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Less than a year after moving to Texas to escape California’s extreme environmental laws, Chevron now finds itself embroiled in a Louisiana lawsuit defending itself against a $3 billion claim that World War II-era oil production caused erosion of the state’s coast.
As Michael Toth, a founding partner of PNT Law and a research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Civitas Institute, writes in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, the mastermind behind the claim is a politically connected trial lawyer who has leveraged his ties with Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill to lead a statewide fight to make oil and gas companies pay for exploration dating back to the 1940s.
In mid-March, a Plaquemines Parish jury heard opening arguments in a case seeking damages for the alleged environmental harm that Texaco—now owned by Chevron—caused when it began drilling in the Bayou Gentilly oil field in 1941.
The case, orchestrated by plaintiffs’ attorney John Carmouche will signal how juries will respond in the 40 other lawsuits that Carmouche’s Baton Rouge-based firm has brought to hold oil and gas companies liable for Louisiana’s coastal land loss.
Such an outcome would be a boon to plaintiffs’ lawyers, but a disaster for Louisiana’s ability to lead the Trump administration’s energy dominance agenda, Toth writes.
“Louisiana can’t expect to remain an attractive venue for the energy business if its leaders endorse anachronistic theories of tort liability that will cost the industry billions,” Toth says.
“The alliance between plaintiffs’ lawyers and Baton Rouge Republicans is an even bigger problem for President Trump.”
