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Hurricane Katrina Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Major Oil Companies

A class action suite has been filed against a number of major oil companies claiming they are responsible for Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans. The suit alleges that the major oil companies’ oil, gas and pipeline exploration and drilling activities throughout Southeast Louisiana resulted in ecological damages to such an extent that coastal marshes were destroyed which previously had protected New Orleans naturally from Katrina level hurricane force winds and tidal surges. It alleges that over one million acres of marshlands in Southeast Louisiana were completely destroyed and have virtually disappeared, and many more millions acres are essentially non-existent, primarily because of the major oil companies’ oil & gas exploration and drilling activities in Southeast Louisiana. “Everyone has been talking about the failures of the state, local and federal governments in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,” Exnicios explained. “We believe it’s the right time to pinpoint who’s essentially responsible for the devastation caused by Katrina in the first place — the major oil and gas companies, who haphazardly dredged thousands of miles of exploration and drill site canals throughout South Louisiana to extract oil and gas. “Their years of negligence and callous indifference to the marshland ecology led to […]

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Business Warming to Environmental Issues

The Business Roundtable, a trade group of chief executives of leading U.S. companies, yesterday announced a new effort to improve the environment and society in general through a series of voluntary programs. Programs could include cutting energy use, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing waste products, or funding education programs. The effort is called SEE Change because it is an effort to improve society, the environment and the economy. Chief executive officers from Sun Microsystems, Xerox, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Office Depot and American Electric Power described their companies’ individual efforts at a press conference announcing the initiative yesterday. Although SEE Change is an effort to improve society in general, one clear focus is on environmental protection. The executives said embracing environmental protections such as reducing energy use or reducing pollution makes good business sense in attracting both socially conscious consumers and employees. But most also added that they would oppose efforts in Congress to mandate similar pro-environment goals, such as cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. “Regulation is impossible to make work,” said Scott McNealy, who is the chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, in a typical response. That’s so, he and others indicated, because American business is too diverse for an overarching […]

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