Governor shows true colors in response to coastal lawsuit

It’s ironic that a politician who based his campaign for public office on good ethics would discard that commitment when faced with a big test of his character.

In 2007, candidate Bobby Jindal told the people of Louisiana that as governor he would make our state the “gold standard” for governmental ethics. Six years later, the gold is tarnished from the mess he made of ethics enforcement, his neglect of his job while pursuing higher office and his treatment of those who disagree with him.

Case in point: Jindal’s reaction to the groundbreaking coastal-damage lawsuit against major oil and gas companies by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East, based in New Orleans.

A blue-ribbon committee of scientists and coastal experts does what virtually no politician in Louisiana has dared to do – confront Big Oil about its destructive coastal practices. What does Jindal do? He politicizes this apolitical board by replacing its president and vice president with people who will undo the lawsuit.

The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East is no ordinary levee board. It was created after Hurricane Katrina by constitutional amendment (approved by 81 percent of the voters) to take the politics out of Louisiana’s critical flood-protection task.

The authority’s board is made up of professionals with expertise in engineering, storm-surge modeling, coastal science, river hydrology and meteorology.

The advocates for levee-board reform wanted a regional flood board of professionals to serve without pay and be isolated from political interference. When this board had the courage in July to sue 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies for coastal damage that even the oil industry admits to, our “ethics” governor quickly stepped in to challenge the lawsuit and protect the powerful oil interests.

Who is Jindal protecting? The defendants in the lawsuit include ExxonMobil, BP, Shell and other companies engaged in offshore oil and gas development off Louisiana’s coast. Over decades, these companies collectively dredged 10,000 miles of canals and pipelines through the marsh.

In addition, the extraction of oil and gas from beneath the surface not only enriched these corporations, it caused the land to sink. Scientific studies, which included industry representatives, concluded that the industry caused an estimated 36 percent of coastal land loss.

By damaging the coastal buffer that once protected populated areas, the industry has made the levee board’s task harder and more expensive. In 2006, when Louisiana sued the federal government for revenue from offshore production, Bob Bea, one of the most respected flood experts in the world and formerly Shell’s chief offshore engineer, said the industry “contributed significantly to the loss of natural defenses such as barrier beaches, wetlands and marshes.

“In several important cases,” Bea said, “it was the loss of these natural defenses that contributed to the unanticipated breaches of floodprotection facilities that protected the greater New Orleans area during Hurricane Katrina and led to the repeated flooding during Hurricane Rita.”

By bullying this levee board and removing its leaders, Jindal is undermining the people and institutions trying to protect Louisiana from coastal erosion and flooding. He is also shielding from blame the companies partly responsible for the damage.

You may conclude that Jindal is a hypocrite, but he is consistent – always for special interests over the people. As secretary of Health and Hospitals in the 1990s, he argued against the state suing the tobacco companies for smoking-related damages. Fortunately, we didn’t listen, and we got $4 billion from Big Tobacco to help pay for treating people in state hospitals with lung cancer, emphysema and illnesses tied to smoking.

Jindal said the lawsuit will “shut down” the oil industry. Just this week an energy news outlet reported the following about the Gulf of Mexico:

“Oil companies are set to unleash a backlog of drilling and development work in 2014 after years of deep-water exploration with advanced seismic technology, potentially pushing the Gulf’s daily oil production up by 180,000 barrels to 1.55 million barrels per day next year.”

The report said oil companies see the Gulf as a place for growth because of the region’s “easy access to U.S. markets and refineries.”

That reference is to Louisiana. With Texas, we have 40 percent of the nation’s refining capacity. We have the Mississippi River to transport petroleum products, 50,000 miles of pipelines and a trained workforce.

Jindal may succeed in stacking the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East with board members who, like him, think the interests of major oil companies are more important than Louisiana’s coastline and coastal communities. He may persuade the Legislature to further politicize the board and take away its independence.

What he cannot do is restore the people’s unquestioning view of the offshore oil industry and the ethics of our governor. Both are in for a change.

Foster Campbell of Elm Grove is the North Louisiana representative on the Public Service Commission. He served in the Louisiana Senate from 1976 to 2002. He can be reached at 676-7464 or [email protected].