President Biden and his green ideas are not welcome in Louisiana. His proposed policies have raised the hackles of the oil industry, the Governor and the legislature. Now the Advocate comes out in opposition – but maybe not entirely!
We happen to agree with most of the Republican criticisms of President Joe Biden’s new energy executive orders. And while Biden is a Democrat, Louisiana’s Democratic chief executive is also in the critical camp. Does everyone agree? No, but you would never know it from the one-sided dog-and-pony show put on by the Republican-led committees of the Louisiana Legislature on Wednesday.
The advocate
The meeting was one-sided. Only industry, only oil, only those thinking the same way.
By sweeping executive orders, a process that Democrats often criticized when former President Donald Trump issued them, Biden proposes to suspend new offshore oil and gas production leasing while the administration determines whether eliminating new production is necessary to reduce carbon emissions contributing to global warming. The new orders also reorganize decision-making by federal agencies regulating America’s huge energy industry. We believe that the process does not serve the nation’s energy independence nor the orderly and effective regulation of drilling, refining and petrochemical manufacturing.
Does anyone disagree? Obviously not as no other opinion was raised by all attending including congressmen from South Louisiana. All sang the same tune, including the Governors staff.
Edwards’ top aides joined in the anti-Biden chorus. Reducing offshore exploration and production on federal lands and in federal waters “will have a devastating impact on the state’s economy” without significantly reducing greenhouse emissions, said Thomas Harris, head of the Department of Natural Resources. “It is a false choice,” said Matthew Block, the executive counsel for the Gulf Coast’s only Democratic governor.
It is right that these voices were raised as oil is important in the state and the economy is largely dependent on it. But the last paragraph says it all.
But we wonder that a fact-finding hearing at which never was heard a discouraging word about oil and gas development really honestly reflects opinion, even here in Louisiana.
