Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal Quashes Lawsuit Against 97 Oil And Gas Companies For Years Of Destroying Wetlands

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/09/3446410/louisiana-jindal-oil-gas-bill/

BY ARI PHILLIPS ON JUNE 9, 2014

Three former Louisiana governors, State Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, more than 100 legal experts, and a number of environmental groups and state politicians urged Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal [the Vice Chairman of the Republican Governors Association] not to sign a bill that would kill a New Orleans area flood authority’s lawsuit against 97 oil and gas companies. On Friday, Gov. Jindall signed that bill. Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, called the signing “a huge victory for the oil and gas industry.”

Not only were there significant concerns over the companies’ responsibility for paying for years of damaging dredging and destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of coastal wetlands, but also that the bill could undermine other lawsuits against oil and gas interests in Louisiana — including claims against BP over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

“For his own agenda, Governor Jindal has now put over 1 million people, their lives, and their property at risk,” Gladstone Jones, lead attorney for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E) suit, said in an emailed statement. “Further, he may very well have cost those same people and their communities billions of dollars.”

The SLFPA-E filed the suit last summer, which asks the companies to restore damaged wetlands or offer financial compensation for areas beyond repair, money that could be used for levee maintenance or construction. Oil and gas companies have been cutting canals through Louisiana’s coastal wetlands for decades to move equipment and build pipelines. This activity has led to saltier marshes that don’t support as much erosion-preventing plant life. It is slowly destroying the natural buffer that protected many of Louisiana’s coastal communities.

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Last year, environmental groups pointed out that Jindal had received a total of $1,019,777 from oil and gas companies and executives in state election campaigns between 2003 and 2013. Only a fraction of the estimated $50 billion cost of coastal restoration, the groups charged it was enough to buy Jindal’s opposition. Jindal’s signing of the bill in the face of a swelling veto movement last week would appear to strengthen their claim.