Meet Louis Meeks — a longtime landowner outside the picturesque rural community of Pavillion, Wyoming. The rolling hillsides here have hosted natural gas wells for decades, but the pace of activity has increased in recent years with the growth of the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Something else has increased over the last couple of years — nasty...
For weeks now I’ve been telling you about the mud-covered debate taking place in the Louisiana Legislature. Politicians greased to the gills by Big Oil dollars are now pushing an effort that would limit citizens from fighting back against decades of pollution in the oil patch. Big Oil invented its own phrase — “legacy lawsuits” — to describe what in reality is just...
The choice facing Louisiana lawmakers over so-called “legacy lawsuits” against oil-and-gas drillers isn’t nearly as complicated it sounds. Between now and the end of their session next month, legislators in Baton Rouge still have a chance to do the right thing. They can protect the rights of property owners — everyday folks like you and me — to force oil and gas...
Louisiana oil companies suffered a major setback last week in their effort to restrict lawsuits brought by property owners seeking cleanup of land and groundwater contamination left behind from decades of drilling operations. With hundreds of millions in environmental cleanup costs at stake, neither side is pulling any punches in the fight surrounding “legacy lawsuits,” which has now...
