Louisiana District 2
Louisiana, your primary election is on July 11. You have some work to do when it comes to sustainability and green energy, and we want to see your beautiful state remain a gorgeous for years to come.
Your primary is different than most states, meaning that you employ a majority vote system. This means that whichever candidate wins the majority of the vote, they win outright. If no candidate reaches that threshold, you vote again between the two top contenders. As long as you’re registered, you can vote.
Let’s take a look at your candidates!
President
We haven't reviewed any presidential candidates yet, but check back soon!
Louisiana Senators
Antoine Pierce
Antoine Pierce is a community activist and founder of Better Boys Initiative, Inc.
Pierce mentions ensuring environmental protections and subsidizing renewable energy resources, but otherwise doesn’t have an extensive platform.
Dartanyon Williams
Dartanyon Williams is a businessman, author, and pastor.
Williams has some good stances on improving transportation – which will also decrease harmful emission output into our atmosphere. He has a good grasp on how disastrous climate change is in regard to gulf coast and the issues that will arise as devastating natural disasters continue to hit the coast. He wants to address coastal erosion and the next steps to deal with losing so much coastline in such a short time.
Overall, Williams has good ideas, but we would like to see him expand the issues on his climate change platform.
Drew Knight
Drew Knight is a political activist.
Knight acknowledges that climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing the world, and he wants to see some systemic change. However, he has a limited platform and little information available on his plans to change the system.
Bill Cassidy
Bill Cassidy has been a congressman since 2009, switching between the 5 and 6 districts before he became a Senator. His LCV scorecard rating is 7%.
Cassidy has a terrible voting record. The few items of legislation that he has voted positively on are water conservation programs and research – a very important aspect of conservation in a state that is directly affected by rising sea levels. However, looking into water conservation and pollution reduction and expanding aid for natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, etc. is fairly useless if not researched and addressed in tandem with climate change, which is causing a majority of the water-related natural disasters in the gulf.
Additionally, he has continuously supported expanding and using oil as a major energy source. Louisiana has been a powerhouse of oil refining, and as a ranking member of the Senate Energy Subcommittee, Cassidy has real opportunities daily to work towards a clean energy future, and instead he has been pushed around by oil lobbyists.
His new clean energy angle is natural gas production and consumption. Although natural gas certainly causes less CO2 emissions, the real kicker is it’s methane emissions. Methane can hold almost 90x more heat than a carbon dioxide molecule over a 20 year time period (cited). In simple terms, this heat absorption causes the atmosphere to heat up, causing ice to melt, causing flooding and a rise is sea levels. Although natural gas is, debatably, a better alternative than oil from a ground and water pollution standpoint, it is still far away from being a preferable major energy production and consumption material. We want to see a real interest in solar and hydro power from people in power in the gulf.
Cassidy also clearly states that he wants to get rid of “red tape” to give oil and gas companies an easier time extracting, refining, and producing oil and natural gas. That “red tape” are often necessary and important restrictions and guidelines that refiners need to follow to keep pollution to a minimum and to protect those who live close to these industrial complexes from air and water pollutants. On a local scale, removing these regulations could have serious health repercussions for the people who live in these areas, and on a global scale, the impact on the water and atmospheric emissions will be catastrophic.
We want to see some positive changes from the Senator. He has so many opportunities to work on creating jobs in a vast and rapidly expanding green energy economy that he has been ignoring. Louisiana can’t afford to be left behind in the climate crisis- the rapidly dwindling shoreline is a testament to the amount of time that the Senator has wasted already.
Dustin Murphy
Dustin Murphy is a welder.
Murphy doesn’t have any information available on his stances on sustainability, clean energy, or climate change.
Jamar “Doc” Montgomery
Jamar “Doc” Montgomery is an attorney, mechanical engineer & Navy veteran.
Montgomery doesn’t have any information available on his stances on sustainability, clean energy, or climate change.
District 2 Representatives
Cedric Richmond
Cedric Richmond has been an incumbent since 2011. His LCV scorecard is at 76%, but his score for 2019 is at a 93% – a significant increase.
Richmond doesn’t have statements on his website saying that he supports anything- he just gives information about policies we are to assume he supports. In that vein, we can assume that there are a few sustainable policies that he is throwing his political support behind, mainly to do with the Mississippi River and coastal restoration projects, but he also touches on flood and hurricane relief programs, which are tangentially related to climate change policies, as climate change is one of the biggest influencers of the severe natural disasters we have been receiving since the turn of the century.
Let’s get started. Richmond’s voting record is above average, however, he has missed important votes or not voted on certain legislation – some due to personal reasons, others not. In general, he almost always votes positively on any legislation that deals with improving waterways and protects marine environments. He has even voted to ban offshore drilling in the Atlantic, and recently voted to advance legislation that would restrict offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf- a vote that he was alone in casting among his peers in Louisiana. Since oil and gas drilling is a huge aspect of Louisiana’s economy, it’s important to note that he has taken steps to move away from this aspect of dirty energy and focus more on coastal restoration and greener, more sustainable, energy job production.
Another hot topic in Louisiana (and the rest of the Midwest and Southern United States) is dredging the Mississippi River. Richmond supports dredging the Mississippi River – something will increase revenue in the ports all the way to Baton Rouge. However, when a river is dredged, sediment needs to be removed and relocated, and the sediment from the Mississippi River is currently being dumped into the ocean. Instead of sediment dumping, we want to see that sediment put towards creating new marshlands and wetland in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge and/or Pass A Loutre Wildlife Management Area. Regardless, we want to see that there are regulations in place so that too much sediment is not removed from the river that will cause loss of important ecosystems and disturb contaminated, trapped sediment, which is certainly a concern in industrial ports and areas affected by the BP oil spill from 2011. Richmond hasn’t made any statements other than his support of the dredging project, and we would like to see a stronger platform on this subject from him.
Coastal restoration is the first topic on Richmond’s website. He is advocating for funds to improve natural storm surge barriers in the deltas and secure coastal infrastructure, which ties into his flood and hurricane protection plans. Improving wetlands and other natural flood barriers is vital to keeping Louisiana residents safe from the increasingly dangerous natural disasters.
Richmond has a good track record, and he seems to be a balanced voice in advocating for sustainable and environmentally conscious legislation in Louisiana.
Colby James
Colby James (I)
James does not have any information available on his stances on sustainability, clean energy, or climate change.