As the costs of climate change bear down on communities across Louisiana, a new bill in the state legislature could shield oil and gas companies from having to pay for the damage.
Louisiana State Representative Brett Geymann, a Republican from Lake Charles, introduced the “Louisiana Energy Protection Act” in February. The bill would make it extremely difficult for oil companies to be held liable for local climate damages in the state — and, as currently written, could restrict nearly any claims for damages caused by emissions.
The stated intent of HB804 is “to protect energy producers and related industries from claims for emissions,” specifically for “damages related to climate change.”
As lawsuits brought against fossil fuel companies by mostly Democratic-controlled state and local governments continue to advance through the courts, Louisiana’s legislation is one of a growing number of bills from Republican-controlled statehouses that would immunize fossil fuel companies and other greenhouse gas polluters from climate liability in court.
Scientists agree that greenhouse gas emissions produced by burning fossil fuels have led to more frequent and severe weather events like wildfires, heatwaves, hurricanes, and floods.
Oil companies spent decades undermining that connection.
Big Oil knew effects and hid them, some officials now say
State and local officials from Maine to Hawaiʻi are now arguing in court that oil companies deceived the public about the dangers they knew their products would cause, and should pay billions of dollars to help communities recover and adapt. Many states are also seeking to impose liability on oil companies for emissions-related damages through climate superfund laws, with Vermont and New York the first to pass their bills.
Louisiana has no such law or lawsuit. But the state is seeing mounting damages from extreme heat, hurricanes, rising seas, more frequent and severe floods, and other climate-fueled disasters and impacts. By 2050, Louisiana will face more than $4 billion in annual property damage alone caused by extreme weather in a “middle of the road” climate scenario, according to an analysis last year by the policy research nonprofit Urban Institute.
Rep. Geymann, who said he took inspiration from Utah’s new law blocking climate lawsuits, said his bill “does not provide special protection to fossil fuel companies” because it applies to any greenhouse gas emitter — for instance, he explained, a diesel truck driver would be protected from climate liability.
But Geymann also said that he introduced the bill because he wanted to protect the state’s fossil fuel industry against the possibility that multiple companies could be taken to court for damages under a single lawsuit.
“Louisiana is a heavily industrialized state. We have a lot of oil and gas and refining,” he said. “You need to prove that that company is mainly the one responsible for that emission that caused the damages, instead of being able to just say, ‘I’m gonna file a claim against every single fossil fuel company in the entire state.’”
The bill would require plaintiffs to prove through “clear and convincing evidence” that the emissions resulting from companies’ actions caused more than 50% of the alleged climate damages. It also demands that plaintiffs must specify exactly which greenhouse gas caused the alleged harm.
It’s a legal strategy that deliberately pushes the limits of science, said Delta Merner, lead scientist and associate director of the climate accountability campaign at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “By setting evidentiary requirements that exceed what the best available science can deliver,” she said, “these laws are trying to slam the courthouse door shut.” Attribution science, which can connect extreme weather events to greenhouse gas emissions and sometimes specific emitters, is advancing, but has been under attack by oil companies in court and by the industry’s allies at large.
Louisiana’s bill makes an exception for liability only if a court finds that the defendant violated an existing federal or state regulation or permit. Many states and cities’ lawsuits over climate damages are brought under state common laws, like public nuisance and negligence.
It’s not meant to stop any chance of anybody ever being able to seek damages, Geymann says
For state or local government entities bringing a lawsuit for climate damages, the bill raises the bar even higher, requiring written approval from the state governor, attorney general, and the Louisiana House and Senate committees on natural resources — all in a state government with close ties to the oil industry. It also states that plaintiffs must prove that they themselves did not “directly or indirectly” contribute to any of the emissions that caused the resulting damages.
Geymann insists his bill “is very narrow and only applies to claims resulting from climate change and not from emissions.” Lawsuits could still be brought for damages, including to health and property, caused by local emissions “beyond what was allowed,” he said.
But as written, the bill could be understood to mean that any lawsuits over damages caused by emissions “are not allowable in Louisiana except under the very difficult-to-meet thresholds established,” said Jackson Voss, the government and policy affairs coordinator at the Louisiana-based Alliance for Affordable Energy.
Rep. Geymann conceded that the bill would need to be revised to make that distinction clear. “I’m not an attorney, so when I first read it, I said the same thing: ‘Gosh, it looks like we’re just stopping any chance of anybody ever being able to seek damages,’ but it’s not,” Geymann said. “I will tell you, the bill has been very confusing for all of us, so I’m going to insert some additional language.”
With the massive influx of chronically polluting fossil fuel and petrochemical facilities in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ and the state’s unique vulnerability to the effects of climate change, the consequences of restricting access to the courts in the state can’t be understated, said Voss. Without access to courts to recover damages, residents and local businesses will continue to be saddled with the financial burden of those harms on top of the threats to their health, property, livelihoods, and lives.
“By passing this bill, the state government and legislature would be saying, ‘we’re siding with these companies over the ability of our citizens to actually protect themselves’,” he said. “If they close off these avenues, how in the world are we going to be able to solve some of these problems in Louisiana?”
Lawmakers in the state have previously passed bills that would make it more difficult for landowners to bring lawsuits against fossil fuel companies for contamination and damages to the Louisiana coast caused by oil drilling and production. But local parish governments have still been able to bring such lawsuits, and one is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
At the federal level, oil industry lobbyists have been asking Congress to shield fossil fuel companies from both climate lawsuits and superfund bills, with a group of Republican attorneys general pointing to the sweeping protections Congress gave to the gun industry as a model “liability shield.” In February, U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) said she was working to draft federal legislation “as a form of preemption” of climate lawsuits and superfunds.
The state-level bills will be the first test of what oil industry immunity could look like. In addition to Utah’s law, bills in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Iowa are awaiting signatures from their respective governors.
The bills appear to closely resemble model legislation published by conservative group Consumers Defense. According to a new ProPublica investigation, the bills are part of a coordinated strategy by groups linked to conservative activist Leonard Leo, including Consumers Research and Alliance for Consumers, to draft, disseminate, and pass laws shielding corporations from liability.
Geymann said he did not work with the groups on the legislation.
