Louisiana officials must ensure the state keeps a competitive edge over other states that are emerging as shale play powerhouses, the head of the industry-funding Grow Louisiana Coalition tells The Advertiser.
Louisiana is ranked No. 2 nationally for both oil and gas production. But in an interview with the Lafayette newspaper, coalition Executive Director Marc Ehrhardt suggests that efforts to excessively tax oil and gas companies—as well as lawsuits against them—threaten the industry’s ability to bounce back from two years of languishing oil prices and several years of lagging natural gas prices.
“We can’t control the price of oil,” he says. “But we can ensure Louisiana is competitive.”
Ehrhardt took that message to the Acadiana chapter of the American Petroleum Institute today, where his presentation included new hope for Louisiana oil and gas industries and their relationship to coastal parishes.
He suggests the industry itself has been a big player in developing and supporting Louisiana’s coastal restoration plan.
“Groups outside the state are trying to tell Louisiana that oil and gas is not part of the community on the coast, but the industry is making an investment on the coast,” Ehrhardt says, citing
ConocoPhillips’ efforts at marsh creation along the coasts of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes as an example of responsible stewardship.
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