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September 17th, 2009

Response to Foster Campbells Letter

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Gifford Briggs – Louisiana Oil & Gas Association –

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to a published letter from Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell. Referring to a recent energy conference held on the LSU campus, Campbell inaccurately says the LSU Center for Energy Studies stacked the deck with only opponents of the energy bill, known as cap and trade. The LSU Center for Energy Studies had absolutely nothing to do with choosing the speakers. Although David Dismukes was included in the agenda as a speaker, the only other request made of LSU was to host the event.

Campbell further states that there was “no effort to be objective despite the importance of the subject matter.” If LSU hosted a conference on terrorism, should Al-Qaida be invited to give its point of view out of a sense of fairness? Of course not. Likewise, most of us in Louisiana’s energy industry completely disagree with the proponents of cap and trade. Our governor, our entire congressional delegation and virtually every local economist has spoken out against this ill-conceived big-government scheme. It is so overwhelmingly rejected in Louisiana and other energy-producing states that even Campbell himself has yet to publicly support it. The purpose of the energy conference was not to debate whether cap and trade is good for Louisiana; it was to make it clear that it is bad for our state, our businesses and our citizens and to offer a warning as to what economic devastation lies ahead if it becomes the law of the land.

Finally, while many of us on the panel do question the science behind global-warming proponents, at least one speaker, Elaine Kamark from the Climate Task Force, definitively took the opposite position though she also joined with other experts in warning about the ill effects of cap and trade. Likewise, she proposed a controversial carbon tax as a better alternative to cap and trade. Had Mr. Campbell been there or spoken with anyone who was there, he might have realized that this conference was more balanced and more pro-Louisiana consumer than he indicates in his letter.