Oil and gaffe
16th December 2024 · 0 Comments
By LTG Russel L. Honore (Ret.)
Guest Columnist
There’s a new boogeyman in town seeking to destroy jobs, shrink the economy, and push Louisiana into poverty. That boogeyman?
Louisiana residents who are working day in and day out to protect themselves and their neighbors from the pollution and abuses of the oil and gas industry.
That’s according to our newest governor, Mr. Landry, who recently pushed these claims and others in an op-ed penned just before Election Day. It was a passionate argument, but light on specifics. Let’s look at some facts.
Louisiana ranks dead last among all U.S. states according to U.S. News and World Report, which aggregates economic, crime, educational, and other data. In economic rankings, only Mississippi ranks lower. Our environment and infrastructure rank second-to-last as well. On crime, which is tightly linked to rates of poverty and education, we lag behind the rest of America too, coming in dead last again.
If oil and gas are supposed to be pushing our state to newer and greater heights, then where, Mr. Governor, are the results? The first oil well in Louisiana was drilled more than 120 years ago. The industry has been extracting resources from our state for years. Gas has been liquified and exported from Louisiana for nearly a decade. (Note: none of that petroleum product actually powers any actual job creators in the state; it’s sold overseas to America’s economic competitors.)
We should have been enjoying the positive effects of fossil fuels for a few generations.
Instead, oil and gas have grown their footprint here with minimal state oversight and certainly no 12/19/24 from anyone in Baton Rouge. In exchange for that relaxed regulations that the industry enjoyed, where, Mr. Governor, is the great economic boom?
Louisiana even sacrificed our state’s well-being for coal – an inefficient, 19th century fuel whose time has more than passed. Under the current administration and its predecessors, Louisiana has continued to burn coal despite the harm to surrounding communities and the massive costs compared to cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient alternatives.
Here’s another fact: Governor Landry and members of his party hold the governor’s mansion, the state house, and the state senate – and in the case of the legislature, they enjoy a supermajority. In other words, all the clout – for matters of permitting, environmental regulation, energy policy, and economic development – is in their hands, not in the hands of the community groups that the governor has taken time out of his day to malign.
From the looks of it, he and his colleagues in the House and Senate have the power to get Louisiana’s economy to “take off” rather than sitting stranded “on the runway,” as the governor would describe it. But he’d rather cast blame on his own constituents – the same constituents who have to fight to make sure their land, water, and air aren’t tainted by neighboring petrochemical and liquefied gas plants because their own state fails to enforce even the most basic environmental and safety regulations.
Mr. Landry lashes out with other outlandish claims that don’t require much of a rebuttal. Louisiana residents who are tired of being poisoned by industry, he contends, are just puppets of billionaires who also fund foreign terrorist groups. They only distract from the truth: that Mr. Landry couldn’t support his own argument with facts. To support the most outlandish claims, he cites press releases from extremist politicians in Washington rather than any actual research.
No Louisiana resident wants to stifle our state economy.
We do want our state to finally attract new, job-creating industries. While we’re at it, we’d like Louisiana’s current industries to be good neighbors, to stop killing off our fisheries, to stop poisoning our communities, and to deliver the economic benefits promised to us by industrial leaders and the politicians who support them.
Governor Landry, please stop flinging accusations at us, your constituents. We deserve that basic respect. Meantime, when you have an economic-development plan that provides jobs, protects neighborhoods, and builds wealth for future generations, we would all love to see it.
We’re waiting, Governor.
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Ret. Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, a decorated 37-year veteran, may be best known for his role in coordinating military relief efforts along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. He is the founder of GreenARMY, an environmental group.
His commentary originally appeared on The Lens (thelensnola.org.)
This article originally published in the December 16, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
