Even an activist rogue elected state judge won’t be able to slow the momentum liquified natural gas transport and export has established in Louisiana, reaping a windfall to Louisiana’s economy.

Last month, independent 38^th District Judge Penelope Richard ruled in favor of two of three claims made by three leftist environmentalist special interest groups. Richard previously had served as a public defender before election to the court as a Democrat, but more recently ran as an independent as Cameron Parish voter registrants signing up as Republicans began to become the district’s plurality.

In buying claims that the state (and by implication the federal government, which approved of the environmental impact statement earlier this year) ignored catastrophic anthropogenic global warming as a factor in issuing a permit, she wholly created new law using an absurdly expansionist view of the state Constitution that obligates the state to consider CAGW in permitting, and echoed that approach in alleging the state didn’t consider “environmental justice” as a factor – even though months earlier the Environmental Protection Agency repudiated the entire concept in its enforcement actions.

This overreach certainly will be cancelled when the Third Circuit Court of Appeals hears the case, not the least reason being that a similar case heard last year by the Fourth Circuit – with an all-Democrat panel – rejected similar reasoning which involved adding pipeline to facilitate LNG exportation. And, of course, the CAGW hoax that props that up is a myth.

Nor has the decision impeded the explosive growth of LNG generation, transport, and export in the state. An estimate of the impact of this just on the Lake Charles area–excluding parts of the Calcasieu River farther downstream—found that this activity generated an additional $894.5 million in state tax revenue from various sources.

This week, Greece struck a deal with Venture Global, a competitor of Commonwealth LNG (whose own project remains stalled), to expand its LNG imports from Louisiana by several magnitudes over the next two decades. Most of that gas will come from the same region where Commonwealth’s blocked facility was proposed.

Last year, Cameron Parish exported 663 billion cubic feet of LNG; by comparison, the Greek agreement for 700 million cubic meters per year amounts to just over one percent of that total.

Judge Richard’s ruling may have boosted spirits of climate alarmism, but judicial realism means that will be just a speed bump in the process of building the facility and connecting pipeline, which federal government regulators have extended to 2031. As for district voters, Richard is eligible to run for reelection, and if that attempt is made, they should take this flawed decision of hers into account and more sensible lawyers should run against her to give those voters a choice.