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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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T u e s d ay, a p r i l 15, 2025
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2025 LEGISLATURE
Landry seeks compromise on auto insurance rates
WBR faces funding dilemma Laws exclude plants from sales tax for Fire Department
BY HALEY MILLER Staff writer
Gov. Jeff Landry addresses the Legislature on the opening day of the 2025 session on Monday.
Governor faces legislative opposition
Staff writer
ä Teacher pay among top education issues. PAGE 4A
Gov. Jeff Landry on Monday pinned the blame for Louisiana’s car insurance crisis on both trial lawyers and insurance companies, saying “a dark cloud continues to linger in the halls of this Capitol” over
the issue. But as Landry opened the 2025 regular legislative session, it was not clear that the 144 House and Senate members sitting in front of him
BY TYLER BRIDGES
agree with his approach. Landry was animated as he gave an unusually long 63-minute speech, pounding the podium and jabbing his finger for emphasis. “Year after year after year, we come here to argue about excessive insurance rates,” Landry told lawmakers. “Year
STAFF PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK after year, people from both sides show up to gaslight us.” But while legislators applauded him while seated from time to time, the two biggest standing ovations he received came from his senior legislative staff and Cabinet seated in one corner of the House chamber. A few House Democrats stood to applaud at one point
ä See LANDRY, page 4A
Bill may overhaul post-conviction process The move also comes seven Measure would shorten months after state lawmakers took action against Orleans Parish Distime to executions
trict Attorney Jason Williams over deals he made through the postconviction relief process to reduce Staff writer the sentences of long-serving inAs the state resumes executions mates. Attorney General Liz Murrill, a of death row prisoners, a bill in the Legislature aims to cut back on the conservative Republican with a time people convicted of crimes staunch pro-death penalty stance, can spend trying to reduce or over- says House Bill 572 would prevent turn their sentences, and it would victims from waiting decades to vest more power over the process ä See EXECUTIONS, page 5A with the Attorney General’s Office.
BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN
Rep. Brian Glorioso, R-Slidell, is sponsoring House Bill 572, which would overhaul Louisiana’s post-conviction relief process.
STAFF PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK
In West Baton Rouge this year, the Sheriff’s Office is operating with $1.1 million more than the Fire Department. It’s not because the Parish Council has prioritized one over the other. The disparity results from a combination of state and municipal law that excludes major chemical plants Dow and Shintech from paying the half-cent fire protection sales tax, according to West Baton Rouge Parish Council members. That money is the difference in hiring more firefighters and moving up from a Class 3 fire rating by the Property Insurance Association of Louisiana to Class 2, West Baton Rouge Fire Chief Butch Browning said. Better ratings can lower property insurance premiums for residents. “We need more funding to do that, and that’s working with the administration and the council and the public as to what they want,” Browning said. “We should really be a Class 2 department.” The firefighters have learned to adapt with the funds and infrastructure they have, Browning said. For example, they have built a 6,000-foot hose tender to compensate for the insufficient fire hydrants in the parish. But how to increase funding — to reach the Class 2 fire rating or the coveted Class 1 — remains a stubborn question for the Parish Council, thanks to the exclusion of designated industrial areas from paying the half-penny tax. Parish Council Chair Carey Denstel said he doesn’t believe it’s within the council’s authority to introduce a new tax on the chemical plants. “We have no solution to that,” Denstel said. “There’s nothing we can do about it. The law is the law, so that makes it challenging.” Parish officials think the exclusion of the industrial zone from fire protection most likely exists because the plants have their own firefighting departments, due to the particularities of fighting chemical fires. For example, fires started by electrical equipment or by flammable liquids, such as oil and grease, should never be extinguished using standard pressurized water, according to the UCLA Ambulatory Fire and Life Safety
ä See WBR, page 7A
Louisiana coastal damage cases mount against oil industry
the 40 other lawsuits that attorney United States, but globally,” said the appeals process will comfight. Landmark verdict bigger After a monthlong trial in John Carmouche has filed on be- Michael Gerrard, the founder mence. And I think settlement disPlaquemines Parish that ended half of coastal parof the Sabin Center for Climate cussions will probably commence, found company liable earlier this month, a jury found ishes, all seeking Change Law at Columbia Univer- too.” for $745 million Since 2013, Carmouche has led Chevron liable for $745 million in damages from oil sity in New York. “In addition to
BY ALEX LUBBEN Staff writer
A landmark verdict holding the oil industry responsible for Louisiana coastal damage was more than a decade in the making. It may only be the beginning of a much
WEATHER HIGH 77 LOW 49 PAGE 6B
damages, which, by law, must be used to restore coastal wetlands. The company immediately promised to appeal, a stance that Chevron has emphasized in the days since the trial ended. Perhaps more important than the outcome of this case, however, is the fact that it sets a precedent for
companies to restore areas along Louisiana’s eroding coastline. “This is one of the largest ver- Carmouche dicts ever won by a local government for environmental damage — not only in the
its effect on the numerous other similar lawsuits pending in Louisiana, it may inspire similar lawsuits in this country and around the world.” “It’s not the end of anything,” noted Mark Davis, director of the Tulane Center on Environmental Law. “It’s almost inevitable that
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the charge on 42 lawsuits, each claiming that oil and gas companies polluted areas of the coast and contributed to Louisiana’s land loss crisis. Across the state, more than 2,000 square miles of land has washed away over the
ä See CASES, page 7A
100TH yEAR, NO. 289