On April 17, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an 8-0 decision in Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The Court unanimously held that Chevron and the other energy producer defendants fell within the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), specifically that Chevron’s wartime energy activity “related to” U.S. military directives. This landmark ruling – one where the Trump Justice Department filed a brief in support of the eventual ruling – underscores the growing unpopularity of Governor Jeff Landry’s and Attorney General Liz Murrill’s baseless coastal erosion lawsuits.

Starting in 2013, Plaquemines and other parishes sued several energy producers, alleging that their crucial oil production and refining during World War II, which the federal government mandated, directed, and managed, made them financially responsible for Louisiana’s coastal erosion, despite other more likely causes. Plaquemines Parish won a $745 million judgment at a state court trial in April 2025, but the Supreme Court’s ruling could call that judgment into question. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling means that Chevron and the other energy producers may seek to remove the Louisiana parishes’ 40+ state court lawsuits to federal court. The parishes will challenge the removals because they view Louisiana state courts as much more friendly, if only because the mass tort plaintiffs’ attorneys who are running the cases, led by the infamous John Carmouche, regularly donate lots of money to state judges, including Louisiana Supreme Court justices such as Jefferson Hughes, and the Plaquemines trial judge, Michael Clement. They also donated lots of money to Attorney General Murrill and Governor Landry. In fact, shortly after Landry took office, he appointed Carmouche to the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors, a plum, politically powerful position.

Disappointingly, Murrill and Landry teamed up with Carmouche and the other mass tort plaintiffs’ attorneys to bring these potentially industry and economy crippling lawsuits. In fact, both Landry and Murrill inappropriately influenced the cases in favor of the plaintiffs. In 2016, Landry and Carmouche signed a joint civil prosecution agreement where Landry preemptively promised that the Office of the Attorney General would not “expressly or impliedly endorse” any of the energy producer defendants’ “substantive defenses or exceptions,” even if they were valid or meritorious. The agreement remains active under Murrill.

Moreover, Landry and Murrill shockingly surrendered their prosecutorial authority on these junk coastal erosion lawsuits to Carmouche and the other mass-tort plaintiffs’ attorneys to the point where they, not Louisiana’s government attorneys, argued the Plaquemines trial.

In early June, the Louisiana state legislature passed the Louisiana Energy Protection Act (“LEPA”), which is designed to recognize federal law’s primacy on interstate issues such as greenhouse gas emissions and “climate change,” restrict abusive junk “climate” lawsuits against Louisiana’s and America’s energy industry, and limit civil liability for claims relating to “climate change damages” and “greenhouse gas emissions.” LEPA was intended to create legal predictability, provide a lower-cost, legally stable, pro-investment environment for energy companies, deliver lower prices for consumers, and strengthen Louisiana as a leading energy-producing state. The Louisiana state legislature realized that it needed to stop the “climate lawfare” lawsuit abuse seen in states like California and Colorado, where devious plaintiffs’ attorneys, special interest groups such as the Sierra Club, and the state attorneys general with whom they are in cahoots wrongly distend tort law beyond its traditional meaning and purpose in the hopes of forcing multi-billion-dollar settlements. Unfortunately, Carmouche, his Sierra Club allies, and his fellow mass tort plaintiffs’ attorneys quietly slipped a stealth amendment into LEPA, exempting their junk coastal erosion lawsuits because they all were “filed on or before the effective date of this Act.” The amendment has become known as the “Carmouche Carveout” and further demonstrates the extent to which Carmouche has control over Governor Landry’s lawfare agenda.

On June 23, 2026, Governor Landry announced that Louisiana and ExxonMobil, one of the coastal erosion lawsuit defendants, “reached a final agreement” to settle ExxonMobil’s part of those lawsuits. Because Carmouche and Louisiana still have more than 40 active coastal erosion lawsuits involving approximately 200 energy producer defendants, this litigation remains a broad and sweeping attack on domestic energy production and activity.

The Iran conflict shows the importance of President Trump’s energy independence policies. U.S. fuel prices increased during the conflict, but other countries that depended on the Strait of Hormuz for their energy needs, especially in Europe and Asia, suffered much more. These geopolitical conflicts and the consequential oil market volatility we’ve seen highlight more than ever the importance of domestic energy production. It’s now fundamentally obvious that the U.S. should not rely on unstable foreign sources for our energy demand. 

Ironically, Landry and Murrill both publicly claim that they agree with and strongly support the Trump Administration’s American energy independence agenda, yet their actions on Carmouche’s junk coastal erosion lawsuits are inapposite and harmful to American and Louisianan energy production and the more than 300,000 energy-related jobs in Louisiana. The bottom line: Landry and Murrill should drop these lawsuits. The ongoing existence of Governor Landry’s and AG Murrill’s cases undermines President Trump’s domestic energy independence agenda and jeopardizes America’s energy security.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of The National Law Review.