New Research: Litigation vs. Restoration: Addressing Louisiana’s Coastal Land Loss

ILR’s latest research paper, Litigation us. Restoration: Addressing Louisiana’s Coastal Land Loss looks at new developments in the long-running saga of lawyer-generated coastal erosion lawsuits against Louisiana energy companies. ILR’s research gives a brief overview of Louisiana’s coastal erosion problem and trial lawyer efforts to monetize it through litigation, then examines various pieces of legislation that have been proposed to implement the settlement.

The paper shows that far from helping remedy coastal erosion, this legislation and the settlement itself would create major complications for the state’s coastal remediation efforts, and they would set a terrible precedent for energy businesses operating in Louisiana and for the state’s economy itself. The paper also shows that by contrast, a working partnership between the state and Louisiana energy companies accomplishes far more to restore the coast than lawsuits can.