During the Senate Committee on Natural Resources hearing on HB 804, Victor L. Marcello of Talbot Carmouche & Marcello and Merrilee Montgomery of the Sierra Club testified in favor of amendments that critics say would protect these legacy lawsuits.

“This would remove one of the tools from the toolbox of trying to fight back against climate change,” said Peter Robins-Brown, executive director of the Louisiana Progress advocacy group.

Supporters of the bill as drafted say the lawsuits have no real connection to any attempt to solve climate change. David Cresson, president and chief executive officer of the Louisiana Chemistry Association, told The Advocate that, “These lawsuits will not solve climate change. They will not improve the environment. What they will do is raise costs and make it harder for employ(ers) to invest and create jobs in this state.”

Amendments Contradict Federal Climate Litigation Decisions

So, what began as outside advocacy has now penetrated the legislative process itself whereby trial lawyers are attempting to co-opt the bill for their own agenda. Recent legal developments help underscore the stakes at hand. The trial lawyers were slapped down by the U.S. Supreme Court in April when it delivered a unanimous 8-0 ruling determining that energy producers’ wartime activities were sufficiently connected to federal responsibilities to warrant moving these cases into federal court.

The decision aligned with the Justice Department’s position on the matter. The Trump Department of Justice had submitted a brief arguing that disputes involving national energy interests and federal duties belong in federal venues, where consistent standards and broader perspectives can prevail over local venue shopping.

This Supreme Court ruling highlights the importance of keeping these cases out of forums perceived as more favorable to expansive liability theories. Yet the proposed amendments to HB 804 threaten to undermine that progress by preserving the very state-court actions the federal courts are scrutinizing.

Governor Jeff Landry has positioned himself as a strong supporter of President Trump’s agenda for American energy dominance, even agreeing to serve as the administration’s envoy to Greenland in addition to his duties as Governor.

Allowing HB 804 to be diluted into a vehicle that protects meritless coastal erosion lawsuits would contradict that stance. Allowing amendments to shift the goal of the bill would make it hard for Louisiana and Gov. Landry to claim to back Trump’s vision of unleashing domestic energy production while simultaneously enabling legal strategies designed to burden and penalize that same production.

A Choice Between Certainty Or More Climate Litigation

Gov. Landry and State Senators have a clear choice as the session enters its final week. They can finalize a bill that provides genuine legal certainty and pushes back against climate lawfare, consistent with actions in other states and with federal court rulings. Or they can allow the plaintiff firms to keep their lucrative lawfare mill alive for years to come.

Securing Louisiana’s energy activity should be straightforward: A set of fair, predictable rules that prevent weaponized litigation from undermining a sector that powers Louisiana’s economy, funds state services, and contributes mightily to national security.

State and federal governments need keep the promises they made when their regulatory agencies approved every permit for every well that was drilled, every canal that was dug, every pipeline that was laid in South Louisiana since World War II. Passing HB 804 as a measure to address the onslaught of climate litigation – not allow the bill to be hijacked by trial lawyers in a way that will perpetuate their anti-energy climate litigation efforts would go a long way towards keeping those promises.