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Drilled

Industry Backlash to Grassroots Organizing in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley"

Drilled

Critical Frequency

True Crime, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Science

4.82.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

ExxonMobil, Chevron and other petrochemical giants are increasingly organizing against grassroots environmental justice activism in Louisiana that are part of the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign. The companies have joined with pro-industry politicians and local Chambers of Commerce to form a “sustainability council,” focused not on environmental sustainability but on the longevity of the petrochemical industry on Louisiana's Gulf Coast. Jo Banner of The Descendants Project and Shamyra Lavigne of RISE St. James, two key organizers in the area, join us to talk about why the industry is suddenly organizing against them. Read more in The Guardian and Floodlight News exposé here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/04/cancer-alley-louisiana-environment-oil-industry-opposition Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome back to Drilled, I'm Amy Westerville. Back in 2021, we did a season of the podcast

0:17.9

on the fossil fuel industry's turn toward plastic and petrochemicals as the thing that

0:23.9

would save it as the world turned away from combustion engines. They have only leaned further

0:30.4

into that plan over the last two years, but as we documented in our plastic pipelines

0:35.9

season, grassroots activists have had a lot of success holding them off, one ethane cracker

0:42.1

facility at a time. The foremost a plant that was planned for St. James' parish back then

0:49.0

is still on hold now, thanks to various legal complaints filed on behalf of local groups

0:55.0

like Rise St. James whose efforts we profile the mad season. You can tell that organizers

1:01.4

in Louisiana are getting it done, because suddenly the industry is organizing against them.

1:09.2

Last year some serious money joined the petrochemicals fight when Bloomberg philanthropies

1:13.7

committed $85 million to the new Beyond Petrochemicals campaign. The campaign is focused

1:21.2

on stopping the 120 new petrochemical facilities proposed in Louisiana, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

1:30.2

So suddenly a new advocacy group has emerged. It calls itself the Sustainability Council,

1:37.3

and it's led by big oil companies and industry groups and backed by local officials and

1:42.6

chambers of commerce. The Sustainability Council is interested in is the petrochemical

1:49.0

industry's sustainability, so it's working hard to try to discredit local organizers and

1:55.9

paint the push against petrochemicals in Louisiana's Cancer Alley as an effort pushed by outsiders.

2:03.9

I got a chance to speak with a couple of those organizers, Shamira Levine with Rise St. James

2:10.1

and Joe Banner of the Descendants Project last month about their ongoing work and what

2:15.5

they think of this new challenge to it. That conversation's coming up right after this

2:21.7

quick break.

2:40.1

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