Last week, Floodlight News published an excellent piece digging into the legislation being pushed by former Shell exec and Louisiana state Sen. Sharon Hewitt that not only benefits the industry she left but her oil and gas-loving husband, Stan, who works as an engineer with LLOG Exploration. The company, which identifies and develops potential oil and gas-drilling sites, is one of the numerous businesses being sued by the very parishes Hewitt represents for their roles in damaging wetlands. It’s clear based on Hewitt’s record she’d rather support LLOG Exploration and other polluters than her constituents: Hewitt has been outspoken in her criticism of such lawsuits, sponsoring two bills and a resolution and even authoring a guest newspaper column discrediting the suits.
“Continuing to pursue these lawsuits only reaffirms Louisiana's reputation as a ‘judicial hellhole’ and drives our businesses to invest in other states,” Hewitt wrote in a 2017 column for the New Orleans Advocate. And god help the Hewitts if the oil and gas business goes away. Thanks to Hewitt’s support of a pipeline company-crafted bill for carbon sequestration, which was enacted in 2020, her husband can continue to benefit from the stake he has in the industry. Floodlight News found that Stan Hewitt received nearly $5,000 in royalties in 2021 from the pipeline company now known as Denbury Inc. Floodlight News also found that Hewitt not only worked alongside fossil fuel companies to craft legislation like SB353 but even had help from them with crafting supportive testimony.
Louisiana politics’ close relationship with the oil and gas industry is nothing new, though Hewitt is one of the more vocal and blatant cheerleaders for polluters. Fellow state Sen. Michael “Big Mike” Fesi also introduced legislation against coastal lawsuits and is the founder of the oil and gas construction company Pipeline Construction and Maintenance, Inc. Alongside them but in a different branch of government is state Rep. Danny McCormick who is—and I’m not kidding when I write this—a literal oil company owner from Oil City. McCormick vehemently opposes Louisiana even contemplating dipping its toes into the renewables world with wind energy projects.
Meteor Blades, Mark Sumner, and Markos Moulitsas discuss America's addiction to dictator oil on Daily Kos' The Brief
For many of the lawmakers serving Louisianans, even if they don’t have a blatant stake in fossil fuels, imagining a state without them is simply unthinkable. “I thought we were an oil and gas state the whole time I've been here,” state Sen. Beth Mizell said last year as lawmakers debated the push for solar and wind. Lawmakers have made it clear they’re not actively interested in reaching net-zero, especially with their support of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a technology that barely works and enables natural gas to keep flowing.