Louisiana is awaiting the governor’s signature on legislation that will make it the fifth state this year to shield oil and gas companies from climate change lawsuits.
The bill, passed by both state legislatures, would prohibit lawsuits seeking compensation for the effects of greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
Existing lawsuits, including numerous legal disputes asking courts to hold companies financially responsible for Louisiana’s rapidly eroding coastline, will not be affected. A state Senate committee last month amended the bill to exclude those lawsuits, angering critics of challenges brought by coastal parish governments.
However, the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Brett Gaiman, who represents Beauregard and Calcasieu parishes in western Louisiana, did not oppose the amendment. Gaiman said the amendments were redundant to the original language, but added that “more specificity is needed because of the increasing number of coastal cases.”
He said the full Senate amendment makes it clear that coastal erosion lawsuits are excluded as long as they are “never used to make a climate change claim.”
Critics of the exclusion blame the amendment on Louisiana trial attorneys representing Plaquemines, Cameron and other coastal parishes who sued oil majors for drilling activities that degraded Louisiana’s fragile coastline.
The lawsuits allege the companies failed to obtain the proper permits and seek millions of dollars in payments. Last year, for example, a court in Louisiana ordered Chevron to pay $744 million in damages.
The Supreme Court ruled in April that oil majors could move many of their pending lawsuits from states to federal courts, where companies believe they can have greater success. The diocese argued that the company did not have the proper permits under Louisiana law.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry (R) recently announced a tentative agreement to resolve the lawsuit with some of the oil companies involved in the lawsuit.
Rather, Gaiman said his bill is aimed at blocking climate lawsuits like those brought by more than 20 local governments across the country seeking compensation for global warming. He said the bill was not intended to be retroactive.
State Sen. Bob Hensgens, a Republican who chairs the Senate Natural Resources Committee and represents the coastal parish of Vermilion along with parts of Acadia and Lafayette, said he proposed the amendment “solely to avoid impacting coastal litigation that has already been filed.”
Hensgens pointed out on the Senate floor that the bill does not prevent lawsuits against polluters who exceed permit limits.
“This bill simply keeps courts focused on actual, provable violations, rather than global policy debates,” he said.
The Louisiana Chamber of Commerce said the changes “did not garner universal appeal” but maintained the bill’s broader framework.
Will Green, the association’s president and CEO, said the bill is “an important step toward increasing legal certainty and strengthening Louisiana’s competitiveness in investment, economic growth, and job creation.”
He said the bill would “bring greater clarity and predictability to Louisiana’s legal environment while preserving long-standing environmental protections and regulatory remedies.”
Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Midcontinent Oil and Gas Association, told lawmakers the bill would protect businesses in the state, but would not prevent them from making “legitimate claims” for damages.
“This is strictly limited to greenhouse gas emissions (contribution) to climate change,” he said of the bill.
Victor Marcello of the law firm Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello, who represents the diocese in legal claims against the oil industry, testified against the bill before the Senate Natural Resources Committee, calling it “a solution in search of a problem.”
Marcello noted that the lawsuits covered by the bill seek climate change compensation, accusing oil and gas companies of misleading the public about the dangers of burning fossil fuels.
“No one in this state has ever made such a claim, and I doubt anyone in this state, city or diocese will ever make such a claim,” he said.
Marcello said oil companies could use the law to escape routine lawsuits targeting pollution simply by arguing that the legal challenge is related to climate change.
“If you want to say you can’t file a climate change lawsuit in Louisiana, so be it. But this bill does much more than that, and I can guarantee you that there will be lawyers who will interpret this bill that way,” Marcello said.
The Sierra Club also opposed the bill, testifying that it could make it more difficult to challenge future petrochemical projects involving carbon capture and sequestration.
Gaiman said the bill would not weaken or affect traditional pollution control laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.
Louisiana’s bill is similar to bills passed in Utah, Tennessee, Iowa and Oklahoma. Consumers Defense, a conservative group founded in 2023 to help Republicans attack Wall Street’s adoption of sustainable investment policies, has proposed a model bill targeting climate change litigation.
The group claims its Energy Freedom Act “protects state sovereignty and the right to engage in legal fossil fuel-related activities within states.” Consumers Defense is a division of Consumers’ Research and has close ties to conservative legal activist Leonard Leo.
Congress also introduced legislation in April that would protect oil and gas companies from burning their products.
The American Petroleum Institute has named climate change responsibility policy a top priority this year.
Supporters of the lawsuit have criticized efforts to block the lawsuit, saying cities and towns affected by climate change deserve to be heard.
“If you’re not breaking the law, there’s no reason to seek immunity,” said Richard Wiles, director of the Center for Climate Health.
Correction: An earlier version of this report misspelled the name of Tommy Forcheux, president of the Louisiana Midcontinent Oil and Gas Association.
