Politics

Gov. Edwards Heads To D.C. To Lobby For Oil And Gas

WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio | By Tegan Wendland

Published May 12, 2021 at 12:50 PM CDT

Gov. John Bel Edwards pictured at the statehouse in Baton Rouge. Louisiana's governor, a Democrat who has supported abortion restrictions in the past, signed a bill into law on June 21, 2022, that would criminalize providers of the procedure and make no exceptions for rape or incest.

Gov. John Bel Edwards is in Washington, D.C., this week to testify on behalf of the oil and gas industry.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is holding a hearing on off-shore energy development Thursday morning. Edwards is one of the witnesses scheduled to speakbefore the committee.

One of the first things President Joe Biden did when he took office was institute a ban on all new oil and gas lease sales. Edwards has spoken out against the ban, saying it will negatively impact Louisiana’s oil and gas industry.

“An abrupt and prolonged major reduction to federal offshore oil and gas exploration and production would devastate Louisiana’s economy,” Edwards said in a press release Tuesday.

At the same time, the democratic governor has joined a handful of other states in committing to ambitious carbon emissions reduction goals. Last fall he launched a climate task force to chart a path for how the state might achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Oil and gas industry advocates have said a transition to cleaner energy sources is inevitable, but argue that the transition should be gradual. They have lobbied for reducing point-source pollution at refineries through the use of various emissions reductions technologies, rather than reducing overall production of oil and gas.

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