OPINION:
In light of President Biden’s proposed 2025 federal budget and regulatory agenda putting the oil and natural gas industry squarely in the government’s crosshairs, it’s up to the governors of oil- and gas-producing states to do all in their power to keep providing the energy America needs.
The federal government is waging what amounts to a war on energy, and states like Louisiana are fighting not only the wrongheaded policies coming out of Washington but also finding ways to ease the regulatory burden on an industry that needs all the help it can get.
Louisiana’s newly elected Republican governor, Jeff Landry, and I want the oil and gas and petrochemical industry to know that in Louisiana, the industry will find hospitality second to none. Why? Because we know that it’s capitalism — not government — that improves the lives of the people governments serve.
When I arrived in Baton Rouge four months ago as Louisiana’s new secretary of environmental quality, I was awestruck to discover that many of the agency’s permitting procedures had changed little in the last half-century. In an age where most teens have virtual supercomputers glued to their hands, governments still ask businesses to make their way through labyrinthian regulatory requirements using the bureaucratic equivalent of stone knives and bearskins. No wonder Louisiana’s environmental permitting is notorious in the industry for being slow and sticky.
A bulky bureaucracy is inevitable when agency bureaucrats are responsible not to their customers but to other bureaucrats. This is one reason socialism always disappoints.
To move Louisiana into the 21st century, Mr. Landry is creating an “electronic dashboard” that publicly tracks the permitting progress of applicants in all Louisiana state agencies while promoting the modernization of the permitting process.
I’m requiring electronic (not paper!) tablets to be used in my agency. We will build toward a reality where permitting progress can thus be posted automatically on our “dashboard.” The slow and the fast will be there for all to see. By bringing the environmental permitting process out of the dark ages and into the digital sunshine, we will cut environmental permitting time in Louisiana in half in the next year. And we will do that while protecting Louisiana’s second-to-none environment.
We want the oil and gas industry to see Louisiana’s fresh look — a new welcome mat. Our state has the fifth-largest natural gas reserves in the country and is currently third in natural gas production. There is plenty of opportunity and room to grow. The industry provides $25 billion in wages annually here and generates over 70% of the state’s gross domestic product.
The stakes could not be higher. New investment and protecting the investments that have already been made leads to jobs. Jobs mean families kept together, communities on the rise, less crime, children in schools, and better schools and better teachers.
We can do this. When I was director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington under President Donald Trump, my mission was to bring that agency into the 21st century by employing business practices that were backward to the government. In those four years, we learned how to do a better job. We found efficiencies, cut red tape, improved service, and enabled more of the taxpayers who sent the Trump administration to Washington to get outdoors and enjoy this country’s spectacular public lands.
In his inaugural address in January, Mr. Landry declared, “The people sent us here to repair and reform their government and to unleash innovation and production.” He is dedicated to applying the commonsense lessons we learned in tackling the Washington bureaucracy during the Trump years to the problems of his state today.
The governor, my staff, the oil and gas industry, the petrochemical industry, the agricultural sector — and every other industry — know that we must protect our precious environment but are counting on us to do that without declaring war on or crippling the energy industry.
Over 20% of our state’s land is water. We can fish and drill. We can swim and produce.
Mr. Landry is one of the new breed of Republican governors who have vowed to make things work for the people who elected them. He likes to say, “A new Louisiana day dawns.”
When the sun rises this next year on the new sensible house that Louisiana’s new government has built, it will light up a landscape that fosters capitalism, brings jobs, and preserves the state’s natural beauty. Join us anytime on our new front porch to see this new dawn.
• Aurelia S. Giacometto is Louisiana’s secretary of environmental quality.
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