Louisiana Bans Climate Change Lawsuits: The Energy Protection Act

The Louisiana Energy Protection Act is a state law, signed by Governor Jeff Landry on June 8, 2026, that bars civil lawsuits in Louisiana state courts seeking damages for injuries, deaths, or property losses attributed to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.¹ Authored by State Representative Brett Geymann, a Republican from the Lake Charles area, it makes Louisiana one of the first states to grant energy producers and other emitters this kind of immunity from climate-related claims.

What the Law Bars

House Bill 804, now Act No. 843, prohibits plaintiffs from filing state-court suits that seek personal injury, property, or economic damages tied to greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change. The ban is written broadly. It covers not just oil and gas companies but any entity that emits greenhouse gases, including other businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, and individuals. Geymann said he drafted it that way on purpose, so landowners and others would not be “swept up” in litigation targeting oil companies.²

As originally drafted, the bill also imposed steep procedural hurdles on any plaintiff who managed to bring a qualifying climate claim. A plaintiff would have had to prove by clear and convincing evidence, a higher standard than the usual civil threshold, that a specific company’s emissions caused more than half of the alleged climate damages. The plaintiff would also have had to identify which greenhouse gas caused the harm and show they did not contribute to the emissions themselves. Any suit brought by a state or local government would have required written approval from the governor, the attorney general, and the natural resources committees in both chambers of the legislature.³

What Lawsuits Can Still Be Filed

The law carves out several categories of claims that remain available. Lawsuits can still proceed if a company violates government-mandated emissions caps, workplace safety rules under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, or the specific terms of its environmental permits.¹

Localized pollution cases that do not rely on a climate-change theory also remain permissible. In the Lake Charles area, for example, environmental groups filed federal suits in February 2025 against two petroleum coke plants, alleging illegal discharges of lead, mercury, nickel, and other pollutants into the Calcasieu River without proper permits.⁴ A 2006 CITGO refinery spill that released an estimated 54,000 barrels of waste oil into the same river produced a $19.69 million federal consent decree in 2021.⁵ Claims of that kind, targeting specific permit violations and direct contamination, are not blocked.

The law also leaves untouched Louisiana’s long-running coastal erosion litigation. Starting in 2013, six parishes filed about 40 suits against oil and gas companies, and New Orleans added its own case against 12 companies in 2019.⁶ Those cases allege violations of state coastal management law from decades of canal-dredging and extraction, not harm from global climate change. A Plaquemines Parish jury ordered Chevron to pay $745 million toward wetlands restoration in one of them.⁷ The signed law explicitly excludes those existing “coastal lawsuits.”⁸

Effective Date and the Grandfather Clause

HB 804 cleared the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment unanimously in late April 2026 and passed the full House on May 5 by a vote of 83 to 17. In the Senate, the Natural Resources Committee added a grandfathering amendment exempting any lawsuit filed before the law’s effective date.⁹ The Senate passed the amended version 31 to 3 on May 26, the House concurred 92 to 5 on May 29, and Landry signed on June 8, 2026.¹⁰

The grandfather clause matters for anyone with litigation already in motion. Suits filed before the law took effect may continue; the ban applies going forward. The amendment was motivated partly by concerns the bill could otherwise interfere with the parishes’ pending coastal cases.¹¹

How the Governor Framed It

At the signing, Landry described the law as a way to “close the door to frivolous litigation” against the oil and gas industry. He called it a response to attempts to “weaponize” public nuisance laws against energy producers, adding that “people can’t theorize the fact that climate change is manmade and then take that as a theory and hold those companies that are producing energy liable for that.”¹²

Geymann said he was inspired by a new Utah law and wanted to prevent lawsuits in which “multiple companies could be taken to court for damages under a single lawsuit.” He also said the bill borrowed language from the federal Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026, introduced by Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Harriet Hageman.¹³

Who Backed It and Who Opposed It

The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association supported the bill, with president Tommy Faucheux telling lawmakers it would protect businesses without blocking “legitimate claims” involving specific harms. The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry called it “an important step toward strengthening legal certainty and reinforcing Louisiana’s competitiveness for investment, economic growth and job creation.”¹¹ The American Petroleum Institute listed blocking “abusive” climate lawsuits among its top priorities for 2026.¹⁴

Behind many state bills of this kind, including Louisiana’s, is a coordinated effort around model legislation called the “Energy Freedom Act,” created by Consumers Defense, a conservative group that is an arm of Consumers’ Research and has financial ties to organizations linked to legal activist Leonard Leo. The model bill was promoted at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s States and Nation Policy Summit in December 2025.¹⁵ Geymann said he did not work with groups associated with Leo to draft the legislation, calling it “very narrow.”³ The Greater New Orleans Interfaith Climate Coalition pointed to Louisiana Ethics Administration records showing Geymann received at least $28,000 in campaign donations from oil and gas companies and their political action committees between 2002 and 2025.¹⁶

Opposition came from environmental groups, trial attorneys, and community advocates. Victor Marcello, a partner at the Baton Rouge firm Talbot, Carmouche and Marcello, which represents several parishes in the coastal cases, called the bill “a solution in search of a problem,” noting that no Louisiana municipality or parish had actually filed the kind of climate-deception lawsuit the bill targeted.¹¹ His more pointed concern was that the broad language could be used by corporate defense attorneys to dismiss routine pollution and contamination suits by arguing the damage was “tangentially exacerbated by broader climate patterns and sea-level rise.” He warned lawmakers: “If you guys want to go ahead and say you can’t file these climate change suits in Louisiana, fine, do it, but this bill does a lot more than that, and I can guarantee you that there’s going to be lawyers that interpret it like that.”¹⁷

The Alliance for Affordable Energy argued the language could restrict almost any emission-related damages claim.³ The Sierra Club’s Delta Chapter said the law limits the ability of coastal parishes and local communities to hold industries accountable for economic impacts tied to rising seas and intensifying storms.¹ The Greater New Orleans Interfaith Climate Coalition said the law shifts the financial burden of climate-related disasters and coastal damage from responsible companies onto taxpayers.¹⁶

How Louisiana Fits a Larger Picture

Louisiana’s law is one of several moving through state capitals. Utah was first, with Governor Spencer Cox signing HB 0222 in March 2026; it took effect in May 2026 and grants immunity for climate-related harms from heat-trapping emissions unless a plaintiff can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant violated a specific permit or statute.¹⁸ Tennessee passed its own version, titled the “Tennessee Energy Freedom Act,” using language from the Consumers Defense model bill. Similar bills had been introduced in Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana by mid-2026.¹⁵

At the federal level, the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act introduced in April 2026 would prohibit climate suits against energy producers in both state and federal courts, void state “energy penalty” laws, and preempt state attempts to regulate interstate and global emissions.¹⁹

The U.S. Supreme Court may address the underlying legal question. In February 2026, the Court agreed to hear Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, which tests whether federal law preempts state-court climate suits. Petitioners filed their brief in May 2026, with the respondents’ brief due in July and oral argument possible as early as October 2026.²⁰ Nearly 40 amicus briefs have been filed in support of the energy companies, including one from the United States government.²¹ A ruling in the companies’ favor would do nationally much of what Louisiana has now done by statute.

1
New Orleans City Business. Landry Signs Louisiana Energy Protection Act
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American Press. Energy Protection Act Amendment Would Allow Active Lawsuits
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The Lens. Louisiana Energy Protection Act Climate Liability Oil Companies
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The Advocate. Louisiana Petcoke Pollution
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NOAA. CITGO Refinery Calcasieu River
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Next City. Why New Orleans Is Suing Oil and Gas Companies
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Bloomberg Law. Nightmare Fight in Coastal Big Oil Suits Reaches Supreme Court
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NOLA.com. Louisiana Bans Climate Lawsuits Against Oil Companies
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Houma Today. Louisiana Senate Amends Bill to Allow Active Climate Change Lawsuits
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FOX 8 Live. Landry Signs Louisiana Energy Protection Act
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GNOICC. Regarding House Bill 804
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AOL News. Louisiana Climate Lawsuit Ban Headed
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Union of Concerned Scientists. UT Legislature Gifts Big Oil Sweeping Legal Immunity
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Office of Senator Ted Cruz. Sens. Cruz, Cotton, Budd, Lee Introduce Bill to Combat Climate Lawfare
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SCOTUSblog. Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County
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Bracewell LLP. Future of Climate Liability Litigation Up in the Air in Suncor