LAFOURCHE PARISH, La. — At the southern tip of Lafourche Parish sits an oil and gas driving force for the country.
“We have a $500 million a day economic impact to the nation’s GDP,” said parish president Archie Chaisson.
It’s that impact from Port Fourchon, connected to offshore drilling, that Chaisson says has ripple effects across his and neighboring parishes.
“The engineering firms, the surveying firms, the hardware store that sells hardhats, and work boots, and work gloves to the companies when they go offshore,” said Chaisson. “It’s taking care of those people that’s most important.”
Taking care of those people can be challenging because of what Chaisson feels are federal roadblocks.
With a federal ban on Russian oil and natural gas, because of waging war in Ukraine, Chaisson says bureaucracy tied to permits and leasing holds up domestic production and contributes to higher gas prices.
“A huge part of the State of the Union address was made in America or made in the USA. If that’s what we’re going to focus on, then let’s truly focus on it,” said Chaisson.
U.S. Congressman and House Republican Whip Steve Scalise says focusing on oil production at home is an economic win while taking away Russian leverage.
“There’s no reason that Putin should be pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars a day by selling oil to America, the United States when we could cut that off right now,” said Scalise.
Scalise points to opening U.S. oil reserves and allowing more leasing opportunities. With a focus on green energy and climate change, the Biden administration isn’t ready to take that step.
"It's simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production,” said President Joe Biden. “In the United States, 90% of onshore oil production takes place on land that isn't owned by the federal government and of the remaining 10% that occurs on federal land, the oil and gas industry has millions of acres leased. They have 9,000 permits to drill now. They could be drilling right now.”
Chaisson says it’s not that easy and can take years for sites to be up and running. While not opposed to green energy, Chaisson says you still need oil and gas.
“We can’t just say we’re going to flip a switch and move to these alternative energies because you still need petroleum at the end of the day to make a lot of this stuff work,” said Chaisson. “We can’t live our modern lives without the oil and gas industry.”
The federal government is exploring importing oil from countries, like Venezuela, to help make up the shortfall of imports from Russia. Chaisson says that means less jobs and less oil drilled at home, which is produced 53% cleaner than anywhere else in the world.