Discussions have taken place behind closed doors, in Capitol hallways and at legislative crawfish boils, but the high-stakes issue of oilfield contamination claims, or “legacy lawsuits,” got its first public hearing of the session today at a meeting of the Joint Natural Resources Committee. No specific bills were considered at the information hearing, at which representatives of oil companies and attorneys for landowners laid out their differences over how to settle the mass of litigation and to clean up land and water that were polluted decades ago. After two and a half hours, Committee Chairman Sen. Gerald Long, R-Natchitoches, urged the parties to continue trying to reach a resolution.
Both sides agree on the goal of enabling the responsible party, often a major oil company that held a lease decades ago, to accept responsibility for cleanup while allowing plaintiffs to pursue claims for damages separately. The sticking point has been industry’s insistence that the Department of Natural Resources develop a cleanup plan that can be introduced as evidence in the trial for damages. Jimmy Faircloth, attorney for landowner Roy Martin, objects because he believes that the understaffed Office of Conservation would be unduly influenced by executive lobbying to grant variances to regulatory cleanup standards. He only wants the department’s report admitted if the state decides to intervene in a suit, which, industry claims, would not happen often to relieve the glut of lawsuits. Read the full column—which also touches on an unrelated debate at the Capitol today over the constitutionality of increasing the retirement age for state employees—here.
(John Maginnis will publish a daily update throughout the legislative session on Daily Report PM. The report is also available to LaPolitics Weekly subscribers on the Subscribers Only page at LaPolitics.com. Registration is available on the homepage.)
Louisiana Public Broadcasting is providing a daily video update featuring highlights of the session, which you can see beginning at 6 p.m. here.
