When a climate change denier becomes governor: Jeff Landry’s first month in

In his first four weeks in office, Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has filled the ranks of state environmental posts with fossil fuel industry executives.

Landry has taken aim at the state’s climate task force for possible elimination as part of a sweeping reorganization of Louisiana’s environmental bureaucracy. The goal, according to Landry’s executive order, is to “create a better prospective business climate.”

And in his first month, Landry changed the name of the Department of Natural Resources, the state agency with oversight of the fossil fuel industry, by adding the word “energy” to its title.

While the United States and other countries have vowed to move away from fossil fuels, Landry is running in the opposite direction.

Landry, who has labeled climate change “a hoax,” wants to grow the oil and gas industry that supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in Louisiana. Environmentalists blame the industry for the pollution that has harmed vulnerable communities in the state and for the climate change tied to increased flooding, land loss, drought and heat waves in the Gulf Coast state.

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A key indicator of where Landry is headed is the choice of Tyler Gray to lead the state’s Department of Energy and Natural Resources. Gray enters the new administration after spending the past two years working for Placid Refining Co. as its corporate secretary and lobbyist.

Before that, Gray spent seven years with the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, his final two years serving as the industry group’s president. During his tenure with LMOGA, Gray helped draft the controversial 2018 law that criminalized protesting near oil and gas pipelines and construction sites.

At the time, Gray said the law was needed as protection from individuals who attempt to unlawfully interrupt the construction of pipeline projects or damage existing facilities. Greenpeace USA found such laws — enacted in 18 states — were directly tied to fossil fuel industry lobbying and resulted in insulating more than 60% of U.S. gas and oil industry facilities from protest.

Anne Rolfes with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a grassroots nonprofit focused on accountability in the petrochemical industry, has a grim outlook on Gray’s tenure. Her organization has been involved with many of the protests in question.

“His willingness to suppress people’s rights in favor of that industry is alarming,” Rolfes said.

“He’s been writing laws that favor the oil industry over the rights of people throughout his career,” she added. “But the state has never stood up to the oil industry. Under every administration, there is this myopic idea of destroying our state via the oil and gas industry is somehow economic development.”

Neither Landry nor Gray’s office responded to multiple requests for comments.

Landry picks have oil, gas and coal ties

Gray is one of several former fossil fuel executives Landry has selected to lead Louisiana’s environmental efforts.

Tony Alford, the former co-owner and president of a Houma-based oilfield service company accused of spilling toxic waste in a Montana lawsuit, is now the chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection. Benjamin Bienvenu, an oil industry executive and petroleum engineer, is serving as the commissioner of conservation within the Department of Energy and Natural Resources.

Landry also tapped Aurelia Giacometto to lead the state Department of Environmental Quality. It was reportedthat Giacometto, the first Black woman to serve in the position, had ties with skeptics of climate science when she served under then-President Donald Trump as head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She currently sits on the board of a coal manufacturing company.

And Landry’s pick for the state’s new leader for the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Madison Sheahan, doesn’t have a background in wildlife — or fisheries. She enters the job after serving as the executive director of the South Dakota Republican Party and managing Trump’s re-election campaign in that state. The agency led by Sheahan is one of the state entities responsible for investigating oil spills.

At a recent press conference, Landry said he seeks to expand oil and gas refining in Louisiana, seeing it as the only way to increase job opportunities for the middle class.

For environmentalists, these are worrying signs for a state that is the site of a boom in proposed liquified natural gas facilities and carbon capture…