legal clinic

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">oddly blank 820?  no doubt sparked by e&e bastards schnare and horner</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">fun fact Louisiana punishing law student clinic in EJ Bayous Br pipeline fight?! see crit infra tulane U? bucket brigade</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-louisiana-lawmakers-stop-residents-efforts-to-fight-big-oil-and-gas"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.propublica.org/article/how-louisiana-lawmakers-stop-residents-efforts-to-fight-big-oil-and-gas</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">as the Bayou Bridge Pipeline was under construction in 2018, Anne White Hat ventured deep into the Atchafalaya Swamp in St. Martin Parish to protest it.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">St. Martin is one of 11 parishes crossed by the pipeline, which brings crude oil from Texas to refineries in Louisiana. Though White Hat had permission to be there from some of the more than 100 people who jointly own the tract where she held her protest, she didn’t have permission from all. She was arrested on two felony counts related to trespassing. She posted a $21,000 bond and was released.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years later, the district attorney still hasn’t decided whether to proceed with the charges: two counts of unauthorized entry of a critical infrastructure. The maximum penalty is five years in prison, with the possibility of hard labor and a fine of up to $1,000.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It is intimidating when you’re looking at facing prison in South Louisiana,” she said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ironically, a court later found that the pipeline company itself had been trespassing at the time of White Hat’s arrest. The main owner, Energy Transfer Partners, had not obtained easement agreements with all landowners to begin construction, nor had it been granted permission to do so through eminent domain. Its penalty: a $450 fine paid to the landowners.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The judge who set White Hat’s bond at $21,000 was the same judge who imposed Energy Transfer Partners’ fine.“This is yet one more in a long line of examples of how Louisiana laws are first made by oil and gas corporations and then are ignored by the same corporations if they feel like it,” said Bill Quigley,<b> a law professor at Loyola University who is representing White Hat pro bono.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Transfer Partners did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana has blazed a trail for other states in discouraging environmental protests by raising the legal stakes for those who trespass on or near “critical” oil and gas infrastructure — which includes refineries, chemical plants and ports. In 2004, it was the first state to make that crime a felony.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana’s pioneering law can be traced to corporate lobbyists. BP and DuPont were among the energy and chemical companies that produced a 2003 guide disseminated to state officials, arguing that enhanced penalties would discourage attacks by terrorists that could cause economic disruptions.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years ago, legislators added oil and gas pipelines to the list of infrastructure deemed critical. In White Hat’s view, the entire suite of laws is anti-democratic. “They’re using the state to protect their corporate interests,” she said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Residents have repeatedly pushed back against pipelines, proposed plants and existing industry in their backyards. While such opposition is almost never monolithic, it is often overwhelming at the local level. But the state’s elected leaders have historically sided with industry, in some cases passing new laws aimed at quelling opposition.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A sign marks the area of a pipeline in the Atchafalaya Basin, the same swamp where Anne White Hat protested the Bayou Bridge Pipeline in 2018. (Brett Duke/The Times-Picayune and The Advocate)]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legislators are trying to reduce local officials’ power to decide whether to exempt industry from local taxes. Years ago, when a local board made up of experts filed an ambitious lawsuit that aimed to hold oil and gas companies accountable for damaging coastal wetlands, state officials undermined it. In another episode, they passed a law that barred communities from using incorporation to collect property taxes from chemical plants. And more than once they have sought to punish student law clinics that represent communities fighting industry.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This year’s legislative session, which begins in March, will again include bills to restrict local input into industrial tax exemptions.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some of these efforts are part of a larger, coordinated strategy. The three Louisiana lawmakers who sponsored the trespassing bill were members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a controversial organization that brings lawmakers and corporate lobbyists together to draft “model legislation” that they then shop to other states.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana’s 2004 trespassing law became just such a template. Fifteen years later, 10 states have similar laws. “Louisiana was a particularly important state,” said Connor Gibson, an investigator with Greenpeace.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The addition of pipelines to the law two years ago came in response to protests that garnered national attention, notably those at Standing Rock in North Dakota, which became the focal point of indigenous protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. “This just protects against those who want to inhibit commerce,” bill sponsor Rep. Major Thibaut said as he introduced the bill in 2018.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thibaut, now president of Pointe Coupee Parish, said the law protects workers and would-be protesters from safety concerns on work sites with heavy equipment. When asked whether protesters should be arrested if they don’t interfere with workers, he said, “That’s up to the courts to determine.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a prepared statement, Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association President Tyler Gray said the law “does not infringe on an individual’s constitutional rights.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So far, 15 people have been arrested for violating Louisiana’s new law: 14 protesters and a journalist covering them. Some of them filed a suit in May, claiming the law chills free speech and is thus unconstitutional. The suit is pending.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mounting Political Pressure</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For decades, an obscure Louisiana board doled out 10-year property tax exemptions to nearly every major manufacturer that was building or expanding a plant in the state.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was the definition of a rubber stamp. Between 1997 and 2016, the board rejected just eight of the 16,931 applications for relief through the Industrial Tax Exemption Program, for an approval rate of 99.95%, according to an analysis by Together Louisiana, a grassroots organization that has pushed to rein in the program.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That changed when Gov. John Bel Edwards signed an executive order in 2016 that gave local governing bodies affected by the exemptions a say over them for the first time. The breaks can have a big effect on local government’s bottom line.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Read More</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chemical Companies Are Building Their Plants Overseas and Shipping Them Back In. They Still Get State Tax Breaks.]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana attracts chemical companies with one of the country’s most generous tax exemptions. The idea is to bring jobs to the state. Instead, construction often happens offsite, and automation has cut down on the jobs that remain.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since the 2016 executive order, the local agencies that would forgo money on industrial tax exemptions have gotten to vote on them. The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board last year rejected a tax break for an expansion Exxon Mobil had completed two years earlier. That prompted heavy pushback from industry.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unsuccessful legislation last year would have required parishes to create a single board that votes up or down on the tax breaks, rather than letting the sheriff, the school board and the parish government approve or deny them piecemeal. Explaining his bill, Sen. Bodi White, R-Baton Rouge, said, “I didn’t elect my school board for economic development to bring companies to this state.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A broad swath of local officials fought to kill White’s bill, including associations of sheriffs, school boards and parish governments. “A parish governing authority should be able to decide whether they can afford to give an exemption and make sure the company getting the exemption is holding up their end of the deal,” said Guy Cormier, executive director of the lobby for parish governments.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A failed bill filed by Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Central, would have gone even further, putting the exemption back in the state’s hands. Ivey, who said manufacturers need more certainty, is already working on a similar bill this year. “I intend to start off where I left off at the end of the 2019 session,” he said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite a recent boom in industrial plants moving to Louisiana, Edwards’ modest reforms were used by his Republican challengers in last year’s gubernatorial race as evidence of the Democrat’s hostility toward industry. Baton Rouge businessman Eddie Rispone — who garnered 49% of the vote in November — made undoing Edwards’ tweaks a major part of his platform.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edwards, now in his second term, appears to have heard the complaints. He is trying to get local governments, including those in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, to dump new rules that bar exemptions for projects, like Exxon’s, that were completed by the time the break was requested.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana’s Love Affair With Industry</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Louisiana’s wetlands vanish, coastal communities have become ever more susceptible to storm surges and sea level rise. And while there are disagreements over how to apportion blame for the erosion, it’s undisputed that oil and gas exploration has played a key role — in part, by dredging 10,000 miles of canals.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A gas transmission pipeline cuts through the wetlands in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Canals alter the drainage patterns of wetlands, causing the loss of the marshes and flood protection. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And so, in 2013, the board that oversees flood protection in most of metropolitan New Orleans filed an audacious lawsuit that sought to hold 97 oil and gas companies accountable for damaging the region’s natural flood defenses. It set off an immediate firestorm.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The board’s lawsuit quickly earned it rogue status — even though, after the levee failures of Hurricane Katrina, levee board members for the first time were required to have specific qualifications. As a result of those changes, the board that filed the suit was made up of members nominated by professional groups, appointed by Gov. Kathleen Blanco and confirmed by the Senate.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Historian and author John Barry, who was vice president of the board, estimated the Legislature filed 20 separate bills in 2014 to gut the lawsuit. “The Legislature made a very sincere effort to kill the lawsuit after it had already been filed,” he said. “In the end, we defeated all but one piece of legislation.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The surviving bill, authored by former state Sens. Robert Adley and Bret Allain, retroactively voided the suit. Adley said his beef was that the board didn’t give the proper authorities a heads-up before filing suit. A state judge later found the new law to be unconstitutional, in three different ways.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That wasn’t the end of the assault. Then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican who opposed the suit, tried to swap out the authority’s board. He replaced four of the nine board members, dumping coastal experts in favor of political appointees. Even then, a narrow majority of the board backed the suit.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ultimately, the lawsuit was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown, who said oil and gas companies had no legal obligation to pay the levee authority for wetland damage, a view upheld by an appeals court. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Since then, seven coastal parishes, including New Orleans, have filed similar lawsuits against oil and gas companies over land loss in their communities, and Edwards has urged other coastal parishes to follow suit. None of the cases have been decided.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Chilling Effect</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those who push back against industry in Louisiana often find themselves outmaneuvered.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1994, residents of Geismar, in Ascension Parish, were hoping to follow in the footsteps of their upriver neighbors in St. Gabriel by incorporating into a town. The move would give residents more political clout — including the ability to say no to new plants — and bring in tax dollars from nearby industrial facilities.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The late Amos Favorite Sr., who was 71 at the time, was a leading advocate.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These plants pay a lot of money to Ascension Parish. We (in Geismar) don’t see anything but pollution,” Favorite said in 1994.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amos Favorite Sr. speaks at a meeting about racial discrimination in the River Region plants in 1997. Favorite, an environmental activist, led an incorporation attempt in the community of Geismar. (Tim Mueller/The Advocate)]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the following year, 11 chemical plants in Ascension Parish filed a lawsuit to quash the incorporation. With that case pending, state Rep. Jerry Luke LeBlanc, a Democrat, sponsored a bill to ban new municipalities from including industrial areas into their boundaries. Then-Gov. Edwin Edwards signed it into law in 1995.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Citing the new law, the court sided with the plants.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new law meant the planned city would have a much smaller tax base and much less say over the polluters in its midst. Geismar’s drive for incorporation lost steam.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Favorite’s daughter, Malaika Favorite, an artist who still lives in Geismar, said the episode took an emotional toll on her father. “It was really disappointing to him,” she said. “The plants have so much power.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Restricting Representation</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New laws are hardly the only method Louisiana elected officials have used to stifle residents’ opposition to industry.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In 1997, former Gov. Mike Foster pressured the Louisiana Supreme Court to trim the sails of student law clinics after the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic helped St. James Parish residents fight a polyvinyl chloride plant the chemical giant Shintech wanted to build in Convent.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Foster badly wanted to see the Shintech plant built. He mocked the plant’s two most vocal opponents, Emelda West and Pat Melancon of Convent, as “a bunch of housewives.”</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Calls to Shintech seeking comment were not returned.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Former Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster pushed for Tulane University to be defunded after students in the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic helped Convent residents challenge air and water permits for a proposed polyvinyl chloride plant.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (Bryan S. Berteaux/The Times-Picayune)</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In addition to challenging Shintech’s air and water permits, Convent residents — with the help of Tulane — filed a complaint with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claiming the state violated the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act when it approved the project.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The complaint became the first key test of an executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1994 that aimed to address the fact that communities of color bore a disproportionate burden of pollution.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Foster was apoplectic. He encouraged Tulane alumni and business leaders to reconsider their financial support for the university.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Several industry lobbying groups, meanwhile, urged the Louisiana Supreme Court, which oversees student law practice in the state, to investigate the law clinic.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Student law practice allows legal novices to gain hands-on experience, while providing legal assistance to those who would not otherwise have access.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state’s most powerful business lobby, had recently helped three pro-business justices win seats on the Supreme Court. The chief justice, Pascal Calogero, was up for election the following year.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">At LABI’s urging, the court began investigating the Tulane clinic in 1997. As the election heated up, Calogero — and all but one justice — voted to restrict student law assistance. The new rules banned the representation of any community organization affiliated with a national organization — like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club or the NAACP and prohibited students and supervising lawyers from initiating contact with potential clients.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The new rules also placed limits on how much residents could earn and still receive student representation. A family of three, for example, could not get assistance if they made more than $13,650 annually.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>
</b></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>The head of the Association of American Law Schools called the new requirements “the most restrictive student practice rule in the nation.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Emelda West, of the St. James Citizens for Jobs and the Environment, speaks in front of the Governor’s Mansion during a protest against the governor’s threats against the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic in 1997. (Tim Mueller/The Advocate)]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Ironically, the new rules — which have since been relaxed some — came too late to save Shintech’s plant. The company announced in 1998 it had scratched its plan, opting instead for a much smaller facility in Iberville Parish.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The Tulane clinic has continued to garner the ire of industry over the last two decades. In 2010, Adley introduced another bill aimed at stopping the clinic from going after chemical plants. It would have yanked state funding from Tulane if its law clinic sued a government agency. As the bill was introduced, Dan Borné, then head of Louisiana Chemical Association, said: “My board acted on taking an aggressive approach toward the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. This is part of that approach.”</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>But Adley’s bill to defund Tulane was ill-timed. One month earlier, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Lawmakers were concerned that if the bill passed, residents affected by the spill wouldn’t be able to get legal assistance from Tulane. The bill failed.</b></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Lisa Jordan, director of the clinic, co-wrote the civil rights petition to the EPA on behalf of Convent residents two decades ago. Even though the case put a crimp on the clinic, she’s proud of taking on the fight. “It was hard, and it had a really good result for the clients,” she said. “And because it told me this is such important work, even when you don’t necessarily succeed ... to give people a legal voice that they otherwise couldn’t have had.”</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Monique Harden, of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice who co-wrote the civil rights petition, said the repeated assaults on the clinic exemplify how Louisiana officials tend to react to environmental uprisings.</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“There is this systemwide hostility to people fighting back,” Harden said. “They want to cut support. But not just cut support, cut your remedy.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Share Your Story</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Do you live in one of these affected parishes? Share your story with us. ProPublica and The Times-Picayune and The Advocate are investigating the massive chemical plants in the industrial stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and hearing from you will help us tell more stories.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Talk to us if:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You work or have worked in an industrial facility in Louisiana, and you can tell us what your experience has been like.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s a new plant in your neighborhood, and you can tell us how your community has been responding to it.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You’ve been in contact with the DEQ and/or your parish government about a plant and can share with us what the responses from those entities has been.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You can talk to us about the impact of these plants in your community, including sharing evidence like signage, emails, residue or other anecdotes with us.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s how to talk to us:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Email us: pollution@propublica.org</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Call or text us: 347-244-2134</font></div></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Restricting Representation</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New laws are hardly the only method Louisiana elected officials have used to stifle residents’ opposition to industry.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In 1997, former Gov. Mike Foster pressured the Louisiana Supreme Court to trim the sails of student law clinics after the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic helped St. James Parish residents fight a <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">polyvinyl chloride plant</span> the chemical giant Shintech wanted to build in Convent.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Foster badly wanted to see the Shintech plant built. He mocked the plant’s two most vocal opponents, Emelda West and Pat Melancon of Convent, as “a bunch of housewives.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Calls to Shintech seeking comment were not returned.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Former Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster pushed for Tulane University to be defunded after students in the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic helped Convent residents challenge air and water permits for a proposed polyvinyl chloride plant.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (Bryan S. Berteaux/The Times-Picayune)</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to challenging Shintech’s air and water permits, Convent residents — with the help of Tulane — filed a complaint with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claiming the state violated the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act when it approved the project.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The complaint became the first key test of an executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1994 that aimed to address the fact that communities of color bore a disproportionate burden of pollution.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Foster was apoplectic. He encouraged Tulane alumni and business leaders to reconsider their financial support for the university.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several industry lobbying groups, meanwhile, urged the Louisiana Supreme Court, which oversees student law practice in the state, to investigate the law clinic.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Student law practice allows legal novices to gain hands-on experience, while providing legal assistance to those who would not otherwise have access.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state’s most powerful business lobby, had recently helped three pro-business justices win seats on the Supreme Court. The chief justice, Pascal Calogero, was up for election the following year.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At LABI’s urging, the court began investigating the Tulane clinic in 1997. As the election heated up, Calogero — and all but one justice — voted to restrict student law assistance. The new rules banned the representation of any community organization affiliated with a national organization — like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club or the NAACP and prohibited students and supervising lawyers from initiating contact with potential clients.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new rules also placed limits on how much residents could earn and still receive student representation. A family of three, for example, could not get assistance if they made more than $13,650 annually.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The head of the Association of American Law Schools called the new requirements “the most restrictive student practice rule in the nation.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Emelda West, of the St. James Citizens for Jobs and the Environment, speaks in front of the Governor’s Mansion during a protest against the governor’s threats against the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic in 1997. (Tim Mueller/The Advocate)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ironically, the new rules — which have since been relaxed some — came too late to save Shintech’s plant. The company announced in 1998 it had scratched its plan, opting instead for a much smaller facility in Iberville Parish.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Tulane clinic has continued to garner the ire of industry over the last two decades. In 2010, Adley introduced another bill aimed at stopping the clinic from going after chemical plants. It would have yanked state funding from Tulane if its law clinic sued a government agency. As the bill was introduced, Dan Borné, then head of Louisiana Chemical Association, said: “My board acted on taking an aggressive approach toward the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. This is part of that approach.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Adley’s bill to defund Tulane was ill-timed. One month earlier, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Lawmakers were concerned that if the bill passed, residents affected by the spill wouldn’t be able to get legal assistance from Tulane. The bill failed.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lisa Jordan, director of the clinic, co-wrote the civil rights petition to the EPA on behalf of Convent residents two decades ago. Even though the case put a crimp on the clinic, she’s proud of taking on the fight. “It was hard, and it had a really good result for the clients,” she said. “And because it told me this is such important work, even when you don’t necessarily succeed ... to give people a legal voice that they otherwise couldn’t have had.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Monique Harden, of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice who co-wrote the civil rights petition, said the repeated assaults on the clinic exemplify how Louisiana officials tend to react to environmental uprisings.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There is this systemwide hostility to people fighting back,” Harden said. “They want to cut support. But not just cut support, cut your remedy.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/30/bayou-bridge-pipeline-construction-injunction-atchafalaya-basin"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.desmogblog.com<b>/2018/01</b>/30/bayou-bridge-pipeline-construction-injunction-atchafalaya-basin</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Less than a week after construction began on the controversial Bayou Bridge pipeline in Louisiana, a coalition of crawfishers and environmental groups took legal steps to immediately shut down the project. As a result, on February 8 a federal judge will review a <a href="https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/Memorandum-in-Support-of-Motion-for-Preliminary-Injunction.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">request filed this morning from Earthjustice</a>, a nonprofit environmental law firm, which seeks to halt construction of the pipeline through the Atchafalaya Basin while the court considers the firm’s earlier case challenging the pipeline’s permitting. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A federal judge has <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/louisiana/articles/2018-01-30/judge-rejects-bid-to-suspend-louisiana-pipeline-construction" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">denied the request for a temporary restraining</a> order that would have paused construction ahead of the February 8 hearing.*</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The motion was filed on behalf of a coalition of the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, the Sierra Club, the Gulf Restoration Network, the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West, and the Waterkeeper Alliance.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">If built, the pipeline would transport <a href="https://bayoubridge.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">up to 480,000 barrels of oil a day</a> from Lake Charles, in southwestern Louisiana, to a terminal in St. James Parish on the banks of the Mississippi River, cutting through the environmentally sensitive Atchafalaya Basin.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Transfer Partners, the majority shareholder of Bayou Bridge <span class="caps" style="">LLC</span> (and Dakota Access), <a href="http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/courts/article_4dc0be78-012a-11e8-b293-cbc2716bdce6.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">confirmed that construction</a> began last week, despite legal challenges it faces in federal and state court.[pix]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
On January 25, I went to one of the sites on the outskirts of the Atchafalaya Basin where work on the pipeline had begun. Drone footage by Phinizy Percy, an independent camera operator, captured a swath of trees already cut down and piled along the route.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[vid]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Irreparable Harm’ to the Basin?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 11 <a href="https://earthjustice.org/blog/2018-january/flirting-with-disaster-bayou-bridge-pipeline" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Earthjustice filed a case</a> against the <span class="caps" style="">U.S.</span> Army Corps of Engineers alleging that irreparable harm to the Atchafalaya River Basin was not adequately considered when the Corps approved a permit for the pipeline. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Energy Transfer Partners has a deplorable track record when it comes to respect for our environment and our nation’s irreplaceable ecosystems,” Jan Hasselman, an attorney with Earthjustice, said in a statement to the press. “We can’t allow them to run roughshod over the Atchafalaya Basin’s bottomland hardwoods, cypress swamps, bayous and backwater lakes — and the communities that rely on them — particularly when the Corps failed to adequately consider the risks posed by this project.”

The suit makes the case that the proposed pipeline threatens to damage the delicate and already stressed ecosystem in the Atchafalaya Basin, a national heritage site. In addition, the suit claims the crawfish industry, which relies on the health of the basin's wild crawfish habitat, will be negatively impacted.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plaintiffs demand that the Corps enforce existing permits <a style="">for oil and gas pipeline companies already operating in the basin</a> that are not compliant. They say that if the Corps does not bring those operators into compliance before the Bayou Bridge pipeline is installed, then the damage to the basin and the water flow essential to it resulting from existing pipeline construction impacts could become permanent.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>There are already miles of pipelines crisscrossing the basin that have decimated our water quality, creating hypoxic water that kills crawfish, and filled the basin with so much sand that our ability to fight flooding has been seriously compromised,” said Jody Meche, a commercial crawfisherman with the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West. “Why should we let a company that has already proven it has no regard for our environment or our way of life do even more harm?”</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Decline of an Ecosystem and Way of Life<em style="">.</em></font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At the Atchafalaya </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Basinkeeper</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">’s annual fundraiser on January 28 in Lafayette, Louisiana, Meche told supporters that he has had a front row seat while watching the decline of the basin. The Cajun way of life will soon be a thing of the past if people like him don’t stand up and protect what belongs to all of us, said Meche.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meche and many locals are not against the oil and gas industry per se, but they do not support allowing that industry to destroy a way of life for them and generations to come. He and the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, where he is a board member, will continue fighting to hold the government accountable for its responsibility to protect the basin.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meche pointed out <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dakota-access-pipeline-leak-energy-transfer-partners/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Energy Transfers Partners failure rate</a>, citing the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/08/pipeline-spill-by-dakota-access-company-could-have-a-deadly-effect/?utm_term=.fff76b5963f7" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">company’s drilling mud spill in Ohio</a> during construction of the Rover pipeline. If a similar spill were to happen in the basin, the crawfish industry would be destroyed, he said. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Energy Transfer Partners has proven time and time again that it can neither construct nor operate new pipelines without spilling,” Larissa Liebmann, the Waterkeeper Alliance’s staff attorney, said in a statement to the press. “This injunction is necessary to protect the communities and waterways from bearing the costs of yet another irresponsible pipeline build-out.” </font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legal Challenges Abound</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bayou Bridge </span><span class="caps" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LLC</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is also facing legal challenges in state court in </span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/06/26/pastor-leads-lawsuit-opposing-bayou-bridge-pipeline-protect-louisiana-cancer-alley-community" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">a suit filed last year</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> by the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Tulane Environmental Law Clinic </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">against the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Filed on behalf of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, 350 New Orleans, Gulf Restoration Network, and St. James residents, the lawsuit alleges the agency was overly lax when considering whether to permit Bayou Bridge. That case is still under review. </span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In addition, on January 25, the</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Center for Constitutional Rights </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">argued a case asking for Bayou Bridge </span><span class="caps" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LLC</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to turn over records relating to the company’s use of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">eminent domain</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to seize land to build the pipeline. </span><a href="http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/environment/article_d17b8446-01ed-11e8-8513-a323d8d47266.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;"><b>The judge ruled</b></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> that Bayou Bridge did not have to turn over the documents but gave the center a chance to amend its petition</b>. </span>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The center’s next challenge requests that the court compel the governor’s office to release requested documents of its communications with private entities involved with the project.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> This request, also filed on behalf of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, 350 New Orleans, and the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, will be heard by a court on February 2.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alexis Daniel, a spokesperson for Energy Transfer Partners, didn’t comment on the request for an injunction to stop construction on the project. Instead Daniel reiterated previous claims the company has made about the pipeline’s potential benefits to the state: “It will provide an estimated 2,500 local construction jobs that support Louisiana families, generate an estimated $17.6 million in sales tax for local businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and stores.” </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel didn’t mention that the company previously stated the pipeline would create only 12 permanent jobs.</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Local Paper Advocates for the Pipeline</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The day before the injunction was filed, The Baton Rouge Advocate weighed in with an editorial: <a href="http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_d6ccb3a8-fada-11e7-85c9-73c947be7b96.html" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“Our Views: Legal flak should not delay Bayou Bridge pipeline project.”</a></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>It reads like it was lifted from a list of industry talking points,” Dean Wilson, executive director of the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, told me. The Atchafalaya Basinkeeper is submitting a response to The Advocate, calling out the newspaper for releasing what he says is misinformation.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The paper is basically suggesting that regulators shouldn't be questioned; that the process shouldn't be tested even though judicial review is built into our system,” Pam Spees, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, told me. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Most concerning about this piece,” Spees continued, “is that The Advocate is using its power and privilege as a longstanding paper-of-record in this state in an attempt to mute the voices and concerns of Louisiana residents and organizations who are exercising their First Amendment rights to petition and be heard in a matter where the odds are stacked mightily against them.” She added, “If The Advocate's editorial were a high school civics essay, it would get a failing grade for missing the whole point of democracy.”</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div>