Former industry insider decries law incentivizing Oil & Gas to “cover up violations” - pelicanpostonline.com

As a former general counsel to LDNR and a former employee of Exxon, it would be hard to portray me as anti-oil and gas. I am not, and never have been. In so many ways, the oil and gas and petrochemical industry has been an important and meaningful part of life for me. At the same time, after years of personal and professional experience I am extremely concerned that the oil and gas/petrochemical lobby has wielded so much influence with regulators and legislators that some laws have been shaped to facilitate certain oil and gas companies’ ability to avoid meaningful financial consequences for damages they admit to causing. I can tell you from first-hand experience in the industry that most oilfield operators are good operators. But sometimes these laws are designed to protect only the few, worst ones. That’s not how the law should work.

This is why I am very concerned about a certain curious law of unclear intention, unclear origin, with no legislative history, and which is broadly worded in a very dangerous way. The law’s key language is not typical of other laws. The vague wording of the law makes it susceptible to disagreement in how it might apply. But that uncertainty is also what makes it so dangerous.

A plain reading of Revised Statute 30:51 shows that it can create a secret three-year countdown clock within which a state or local official must sue an oil and gas operator to enforce a financial penalty. That alone is enough to raise one’s eyebrows.

Under normal Louisiana law, the countdown clock for holding the violator financially responsible would begin only upon the regulator or official learning of the violation. However, this odd law starts the clock regardless of any knowledge to them. Instead, the law uses a curious term (“made known”) and states that the clock begins when an operator “makes known” a violation to the state Attorney General. What does it even mean to “make known” to the Attorney General? A postcard? An oral statement made in passing? A formal letter? Something casually but strategically stated during a social outing? No one knows because the law is so oddly worded.

Here’s a good question for those who doubt the possible implications of this law: if this is not a get-out-of-jail free card to bad industry actors, then what actually is the alternative purpose and effect of the law? We must be honest with ourselves: in the oil and gas context, bad operators do not write to notify their local and parish officials when the operator commits a violation for the same reason citizens do not write letters to the police to self-report speeding violations. With this law on the books, the bad operators have a perverse incentive to cover up violations and quietly notify the Attorney General, knowing that he may not alert local governments and state regulators.

This is a bad law and it should be changed. And in my humble professional opinion, until the legislature musters the necessary temerity to repeal or amend it, District Attorneys and legal advisors to local and parish government must advise their clients of the dangers associated with Revised Statute 30:51 and push the Attorney General for a formal policy ensuring that the public and appropriate officials are notified of each violation “made known” to the Attorney General. Moreover, in my humble opinion, under some circumstances District Attorneys who fail to warn their clients of the dangers associated with this law may risk falling short of their obligation under Revised Statute 16:2(C) to render faithful and efficient services.

I’ll say more during next year’s “La. R.S. 30:51 Rolling Billboard” legal writing contest.

Isaac “IKE” Jackson, Jr. (Louisiana’s foremost La. R.S. 30:51 pontificator)

source: https://pelicanpostonline.com/former-industry-insider-decries-law-incentivizing-oil-gas-to-cover-up-violations/

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