\u201cMitch Landrieu would never sue,\u201d said Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental justice group based in New Orleans. \u201cDuring his tenure, there were all these calls for him to join the lawsuits, but he wouldn\u2019t.\u201d (The city\u2019s current mayor, LaToya Cantrell, sued oil and gas companies over coastal erosion in 2019<\/a>, in a case that\u2019s still pending.) Landrieu had said that he preferred negotiation over litigation, but as Nola.com<\/a> reported, \u201chis proposals, including one for new oil and gas taxes, were quickly rejected by the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Climate activists like Rolfes were dismayed when President Joe Biden announced in November that Landrieu had been selected<\/a> to oversee the dispersal of new funds for the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill now signed into law. It\u2019s a high-visibility role that will allow Landrieu to travel around the country and build his profile as he eyes even\u00a0greater national political power. But more importantly, they warn, his new post could tilt the scales in favor of fossil fuel interests as companies gun for new billion-dollar contracts to build roads, bridges, and pipelines. Landrieu did not return The Intercept\u2019s request for comment for this story.<\/p>\n Landrieu said recently that climate will be his\u00a0No. 1 priority<\/a> for infrastructure implementation, but activists say this rhetoric is not reflected in his record from eight years as mayor. They point to his family\u2019s close ties to the oil and gas industry; his weak, nonbinding climate plan<\/a> released in his final year in office; his silence over a new gas plant<\/a> approved for construction in a predominately Black and Vietnamese neighborhood; and his full-throttled defense of drilling.<\/p>\n \u201cI think oil and gas production is good,\u201d he\u00a0told MSNBC in 2015<\/a>. \u201cPeople are gonna keep driving, and we need fossil fuels, and we need to make sure that we keep drilling.\u201d In 2010, he urged the Obama administration to lift its ban on offshore drilling. \u201cIt is not a zero-sum game,\u201d he insisted<\/a>. \u201cWe must drill and restore.\u201d<\/p>\n New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu speaks during a Hurricane Katrina 10th anniversary event at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans on Aug.\u00a029, 2015.<\/p>\n \nPhoto: Erika Goldring\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n Landrieu, who served<\/u> as New Orleans mayor from 2010 to 2018, comes from a powerful political family in Louisiana that is sometimes called the \u201cCajun Kennedys.\u201d His father, Maurice Edwin \u201cMoon\u201d Landrieu, served as mayor of New Orleans from 1970 to 1978, followed by a three-year stint as secretary of housing and urban development under President Jimmy Carter. One of his sisters, Madeleine, is the dean of Loyola University Law School and formerly was a judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. His brother, Maurice, works as an assistant U.S. attorney, and his other sister, Mary, was the last Democrat to serve as a U.S. senator from Louisiana from 1997 to 2015.<\/p>\n While in the Senate, Mary Landrieu was a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. In a 2014 review of her record<\/a>, the climate-focused news outlet Grist noted that she was more conservative than some congressional Republicans on environmental issues. She voted for an amendment that would reverse the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s decision to label carbon dioxide a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, against a bill to end tax loopholes for big oil companies<\/a>, and for an amendment that would have opened up large areas of coastline to offshore drilling. She was the primary sponsor on a bill<\/a> to approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and received over $1.7 million<\/a> in contributions from the oil and gas industry while a senator.<\/p>\n\n Upon losing reelection, Mary Landrieu went straight to the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Van Ness Feldman, which advocates on behalf of<\/a> oil, gas, and coal<\/a> companies, including<\/a> Royal Dutch Shell, Cheniere Energy, and the Coal Utilization Research Council. In her time there, she\u2019s personally lobbied for fossil fuel interests, according to Senate lobby<\/a> disclosures<\/a>. She did not return The Intercept\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n In a statement to The Intercept, a White House spokesperson said: \u201cThe Biden Administration is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standard, including Senior Advisor and Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu. As a White House employee, he will comply with the Biden Administration\u2019s Ethics Pledge and all White House ethics and conflict of interest rules. He has received rigorous counseling on his ethics obligations, including avoiding any potential conflicts of interest. He is also required to recuse from particular matters involving his sister Mary Landrieu and any clients of hers.\u201d<\/p>\n One way Mitch Landrieu could exert his influence is by steering infrastructure contracts to fossil fuel companies. Activists point to\u00a0the\u00a0$5 billion Clean School Bus Act, a provision of the bipartisan infrastructure package, as one example of how this could play out. That program allocates $2.5 billion for new zero-emission school bus purchases and another $2.5 billion for \u201clow-emissions\u201d buses, a broad category that\u00a0could include<\/a> compressed natural gas and propane.<\/p>\n \u201cOn paper, a lot of these programs are being sold as clean energy projects, but when you get down to the details, things like compressed natural gas and enhanced oil recovery can qualify,\u201d said Lukas Ross, a senior policy analyst at Friends of the Earth. \u201cThere are neutral programs that could be corrupted, and someone like Landrieu can co-opt funds, because a lot of this stuff is left up to administrative discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor formula-funding grants and competitive grants, it can really come down to who he decides to email back, who he is taking calls from, who can get a meeting,\u201d added Dorothy Slater, a senior climate researcher at the Revolving Door Project, which scrutinizes executive branch appointees. Throughout his political career, Landrieu took at least $134,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests, per campaign finance data from the Louisiana Ethics Administration Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ross and Slater also point to New Democracy, an effort launched by centrist leaders<\/a> in 2017<\/a> to expand Democratic appeal in red and purple areas, for which Landrieu served on an advisory board. \u201c[New Democracy\u2019s] mission is to expand the party\u2019s appeal across Middle America and make Democrats competitive everywhere,\u201d reads the group\u2019s website<\/a>. \u201cThese pragmatic Democratic leaders need room to maneuver, not purity tests and threats to \u2018primary\u2019 incumbents who deviate from left-wing orthodoxy.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser for the centrist Progressive Policy Institute, published a New Democracy memo<\/a> urging swing state candidates to \u201cvocally support the shale natural gas boom that has been overwhelmingly good for American consumers, workers and the climate\u201d and to point out that President Barack Obama \u201cpresided over America\u2019s largest ever oil and gas boom.\u201d A spokesperson for PPI said that Landrieu had nothing to do with\u00a0its climate recommendations.<\/p>\n A ruptured oil well near Port Fourchon pours oil into coastal waters about 100 miles southeast of New Orleans on Aug. 31, 2005.<\/p>\n \nPhoto: Scott Saltzman\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n In lieu of<\/u> hard policy change, some of Landrieu\u2019s more memorable political accomplishments have been symbolic, like ordering the removal of Confederate monuments in\u00a0New Orleans and traveling to Paris in 2015 to talk about the role of U.S. mayors in stemming climate change.<\/p>\n Rolfes said that it was always hard for local climate groups to criticize Landrieu when his climate plans fell short, given the even more hostile political environment they were dealing with on the state level. \u201cIn a way, it was really politically shrewd of him to engage the groups who were worried about climate because he could also neutralize them,\u201d she said. \u201cGroups tried to walk that line and relationship diplomatically so they could maintain his ear.\u201d<\/p>\n Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president of political affairs for the Environmental Defense Fund, a national organization, called Landrieu an \u201cexcellent choice\u201d to lead on the infrastructure plan. \u201cEnvironmental Defense Fund has had the privilege of working with Mayor Landrieu on community resilience, coastal protection and other climate smart projects, and we have seen firsthand his deep experience with disaster management after Hurricane Katrina at the state and local level, and his resilience planning response as Mayor,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n Restore the Mississippi River Delta \u2014 a coalition of \u201cBig Green\u201d groups like the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation,\u00a0the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, and Pontchartrain Conservancy \u2014 also praised<\/a> the selection.<\/p>\n \u201cLouisiana desperately needs more investments in its coast, particularly through projects in the Coastal Master Plan,\u201d said Kimberly Reyher, executive director at Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. \u201cMitch Landrieu understands this, so his appointment is great news for Louisiana. As Mitch said in his address at the 2018 State of the Coast conference, \u2018South Louisiana is one of the most vulnerable places on the globe, making our work on long-term restoration even more important.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Landrieu\u2019s elevation among national political commentators escalated in 2017<\/a>\u00a0when he ordered the removal of four Confederate statues, something local activists had been organizing around for years. Leaning into the spotlight, Landrieu then published a bestselling book<\/a>, “In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History,” and by 2019 went on to become a national political commentator himself<\/a>, joining CNN.<\/p>\n New Orleans journalist Michael Stein observed that the national love for Landrieu seemed to arise overnight. \u201cWhen I went to sleep, Mitch Landrieu was the mediocre mayor of New Orleans, facing lethargic public support and intense local disapproval,\u201d he wrote in The New Republic in 2017.<\/a> \u201cWhen I woke up, he was a future leader of the Democratic Party and a 2020 presidential contender.\u201d (Landrieu did not end up running for president.)<\/p>\n Mary Frances Berry, a professor of history and social thought at the University of Pennsylvania, criticized Landrieu for taking so much credit for the removal of the statutes. “Mitch is a nice guy. His father was a nice guy. They’re all good people,” she told NBC last year<\/a>. \u201cBut he took advantage of all the work that activists in New Orleans did to demand that the city remove those statues. \u2026 Mitch was forced into the position he took. Then he hijacked the credit in a systematic way, wrote a book promoting the idea that he was brave.”<\/p>\n For now, Landrieu is leaning into his new gig, speaking with mayors, governors, and local media nationwide. Last week, Politico<\/a> noted<\/a> that sources inside and outside the administration have said that the former New Orleans mayor has been \u201cbuilding a power center in the West Wing\u201d to potentially \u201cpositio[n] himself well for a future spot in the president\u2019s inner circle and, perhaps, in a post-Biden Democratic Party.\u201d As one administration official quipped, \u201cMitch Landrieu is a machine.\u201d<\/p>\n Slater said the climate community was blindsided by Landrieu’s appointment. \u201cRevolving Door Project follows all these sorts of things, we often get intel and whispers, and yet we did not hear anything about this before it was announced,\u201d she said. \u201cNow in hindsight it seems like the meetings may have been happening but that they were not leaked, so there really wasn\u2019t an opportunity for climate groups to pressure the Biden administration, and it was really sprung on people right before Thanksgiving. I think that timing was intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Biden\u2019s Infrastructure Czar Comes With Friendly Record on Fossil Fuels<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mitch Landrieu, former mayor of New Orleans, has been put in charge of infrastructure implementation. He and his family have spent years defending oil and gas interests.<\/p>\n The post Biden\u2019s Infrastructure Czar Comes With Friendly Record on Fossil Fuels<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[393,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437144"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437835,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437144\/revisions\/437835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Power](\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-485906968.jpg\")
\n\u201cIt can really come down to who he decides to email back, who he is taking calls from, who can get a meeting.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-94898021.jpg\")
\n\u201cWhen I went to sleep, Mitch Landrieu was the mediocre mayor of New Orleans. … When I woke up, he was a future leader of the Democratic Party.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n