A top Louisiana environmental official farmed out responsibility for enforcing state permitting regulations that underlie ongoing coastal erosion lawsuits to a private attorney, according to a deposition made public through a public-records request.
In a 344-page deposition obtained by the New Orleans-based Pelican Institute for Public Policy, state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Thomas Harris said he abdicated normal procedures in moving to intervene on behalf of parishes that filed 43 coastal-erosion lawsuits against energy companies.
Harris gave the deposition in the case of Parish of Cameron v. Auster Oil and Gas Inc. This is one of the lawsuits filed by private attorneys on behalf of parishes, alleging that drilling activities in the 20th century damaged the Louisiana coastline.
The Auster lawsuit was filed in 2013, but the state DNR filed a petition in intervention three years later, after the election of Gov. John Bel Edwards. Harris acknowledged he had not spoken to Cameron Parish officials or conducted an internal probe into the lawsuit’s allegation prior to the DNR’s intervention.
“I’m saying that you’ve made a choice,” one of the attorneys questioning Harris in the deposition said, “rather than the agency taking on responsibility for enforcing permits under the applicable laws and regulations, you have farmed out that responsibility to private lawyers representing the parishes?”
“Yes,” Harris answered. “... Basically, I’m faced with the choice of not issuing any new permits and – or taking new enforcement action and dedicating our entire staff to doing this review, or farming it out. And the decision made was the latter.”
Sarah Harbison, the Pelican Institute’s general counsel, said that Harris’ deposition also indicates that the normal procedure for DNR to do would be to give the energy companies the opportunity to provide a way to address any of the alleged environmental damage before intervening in a lawsuit.
“Secretary Harris mentioned that normally the procedure that they follow is that they would allow the oil companies to remedy whatever violations they are alleged to have made before intervening in the lawsuit,” Harbison told the Louisiana Record.
State lawmakers and the next governor should consider the future of this litigation and see that the true motives involved are rewarding political cronies without bringing real help for the coastline, she said.
“Even though the state has an obligation to investigate those coastal permits, they signed off on a lawsuit, and they intervened in these lawsuits without fully investigating the claims against the oil and gas companies,” Harbison said. “And they turned over that responsibility to a private attorney who stands to benefit financially from those lawsuits.”