Promote Clean Energy, Protect Our Coast and Environment

Background

Louisiana is popularly known as the “Sportsman’s Paradise,” but our swamps, wetlands, coast, breathing air, farmlands, housing properties, and way of life have become a toxic dumping ground for billionaires and corporations, with their significant PAC contributions to politicians like Steve Scalise. Steve Scalise has taken more than $2.1 million from the fossil fuel industry over his career. This is the second-most of any member of the U.S. House. In just the 2023-24 cycle alone, he ranked fourth among all House lawmakers in oil and gas contributions, including $40,000 from the PAC of an oil executive later accused by federal regulators of colluding with OPEC to keep gas prices artificially high.

Louisiana needs a representative who treats coastal and environmental survival as a long-term, bipartisan infrastructure priority rather than a side effect of energy policy, and not something to defend only when the money's flowing in.

COASTAL EROSION

Louisiana is losing its coast in real time. Every hour, the state loses roughly a football field of wetlands and every year since the 1930s, Louisiana loses about 25-35 square miles of wetlands which is an area similar to the size of Delaware. This is land that protects communities from storm surge, sustains the fishing and shrimping industries that built this district, and keeps saltwater out of drinking water supplies. Coastal communities like Isle de Jean Charles have already been forced to relocate as the land beneath them disappears. Additionally, communities in Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and Terrebonne parishes face rising flood risks, with some areas expecting up to 2 feet of sea level rise by 2050.

Our state receives real money for coastal restoration through GOMESA: offshore drilling revenue sharing has funded wetland restoration and flood protection. That funding matters, and this district should keep using every dollar of it well. However, that same revenue stream ties Louisiana's coastal survival to the continued expansion of the very industry accelerating the crisis — deeper drilling, more leases, more emissions — without a serious federal plan for what happens when the oil runs out or the climate makes today's coastline unrecognizable. Our state remains dependent on the same industry driving the crisis we collectively face.

Even as drilling revenue has increased, the broader federal commitment to coastal resilience has been cut. In the Fiscal Year 2026 federal budget, NOAA eliminated Coastal Zone Management Grants (-$81.5 million), eliminated National Coastal Resilience Funds (-$32 million), eliminated the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (-$33.3 million), and terminated the Habitat Conservation & Restoration Program (-$56.2 million). This was alongside roughly $280 million in rescinded NOAA climate resilience funds. These are exactly the programs that fund the science, monitoring, and habitat restoration work that drilling revenue alone can't replace.

AI & HYPERSCALE DATA CENTERS

Louisiana is becoming a national hub for hyperscale data center construction, and it's happening fast. Meta's Hyperion data center in Richland Parish has grown from an initial $10 billion project to a $50 billion, 5-gigawatt facility. This is one of the largest AI infrastructure investments in the world. To power it, Entergy is building 10 new power plants across three parishes, including new gas-fired generation. Meta's data center could use around six times more power than the entire city of New Orleans on one of the hottest days of the year.

This kind of investment can mean temporary jobs and community investment, but none of those advantages should come at the expense of people’s safety or professional livelihoods. Working class people and families in America deserve innovation that works with them, not against them. Congress must use its power to conduct research, pass legislation, and create regulations ensuring artificial intelligence methods and technologies are used in ways that are ethical, responsible, transparent, and regulated.

CARBON CAPTURE STORAGE (CCS)

Louisiana is at the center of many of the largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the country and world. There are currently dozens of Class VI carbon injection well applications across nearly 20 Louisiana parishes. Many Louisiana residents have expressed concern that the CCS projects will affect our health, wildlife, lakes, water systems, agricultural industry, tourism, and constitutional property rights.

Carbon capture projects also generate their own emissions. They are one of the most expensive emissions reduction measures and require government subsidies to be economically viable. These projects often come at the cost of landowners' rights and public safety. Too often, the companies proposing these projects have kept basic details and overall impacts undisclosed, leaving the people living above these pipelines and injection sites in the dark about risks to their land, water, and air.

Lauren’s Coastal Restoration Priorities in Congress

• Protect and expand GOMESA revenue sharing while fighting to restore the NOAA coastal resilience programs that were cut. It is important that Louisiana has access to both funding streams, rather than one traded for the other.
• Fully fund the Army Corps of Engineers' Morganza to the Gulf hurricane protection project and other critical Louisiana flood control work.
• Support a real transition plan for coastal communities facing managed retreat, including funding and infrastructure for communities like Isle de Jean Charles. We cannot have relocation without a real plan or resources.
• Invest in offshore wind and other diversified energy development in the Gulf, so Louisiana's coastal funding isn't permanently tied to a single, finite industry.
• Restore and protect NOAA's National Estuarine Research Reserve System and habitat restoration programs that scientifically guide where and how restoration dollars get spent.
• Push for a long-term, dedicated federal coastal restoration trust fund that doesn't rise and fall with oil lease auction results.
• Support our local farms and fisheries as part of climate resilience by recognizing that islands, mid-bay terraces, and levees help mitigate the risks our seafood harvesters and farmers face from storms and government actions that flood areas with polluted freshwater
• Support those working in the local commercial fishing and seafood industry by making investments in energy efficient technology to help them do their jobs well, safely, and sustainably.

Lauren’s Priorities in Congress for Artificial Intelligence

• Advocate for a moratorium on new AI data centers
• Call for a full analysis of the environmental and labor impact of AI Data Centers
• Require full public disclosure of data centers' projected energy and water usage before permits are approved. There should be no more trade-secret black boxes on resource use that affects the whole community.
• Support legislation ensuring tech companies, not ratepayers, cover the true cost of the power plants, grid upgrades, and infrastructure improvements built to serve their facilities.
• Push for enforceable local-hire and local-training commitments tied to any federal incentives or tax benefits data center operators receive and ensure that there is job-embedded training versus job displacement
• Require independent water-impact assessments for any large-scale data center in a coastal or agricultural region before construction begins.
• Advocate for guardrails so that AI technology is not used as a tool for over-surveillance of communities or discipline and displacement of workers
• Invest in programs that promote digital literacy skills and STEM education
• Fight for passage of laws that address deepfakes, political misinformation, and any AI-generated sexual abuse and harassment

Lauren’s Priorities in Congress for Alternative Energy and Carbon Capture Sequestration (CCS) Projects

• Oppose further acceptance of carbon capture sequestration projects
• Oppose Section 45Q federal tax incentives and credits for CCS projects
• Oppose the use of eminent domain to force landowners to accept CO2 injection or pipelines beneath their property without genuine, informed consent.
• Commit to a variety of safe options for renewable and resistant energy sources with job retraining programs
• Require comprehensive environmental impact studies and full safety reviews be conducted for new projects coming into communities
• Hold oil and petrochemical companies accountable for environmental damage and health risk through litigation and regulation
• Promote the installation of rooftop solar on government offices and buildings.