Briggs and his Oil and Gas Association claimed that the suit was
driving energy companies out of the state, and it even filed a
counter-suit against the state attorney general in a complicated effort
to block the hiring of attorneys by the levee board, and kill the
wetlands cleanup campaign. But the lawsuit also meant that Briggs would
be compelled to testify under oath in a deposition and back up his
claims.
Briggs was indeed questioned last week in the matter, and it did not go well.
Some of the results were reported this week in an article on NOLA.com:
A transcript of that deposition,
entered into evidence Monday, indicates that Briggs was repeatedly asked
what proof he had that the levee authority lawsuit would cause oil and
gas companies to abandon the state.
“Do you have any evidence that any
oil company considers Louisiana’s legal climate in deciding whether they
will drill for oil and gas in Louisiana,” asked attorney Rock Palermo,
who represents the levee authority.
“No,” Briggs responded, according to the deposition’s transcript.
“Is it your opinion that oil and gas companies are leaving Louisiana because of the threat of lawsuits?” Palermo asked.
“Yes,” Briggs said.
“Which oil companies have left Louisiana because of lawsuits,” Palermo asked.
“I don’t know,” Briggs answered.
“Do you have any facts or data to support your opinion?” Palermo asked.
“No,” Briggs said.
Palermo later asked for the name of any oil company that has refused to do business in the state because of the suits.
“I don’t know any,” Briggs said.
Briggs was also asked, “You can’t name a single company that has not drilled because of the lawsuits?”
“No,” Briggs said.
But the story gets more incredible from there. Briggs was supposed to
be in court in Baton Rouge on Monday for a major hearing in the case
but failed to show up – suddenly claiming health problems as a result of
giving that deposition last Thursday! That caused the judge to issue a
warrant for Briggs’ arrest if he failed to show up in court today. That
in turn triggered a flurry of back and forth involving a couple of
doctors until
finally
the judge, frustrated in his efforts to get to the bottom of heart
trouble that was now claimed by Briggs, delayed the hearing until March
10.
Lawyers for the law firm that was hired by the levee board are still suspicious, and understandably so:
Leo Honeycutt, communications
director for Caldwell, said it was not the attorney general’s lawyers
who pressed the issue of Briggs’ failure to appear.
“Judge Clark was angered because (1)
Briggs filed the suit; (2) Briggs knew this court date was coming and
the rest of us showed up; and (3) Briggs was subpoenaed but defied the
subpoena because in his deposition last Thursday he discovered he had no
evidence, no case, and hadn’t even read his own lawsuit,” Honeycutt
said in a statement emailed from the courtroom Tuesday.
He later added:
Honeycutt said Briggs’ failure to
show up also is curious because he gave a keynote speech to 300 people
at Lafayette’s Petroleum Club only three weeks ago “in which he stated
the oil industry was enjoying the best year in 40 years with the
greatest potential he had ever seen.”
“This is bizarre, unbelievable and
ridiculous behavior by a man who constantly rails against frivolous
lawsuits,” Honeycutt said. “Now, he is one.”
Honeycutt accused Briggs of engaging
in stall tactics aimed at delaying the levee authority’s lawsuit “long
enough to give (Gov. Bobby) Jindal time to replace enough (authority)
board members who’ll stop the suit.”
The hypocrisy of Briggs is alarming, and big news here in Louisiana,
but it’s not the Big Oil double-talk that’s making the biggest waves
nationally this week. That honor goes to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson,
who proved that when it comes to the many inconveniences — large and
small – of fracking for oil and natural gas,
what’s OK for your backyard is definitely not OK for their upscale backyards:
As ExxonMobil’s CEO, it’s Rex
Tillerson’s job to promote the hydraulic fracturing enabling the recent
oil and gas boom, and fight regulatory oversight. The oil company is the
biggest natural gas producer in the U.S., relying on the controversial
drilling technology to extract it.
The exception is when Tillerson’s $5
million property value might be harmed. Tillerson has joined a lawsuit
that cites fracking’s consequences in order to block the construction of
a 160-foot water tower next to his and his wife’s Texas home.
The Wall Street Journal
reports the tower would supply water to a nearby fracking site, and the
plaintiffs argue the project would cause too much noise and traffic
from hauling the water from the tower to the drilling site. The water
tower, owned by Cross Timbers Water Supply Corporation, “will sell water
to oil and gas explorers for fracing [sic] shale formations leading to
traffic with heavy trucks on FM 407, creating a noise nuisance and
traffic hazards,” the suit says.
Ironically (and there is almost too much irony to handle here), one
of Tillerson’s main missions as head of the world’s richest oil company
is to tell the world that fracking is safe, and perfectly normal. In
Texas, the ExxonMobil CEO hasn’t even been exposed to the worst that
fracking has to offer in terms of toxic air pollution or unsafe tap
water. But merely an unsightly water tower is too much for Tillerson to
bear.
Suddenly, the stack of lies that Big Oil has been peddling for years
to the American people are collapsing like the giant wobbly Jenga tower
that it’s always been. Their longstanding claims that reasonable
environmental protections would destroy their business model have fallen
apart, laughably, in a few minutes of questioning under oath. And now
Tillerson’s lawsuit proves what so many of us have been saying for a
long time – that living near a fracking operation is neither desirable
nor safe. America is finally waking up to our oil emperors’ new
clothes…there is nothing there.
