Coastal erosion legal wars over the consequences of past federal government policy are ultimately pointless and ineffective.
Amid rising geopolitical instability and intensifying competition over energy resources, one of the greatest threats to US energy security is not coming from abroad—but from within. A growing number of states are waging legal wars against the very energy producers that built America’s economic foundation and global strength. From the unexpected energy-producing state of Louisiana, the recent $745 million verdict against Chevron in Plaquemines Parish, among more than forty other similar lawsuits, is a case in point.
One of the lead plaintiffs, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, has portrayed the case as a simple matter of “accountability.” In her telling, Texaco — acquired by Chevron in 2001 —dumped “four billion gallons of toxic wastewater” into marshland for decades. She even chose the unusually progressive language of “profits over people” to describe the activity.
The rhetoric is potent. But it is also profoundly misleading. As someone who has devoted my career to prioritizing a reliance on credible and accurate data for informing sensible energy-related policymaking, I am especially concerned about Attorney General Murrill’s inaccurate statements about the nature of energy production.
The Louisiana Attorney General is Distorting the Facts
First, the so-called “toxic wastewater” was not toxic waste at all. As economist Dr. Benjamin Zycher of the American Enterprise Institute has pointed out, produced water —the briny water extracted alongside oil — is a natural byproduct of hydrocarbon production, and it has been regulated by state and federal permits for decades. It is not legally or scientifically defined as “toxic waste” under Louisiana law, other than by the regulatory agencies in the United States or anywhere else. Nor did the state present quantifiable evidence of harm to health, wildlife, or water quality. Yet, in a recent column, Attorney General Murrill went so far as to suggest that Texaco’s “toxic” discharge was comparable to BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill — one of the most destructive environmental disasters in history.
In fact, Louisiana regulators permitted and required Chevron’s actions. In 1989, a state regulatory official named Kerry St. Pé, a Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Water Pollution Control Division Regional Coordinator, stated at a legislative hearing, “We currently allow the discharge of produced water to saline and brackish areas.” Per Chevron’s permits, Louisiana’s Office of Coastal Management explicitly mandated that it send the produced water through designated discharge points.
However, this regulatory context was excluded from the trial. At the parish’s request, the judge barred evidence showing Chevron’s compliance. Even the state’s chief enforcement officer couldn’t confirm violations during his testimony. Still, Attorney General Murrill’s narrative paints Chevron as lawbreakers and distorts the reality of state-sanctioned operations.
Moreover, some of the activity in question dates largely to a period when producers were operating under direct federal instruction. During World War II, the United States government ordered energy companies to maximize crude oil output from Louisiana’s fields to supply high-octane aviation fuel for the war effort. The federal government managed pipeline construction, distribution, and storage, and explicitly directed increased production from the Gulf region. To retroactively penalize those federally guided activities under modern state laws is both legally unsound and historically unjustified.
Louisiana’s own State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act of 1978 even acknowledged this by grandfathering pre-1980 operations, reflecting the understanding that preexisting federal contracts and permits could not be second-guessed decades later. The Supreme Court’s forthcoming review of the case will hinge on precisely that question of federal jurisdiction.
The Lawsuits Are a Political Project, Not an Environmental One
Despite the plaintiffs’ claims to the contrary, the Louisiana coastal erosion cases are not a model of thoughtful environmental enforcement. They are the product of a sketchy political alliance between state officials and mass-tort trial lawyers who stand to profit from contingency fees on over forty copycat lawsuits now queued across several coastal parishes. These cases have been further motivated by a 2016 civil prosecution agreement in which the Louisiana Attorney General’s office, under current Governor Jeff Landry, promised not to challenge plaintiffs’ theories nor to acknowledge the energy producers’ defenses — this agreement, still in effect today, is an extraordinary abdication of prosecutorial independence.
The result is a litigation-driven political game that scapegoats highly regulated energy producers while allowing underlying factors, like government levee mismanagement, to persist. The US Geological Survey has long identified those factors, not oil production, as the primary drivers of coastal erosion.
The Legal Wars Are Undermining Energy Security
These lawsuits represent a new form of state-level overreach that directly contradicts the federal government’s responsibility to maintain a coherent national energy policy. Although Attorney General Murrill attempts to distance herself from her blue-state counterparts, her approach closely mirrors California’s strategy of suing fossil fuel producers for wildfires whose cause is rooted in decades of forest mismanagement. President Trump’s April 2025 Executive Order on “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach” warned precisely of this danger: “When States subject energy producers to arbitrary or excessive fines through retroactive penalties… American energy suffers.”
This fragmentation undermines the very goal of energy dominance—a policy that unites economic growth, national security, and technological innovation. The same companies now targeted by Louisiana’s governor and state attorney general are the ones driving investment in liquefied natural gas, advanced refining, and carbon capture technologies. Undermining their ability to operate predictably will not make America greener; it will make America and its allies weaker.
Strategic Consequences of a Weak Energy Policy
In an era of intensifying great power competition, that weakness carries global consequences. American energy dominance depends on having experienced companies that have both the reach and the technical capacity to deliver under pressure.
By contrast, politicized lawsuits signal instability. They deter capital investment, delay infrastructure projects, and encourage dependence on foreign suppliers who are often hostile to US interests. Vladimir Putin famously campaigned against hydraulic fracturing; Beijing has leveraged state and local relationships across the United States to steer policy outcomes favorable to China. When subnational lawfare weakens US producers, those adversaries win twice: economically and strategically.
Moving Toward a Coherent National Energy Policy
None of this is to suggest that environmental stewardship is unimportant. Responsible production is essential to maintaining the public trust that underpins the energy sector. But environmental protection must operate within a framework of regulatory clarity, not political opportunism. Litigation that retroactively redefines lawful, federally directed conduct as illegal undermines that framework and endangers both economic stability and national security.
The United States cannot lead the world in energy innovation while allowing Louisiana to wage war on its energy producers. It cannot secure critical minerals, expand LNG exports, and invest in carbon capture while its own domestic firms are dragged through the courts for actions taken generations ago under federal direction.
If America is serious about energy leadership in the 21st century, it must defend the companies that make that leadership possible. These cases are not merely about one parish in Louisiana — they are about whether the United States can still act as one nation in pursuit of energy security.
About the Author: Guy Caruso
Guy Caruso is a former administrator of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) at the Department of Energy (DOE). Before leading the EIA, Caruso had acquired over 40 years of energy experience, with particular emphasis on topics relating to energy markets, policy, and security. He first joined the DOE as a senior energy economist in the Office of International Affairs and soon became director of the Office of Market Analysis. He has also held a variety of other senior leadership positions at the DOE. Prior to joining the DOE, Caruso worked at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an international energy economist in the Office of Economic Research. Mr. Caruso holds a B.S. in business administration and an M.S. in economics from the University of Connecticut. He also earned an M.P.A. from Harvard University.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author.
Image: Shutterstock/Andrey_Popov
