LA oil & gas battered more by policy than price

Elections and the policy that comes thereafter matter, as demonstrated by the antics of Democrats in Baton Rouge and Washington that until recently suffocated Louisiana’s fossil fuel industry and thereby contributed to a problem that may cost state approaching $1 billion.

Recently, a report from New Orleans’ The Data Center highlighted how the state’s oil and gas industry has done not much more than tread water going back to the swoon in oil prices in 2014. It’s skeptical that the industry will grow disproportionately compared to other sectors in the future and argues to move towards greater diversification of the state’s economy, based upon the industry’s recent underperformance.

But it was all by design, partly out of the animus of Democrats when in power had against fossil fuels, and partly because of their desire to grow government and redistribute wealth at the expense of economic growth. When prices began their protracted fall, Democrat Barack Obama was president, whose administration backed by toadies in Congress acted hostilely towards the fossil fuel industry, as opposed to their favored renewable energy.

Over-the-top ads show panic over Fleming strength

As reality finally begins to intrude upon the political and chattering classes, the inevitability of realizing Republican state Treas. John Fleming is a serious candidate to win the senatorial seat up for grabs this fall finally has prompted what in retrospect may turn out to be a too-little-too-late series of go-for-broke attacks on his candidacy, validating his growing strength.

To date, the campaigns of his GOP nomination opponents incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy and Rep. Julia Letlow, but more instructively political action committees pledged to support either, almost exclusively had trained their fire on each other. This is done in good cop/bad cop fashion, where the campaigns extoll the virtues of their candidates and the PACs lambaste the opponents. Candidates and their allies follow this strategy because the PACs keep the candidate they prefer from looking demeaning through attacking that tries to detach voters from the opponent while the campaign presents a pristine candidate and positive reasons to vote for the candidate.

However, they now have put Fleming in the crosshairs, although in a spectacularly clumsy and manufactured way with a couple of negative television advertisements recently aired. One claimed Fleming supported carbon capture and sequestration, despite Fleming being the candidate most assertively and visibly arguing against the use of tax dollars to subsidize the activity, by its saying he voted for budget bills that allow the subsidization. It attempts guilt by association by trying to tie Fleming to leftists who also oppose CCS (but for reasons with which Fleming disagrees), a connection that becomes even more ludicrous when considering that meant, according to voting on last year’s budget reconciliation bill, just about every Republican in the House of Representatives and Senate also were in league with leftist bogeymen – including both Cassidy and Letlow.

Error like Cassidy's may sink Letlow campaign

What has brought Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy close to extinction in his quest for reelection now threatens the chances of GOP Rep. Julia Letlow for promotion to that office.

Last week, news escaped concerning Letlow’s endorsement of diversity, equity, and inclusion practices during her time as a University of Louisiana Monroe administrator prior to her election to Congress. Recordings of her interview process to helm the university in 2020 as well as internal documents revealed her expressing support for the divisive measures, which posit that American societal differences among races comes from irredeemable racism practiced, whether consciously, by majority whites that may be compensated for only through reverse discrimination.

Actually, it was only the publicity of her past statements that was anything new. Media had reported on the documents and the video has been publicly online for years, but the presence of these recently picked up amplification by additional media reporting.

Easter Sunday, 2026

This column publishes five days weekly after noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Easter Sunday, Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Sunday, Apr. 5 being Easter, I invite you to explore this link.