BATON ROUGE, LA (June 12, 2025) - Upon the conclusion of the 2025 Louisiana Legislative Session, LOGA President Mike Moncla issued the following statement:
This last week of the session proved to be a big one for prospective oil and gas drilling investments in Louisiana. For decades, Louisiana’s upstream oil and gas sector has been at a competitive disadvantage compared to other producing states with regards to our severance tax rates and legacy lawsuits.
HB 600 by Representative Brett Geymann (Lake Charles) lowered the oil severance tax rate from the nation’s highest, at 12.5%, down to 6.5% for all new drilling projects in Louisiana. Each of the last five years that I’ve been at LOGA, we have attempted to lower the severance rate for oil but fell short on each attempt.
Representative Jacob Landry’s (Erath) legacy lawsuit bill, HB 694 was amended into SB 244 by Senator Bob Hensgens (Abbeville) and was passed on Wednesday. We ran a very similar bill last year that was stalled without even getting a vote on the Senate floor, so we are elated that this legislation made it through the process. While the timeline to implement this new legislation won’t begin until September 2027, this is a long-game play. The clock for a new future has officially started with this legacy reform bill.
We want to thank Governor Landry for keeping his promise on addressing both of these important issues. Also, thanks go out to Speaker DeVillier (Eunice), House Natural Resources Chairman Brett Geymann, Representative Jacob Landry, and Senate Natural Resources Chairman Bob Hensgens. With these positive changes, Louisiana is a more attractive place for oil and gas investment today than it was yesterday.
