Amicus Curiae Brief — Chevron USA Incorporated, et al., Petitioners v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, et al.

Supreme Court briefNov 20, 2025

Ask Donna

What actually matters in this document.

Text

No. 24-813

In the Supreme Court of the United States

CHEVRON USA INCORPORATED, ET AL.,

Petitioners,

PLAQUEMINES PARISH, LOUISIANA, ET AL.,

Respondents.

On Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF

GENERAL (RETIRED) RUSSEL HONORÉ

IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS

Daniel Woofter

Counsel of Record

Kevin K. Russell

RUSSELL & WOOFTER LLC

1701 Pennsylvania

Avenue NW, Suite 200

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 240-8433

dw@russellwoofter.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...................................... iii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ............................ 1

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ..................................... 2

ARGUMENT ............................................................... 8

Petitioners have devastated Louisiana’s

coastal zone and harmed our national

security. ................................................................. 8

A. Petitioners use unlawful crude oil

production practices that significantly

contribute

the

destruction

Louisiana’s coastal wetlands. ........................ 9

B. Petitioners’ crude oil production practices

harm our national security. ......................... 12

II. Petitioners’ crude production methods were

not necessary to refine avgas for the military

during World War II. .......................................... 15

A. The federal government did not concern

itself with where crude oil came from or

how it was produced. .................................... 15

B. The federal government directed only

avgas delivery in the contracts. ................... 18

C. Petitioners’ choice to maximize crude oil

profits had nothing to do with their

refining obligations....................................... 19

III. Requiring a causal connection to a federal

directive will not threaten our national

defense. ............................................................... 20

A. For 200 years federal contractors could

not remove state court cases like this, yet

they answered their country’s call. .............. 20

B. A federal forum is available to private

contractors when warranted. ....................... 22

CONCLUSION .......................................................... 24

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Jefferson Cnty. v. Acker,

527 U.S. 423 (1999) ............................................ 6, 21

Maryland v. Soper (No. 1),

270 U.S. 9 (1926) ................................................ 6, 21

Mesa v. California,

489 U.S. 121 (1989) ............................................ 6, 21

Plaquemines Parish v. Chevron USA, Inc.

(Plaquemines II),

2022 WL 9914869 (5th Cir. Oct. 17, 2022),

cert. denied 143 S. Ct. 991 (2023) ...................... 7, 24

Watson v. Philip Morris Cos., Inc.,

551 U.S. 142 (2007) ........................................ 6, 7, 21

Willingham v. Morgan,

395 U.S. 402 (1969) ............................................ 6, 21

Statutes

16 U.S.C. § 1451 ........................................................14

16 U.S.C. § 1451(i) ............................................... 14, 15

28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1) ........................................... 7, 24

State and Local Coastal Resources

Management Act in 1978,

La. Rev. Stat. §§ 49:214.21-42 ......... 2, 3, 8, 9, 15, 23

Other Authorities

A.M. Cruz & E. Krausmann, Damage to

Offshore Oil and Gas Facilities Following

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: An Overview,

21 J. Loss Prevention in Process Indus. 620

(2008) ...................................................................... 13

About NAS JRB New Orleans, U.S. NAVY,

https://tinyurl.com/3tvnj8sc (last visited

Nov. 20, 2025) .........................................................13

Alex Roland, The Military-Industrial Complex:

Lobby and Trope, in The Long War: A New

History of U.S. National Security Policy

Since World War II 361 (Andrew J. Bacevich

ed., 2007). ...............................................................22

Biography, General Honoré,

https://generalhonore.com/biography/ (last

visited Nov. 20, 2025) ...............................................1

Br. for the Petroleum Administrator for War

as Amicus Curiae, Hunter Co., Inc. v.

McHugh, 320 U.S. 222 (1943) (No. 25) .............. 4, 16

Dianne M. Lindstedt et al., History of Oil and

Gas Development in Coastal Louisiana, La.

Geological Surv. Res. Info. Series No. 7

(1991) .................................................................. 8, 10

Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, The

White House: President George W. Bush,

https://tinyurl.com/2wnncs22 (Aug. 27, 2005) ......13

Hurricanes Have Left Their Mark on

Louisiana’s Wetlands, NASA Earth

Observatory (May 13, 2024),

https://tinyurl.com/yjdwtcu9 ..................................11

Jae-Young Ko et al., Impacts of Oil and Gas

Activities on Coastal Wetland Loss in the

Mississippi Delta, Harte Rsch. Inst. (2004) ..........12

John W. Frey & H. Chandler Ide,

A History of the Petroleum Administration

for War, 1941-1945 (Gov’t Printing Off.

1946) ................................................... 4, 5, 17, 18, 19

Justin Nobel, No State Is Losing Land Like

Louisiana—But No Other State Has a Bolder

Plan, Nat’l Geographic (July 28, 2022),

https://tinyurl.com/y5ejspr7 ...................................11

La. Dep’t of Nat. Res., Louisiana Energy

Statistics: 1909–1989 (1991) ....................................8

Natural Hurricane Protection, Nat’l Oceanic &

Atmospheric Admin.,

https://tinyurl.com/3tkc564h (last visited

Nov. 20, 2025) .........................................................11

NAVSUP Fuels: What the Fleet Runs On,

Navy Supply Corps Newsl. (Naval Supply

Sys. Command, Mechanicsburg, Pa.), Spring

2020, https://tinyurl.com/59475xs2 .......................22

Oil & Gas – Energy Diversity, La. Econ. Dev.,

https://tinyurl.com/y3t26dab (last visited

Nov. 20, 2025) .........................................................14

Shell Union Oil Corporation, Annual Report

For the Year Ended December 31, 1942 ..................6

Storm Protection, Coal. to Restore Coastal La.,

https://tinyurl.com/jxhzmnyp (last visited

Nov. 20, 2025) .........................................................11

Surplus Prop. Admin., Aviation-Gasoline

Plants and Facilities: Report of the Surplus

Property Administration to the Congress

(1946) .................................................................. 4, 17

Tyler Priest, Technology and Strategy of

Petroleum Exploration in Coastal and

Offshore Gulf of Mexico, in 1 History of the

Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Southern

Louisiana: Papers on the Evolving Offshore

Industry (2008) .........................................................9

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Waterborne

Commerce Statistics Center, Principal Ports,

2023 Port and State Data (2023) ...........................14

U.S. Energy Info. Admin., Short-Term Energy

Outlook - September 2005 (Sept. 2005),

https://tinyurl.com/ympr22ae ................................13

Wartime Petroleum Policy Under the

Petroleum Administration for War: Hearings

Before a Special Comm. Investigating

Petroleum Res. Pursuant to S. Res. 36,

78th Cong. 1 (1945) (“Hearings”) ............... 16, 17, 18

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1

Lieutenant General Russel Honoré (U.S. Army,

Ret.) is a decorated 37-year army veteran, global

authority on leadership and national security, and an

expert on climate disasters and preparedness.2

General Honoré understands both the military’s

critical need for petroleum products and Louisiana’s

coastal crisis. Born in Pointe Coupee Parish,

Louisiana, he commanded Joint Task Force Katrina

and was dubbed the “Category 5 General” for

coordinating military relief efforts in post-hurricane

New Orleans. He has devoted his post-military career

to coastal restoration, founding the GreenARMY

coalition of experts and advocates among other

initiatives aimed at protecting Louisiana’s wetlands.

General Honoré’s brief addresses arguments

made by former colleagues he greatly respects but

with whom he must respectfully disagree. See Br. for

Gen. (Ret.) Richard B. Myers & Admiral (Ret.)

Michael G. Mullen as Amici Curiae Supporting

Petitioners (“Gen. Myers & Adm. Mullen Amici Br.”).

Their amici brief misunderstands what was

“necessary” for the oil industry to deliver refined

avgas to the military during World War II and thus

when it is important to our national security for a

contractor to remove state-law claims to federal court.

No counsel for any party authored this brief in whole or in

part. The brief was funded by Republican Patriots Protecting

Property Rights Inc.

See Biography, General Honoré, https://generalhonore.com/

biography/ (last visited Nov. 20, 2025).

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

I. The parishes sued petitioners for crude oil

exploration and production in Louisiana’s wetlands

that violated the State’s coastal-zone permitting

requirements. See Petr. Br. 12 (describing the

“SLCRMA,” La. Rev. Stat. §§ 49:214.21-42); Parishes

Br. 3-4 (same). The complaints target only conduct

that petitioners continued after the statute’s effective

date in 1980. The parishes claim petitioners either

failed to obtain permits the SLCRMA required to use

the coastal zone for crude oil exploration and

extraction or violated their permits’ terms. See

Parishes Br. 4. Because petitioners did not comply

with the statute, they must now remediate the

damage they’ve done to Louisiana’s critical wetlands

in the coastal-zone areas where they continued their

unlawful practices after the SLCRMA went into force.

A. In recent decades, Louisianians have

witnessed critical marshland vanish into the Gulf of

Mexico at an average rate of one-football-field-perhour largely because petitioners’ crude oil production

methods have devastated the State’s coast. Dredging

canals and access channels through Louisiana’s

marshes creates pathways for saltwater intrusion

that kills freshwater vegetation, the loss of which

causes land to subside into open water. These canals

and channels also route sediment-carrying water

straight into the Gulf rather than across the marsh,

depriving wetlands of sediment needed to rebuild.

Storm surges that would have been absorbed by miles

of marsh thus reach further inland with greater force,

creating a feedback loop where each hurricane

accelerates further land loss. Despite decades to

comply with the SLCRMA, petitioners have not

restored damaged land, filled canals, replanted marsh

grasses, or rebuilt barrier islands.

B. Requiring petitioners to litigate in state court

does not harm our national security. On the contrary,

destroying the cypress swamps and wetlands that

once shielded New Orleans has left Naval Air Station

Joint Reserve Base New Orleans, the Port of New

Orleans, and the oil and gas infrastructure supplying

fuel to America’s military vulnerable to hurricanes

like Katrina. It is petitioners’ operations and now

their delay in remedying the damage they caused that

have harmed our national security, not the failure to

treat petitioners like federal officers who “need a

federal forum.” Contra Petr. Br. 34; contra also Gen.

Myers & Adm. Mullen Amici Br. 13-14.

II. Petitioners produce crude oil as well as refine

it, as they did during World War II. But wartime

avgas demands did not require increasing crude oil

production in Louisiana’s coastal wetlands even at the

time, let alone in the destructive manner petitioners

used then and chose to continue in violation of the

SLCRMA.

A. During World War II, Louisiana regulated the

State’s oil production. Although the Petroleum

Administration for War (“PAW”) controlled refinery

output and product allocation, the PAW did not

concern itself with where crude oil came from or how

it was produced, leaving those decisions almost

entirely to state regulation and industry discretion. In

1943, the United States argued to this very Court that

state agencies were “well equipped to inaugurate and

administer comprehensive programs of conservation”

for oil production, and that their activities were

“important factors in the national program sponsored

by the [PAW].” Br. for the Petroleum Administrator

for War as Amicus Curiae, Hunter Co., Inc. v.

McHugh, 320 U.S. 222 (1943) (No. 25), at *5.

The federal government did not need to direct

crude oil production because private industry ensured

crude supply met refinery demand. Dozens of crude oil

producers operated in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma,

and California during the war, creating a surplus of

crude. In the Gulf Coast, refined products piled up at

refineries to the point where “these refineries would

soon have to cut back their operations, or actually

shut down for lack of storage capacity.” John W. Frey

& H. Chandler Ide, A History of the Petroleum

Administration for War, 1941-1945, at 217 (Gov’t

Printing Off. 1946) (“PAW History”). And much of the

avgas was not refined from crude at all but was

further refined from other products like heating oil

and motor gasoline using new refinery equipment. See

Surplus Prop. Admin., Aviation-Gasoline Plants and

Facilities: Report of the Surplus Property

Administration to the Congress 9-12 (1946).

B. The PAW was laser focused on obtaining

avgas and other petroleum products for military use,

as reflected in the federal contracts for avgas. The

parties agree that the contracts specified avgas

delivery to the military—not crude extraction for the

government. The avgas contracts did not have “‘any

reference, let alone direction, pertaining to crude oil

production.’” Petr. Br. 33 (quoting Pet. App. 33). The

agreements “by their terms gave petitioners ‘complete

latitude to forego producing any crude.’” Ibid. (quoting

Pet. App. 29-30) (alteration omitted) (emphasis

added). And if a refinery could not perform under the

avgas contract because of delays in crude oil delivery

or lack of availability, for example, the refiner was

excused from performance. E.g., JA183-84 (force

majeure provision of Shell Oil avgas contract).

C. Petitioners’ choice to maximize their crude oil

profits had nothing to do with their avgas refining

obligations. Crude oil produced during World War II

was widely traded to meet refinery demands. Some

refineries purchased all their crude from other

producers; petitioners do not dispute they purchased

crude from third parties to refine into avgas. From

1941 to 1945, Shell Oil alone purchased over 174

million barrels of crude on the open market from nonShell affiliated producers to refine into avgas and

other petroleum products. See JA211-12.

Meanwhile, the PAW only allocated petitioners’

refineries enough crude oil to fulfill their avgas

obligations; producing more crude did not mean

producing more avgas because refinery capacities

were limited. See JA214-19 (PAW History, supra, 191,

215). The “system of monthly allocations of specific

volumes of crude to specific refiners” was “on the

basis, always, of providing first for the minimum

quantities estimated to be necessary to assure

maximum output of war products.” JA27, 218-19

(PAW History, supra, at 215). An integrated avgas

refiner’s upstream crude oil production therefore

played no part in the refiner’s monthly allocation to

meet their avgas commitments. Petitioners’ choice to

maximize profits using unlawful crude oil production

methods in Louisiana’s coastal zone ultimately was a

business decision the war effort did not need and the

government did not request.

III. Given this reality, the Court should reject

the idea that the Question Presented is existential to

our national defense. Contra Gen. Myers & Adm.

Mullen Amici Br. 13-14.

A. Everyone agrees that federal contractors

could not remove cases like this from state court under

any prior iteration of the federal officer removal

statute—from the original 1815 enactment to the

2011 amended version currently in place. That period

spanned nearly two centuries of major conflicts,

foreign and domestic. During much of that time,

including during World War II, this Court required a

causal connection that petitioners failed to establish

here. See, e.g., Jefferson Cnty. v. Acker, 527 U.S. 423,

431-33 (1999) (requiring “causal connection” and

“essential nexus”); Mesa v. California, 489 U.S. 121,

131-33 (1989) (requiring “causal connection”);

Willingham v. Morgan, 395 U.S. 402, 409 (1969)

(same); Maryland v. Soper (No. 1), 270 U.S. 9, 33

(1926) (same); see also Watson v. Philip Morris Cos.,

Inc., 551 U.S. 142, 147-51 (2007) (discussing each of

these cases). Contractors still stepped forward,

including petitioners, who claimed at the time “‘that

Democracy can rise to any heights of accomplishment

when emergency faces it.’” E.g., JA212 (quoting Shell

Union Oil Corporation, Annual Report For the Year

Ended December 31, 1942, 5). The 200-year status quo

poses no threat of an unprovoked industrywide aboutface, as petitioners’ conduct demonstrates; their

appetite for federal contracts has not waned despite a

decade of failed removal attempts in these cases.

B. As amended, federal officer removal remains

available to defendants who show that the complaint

challenges conduct performed while “acting under” a

federal officer “for or relating to any act under color of

such office.” 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1); see La. Br. 21, 32

(Section 1442(a)(1) “covers only an action filed against

a defendant who is performing a present and

continuing act under a federal officer,” and who

establishes they were “carrying out the ‘acts’ that are

the subject of the complaints” (cleaned up)); Parishes

Br. 21-22 & n.18 (“The causation standard applied by

this Court when Watson was decided in 2007 is

substantially the same as it is today.”); see also Br. of

Former Gov. John Bel Edwards as Amicus Curiae

Supporting Respondents, at 8-23 (arguing that

Congress did not abrogate this Court’s causal-nexus

requirement when it amended Section 1442(a) in

2011). The panel affirmed the District Court’s finding

that petitioners failed to establish a sufficient

relationship between their 1940s avgas refining

contracts and their crude oil production practices in

Louisiana. That finding is fatal to petitioners’ claim.

The non-integrated producers’ crude oil was also

directed to avgas refineries under the PAW’s

allocation program; their crude was just as necessary

as petitioners’ to meeting the military’s avgas needs.

The equipment manufacturers who sold drilling rigs

and the workers who operated them were also in some

sense necessary to producing the crude oil that was

ultimately routed to avgas refineries. But petitioners

do not dispute that none of them can remove under

the federal officer removal statute. And some have

tried. See Plaquemines Parish v. Chevron USA, Inc.

(Plaquemines II), 2022 WL 9914869 (5th Cir. Oct. 17,

2022) (rejecting removal attempt by non-integrated

firms), cert. denied 143 S. Ct. 991 (2023). This Court

should similarly reject petitioners’ gambit.

ARGUMENT

PETITIONERS HAVE DEVASTATED LOUISIANA’S

COASTAL ZONE AND HARMED OUR NATIONAL

SECURITY.

This case is not about activities that began in

1942 or ended in 1945. Crude oil production in

Louisiana’s coastal wetlands began decades before

and continued well beyond World War II into the era

when the SLCRMA went into effect. See generally

Dianne M. Lindstedt et al., History of Oil and Gas

Development in Coastal Louisiana, La. Geological

Surv. Res. Info. Series No. 7, at 67 (1991). The peak of

Louisiana coastal production was nearly 30 years

after the war ended, entirely unconnected to any

crude extracted for refining in the ’40s:

See La. Dep’t of Nat. Res., Louisiana Energy

Statistics: 1909–1989, at ch. II.3 (1991).

Recognizing the urgent need to halt the cascading

destruction certain exploration and extraction

procedures have caused to the State’s coastal

wetlands, the Louisiana Legislature enacted the State

and Local Coastal Resources Management Act in

1978. The law took effect in 1980 and requires parties

engaging in activities that directly and significantly

impact coastal waters to obtain coastal use permits

and to restore affected areas. The law does not impose

retroactive liability for past ecological damage; it

requires companies to bring their ongoing operations

into compliance with protective standards and to

restore land their activities demolished if they choose

to continue the use.

Accordingly, petitioners could not have been sued

under the SLCRMA if they had ceased their

unauthorized crude oil production practices before the

Act’s effective date in 1980. See Parishes Br. 9-10. But

their failure to comply with the statute’s permitting

requirements thereafter requires remediation of preprogram damages.

A. Petitioners Use Unlawful Crude Oil

Production Practices That Significantly

Contribute To The Destruction Of

Louisiana’s Coastal Wetlands.

Louisiana’s coast is not solid ground. It is an

intricate ecosystem of marshes, swamps, and barrier

islands built over millennia by sediment deposits from

the Mississippi River. See Tyler Priest, Technology

and Strategy of Petroleum Exploration in Coastal and

Offshore Gulf of Mexico, in 1 History of the Offshore

Oil and Gas Industry in Southern Louisiana: Papers

on the Evolving Offshore Industry 11-14 (2008)

(describing Gulf of Mexico as “a giant downwarp of the

earth’s crust filled with tens of thousands of feet of

ancient river sediment deposited over 100 million

years”). Vegetation (marsh grasses, mangroves,

cypress trees) holds the land together. Remove the

vegetation, and the land subsides into open water.

Interrupt the sediment flow, and the land cannot

rebuild itself. The system is fragile, and oil and gas

extraction strikes at both vulnerabilities.

Dredging canals through wetlands triggers a

cascade of destruction. And while “dredging canals

destroys wetlands directly,” the “indirect effects of

these canals are the most significant.” Lindstedt et al.,

supra, at 68 (Louisiana Geological Survey 1991).

“Dredged materials deposited along the canals

prevent sheet flow across the marsh, thereby altering

hydrology and decreasing the sediment and water

supply, and subsequently contributing to subsidence.”

Ibid. Put another way, when companies cut

navigation canals and pipeline corridors through

marshes to access drilling sites, they create pathways

for saltwater intrusion. Saltwater kills freshwater

vegetation. Dead vegetation no longer holds soil in

place. Banks erode. The canal widens. What was once

a 50-foot-wide canal becomes a 200-foot-wide

waterway within a decade. Multiply this by thousands

of miles of canals, and the cumulative effect is

staggering.

Access channels also disrupt hydrology and cause

saltwater intrusion. “Like canals, navigational

channels have a major impact on Louisiana’s coastal

wetlands.” Lindstedt et al., supra, at 68. “They alter

hydrology by changing an area’s drainage patterns

from numerous small, sinuous channels to one large,

straight, deep channel.” Ibid. “These channels are a

major cause of saltwater intrusion and subsequent

loss of freshwater vegetation in the state.” Ibid. These

wetlands depend on seasonal flooding patterns and

sediment deposition. In layman’s terms, access

channels act as highways routing water and the

sediment it carries straight into the Gulf rather than

across the marsh. Deprived of sediment, the land

sinks. Deprived of fresh water, vegetation dies. The

result is “ghost forests” where dead cypress trees

surrounded by open water stand where thriving

wetlands once existed.

The effects quickly compound. Once land converts

to open water, it rarely recovers. Storm surges that

would have been absorbed by miles of marsh now

reach further inland and with greater force.3 Each

hurricane accelerates the land loss.4 Petitioners’

unlawful practices thus create a feedback loop of

destruction—damaging wetlands, thereby weakening

See, e.g., Natural Hurricane Protection, Nat’l Oceanic &

Atmospheric Admin., https://tinyurl.com/3tkc564h (last visited

Nov. 20, 2025); Storm Protection, Coal. to Restore Coastal La.,

https://tinyurl.com/jxhzmnyp (last visited Nov. 20, 2025).

See, e.g., Hurricanes Have Left Their Mark on Louisiana’s

Wetlands, NASA Earth Observatory (May 13, 2024),

https://tinyurl.com/yjdwtcu9; Justin Nobel, No State Is Losing

Land Like Louisiana—But No Other State Has a Bolder Plan,

Nat’l Geographic (July 28, 2022), https://tinyurl.com/y5ejspr7.

storm protection,5 which in turn leads to greater storm

damage, ultimately resulting in even more land loss.6

Communities where General Honoré’s ancestors

worked the land are now open water. Petitioners

significantly contributed to this destruction and then

ignored state law requiring them to bring their

practices into compliance. They have not restored the

land their operations destroyed, filled canals,

replanted marsh grasses, or rebuilt barrier islands.

The ruin from their activities worsens each passing

day. The parishes’ state-law claims cover but a

fraction of the harm petitioners caused and have done

nothing to remedy.

B. Petitioners’ Crude Oil Production

Practices Harm Our National Security.

General Honoré commanded Joint Task Force

Katrina in 2005. He witnessed firsthand what

happens when Louisiana’s wetlands are gone.

Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge killed nearly 1,400

people and caused $125 billion in damage, penetrating

so far inland in part because the coastal wetlands that

would have absorbed its force no longer exist. Every

mile of marsh reduces storm surge by several inches.

Miles of marsh mean the difference between water

stopping at the levees and water overtopping them.

See Jae-Young Ko et al., Impacts of Oil and Gas Activities on

Coastal Wetland Loss in the Mississippi Delta, Harte Rsch. Inst.,

at 608-09 (2004).

See John Tibbetts, Louisiana’s Wetlands: A Lesson in Nature

Appreciation, 114 Env’t Health Persps., Jan. 2006, at A40, A40A42.

Katrina did not just kill civilians and destroy

homes, though those losses were and are catastrophic.

The storm also disrupted major transportation

corridors, including Interstate 10, which serves as a

hurricane evacuation route and is part of the Strategic

Highway Network,7 and the oil and gas infrastructure

that produces a substantial portion of the nation’s

domestic energy supply.8 Given this, the storm

directly and significantly impacted:

•

Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New

Orleans, home to Navy and Marine Corps

aviation units;9

Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, The White House:

President George W. Bush, https://tinyurl.com/2wnncs22 (Aug.

27, 2005) (“Louisiana Department of Transportation and

Development officials informed Mississippi Department of

Transportation officials” that contraflow plans for “interstate

highways and other major roadways” would “reverse the flow of

traffic on inbound lanes to facilitate the evacuation of the New

Orleans metropolitan area.”).

U.S. Energy Info. Admin., Short-Term Energy Outlook September 2005, at 1 (Sept. 2005), https://tinyurl.com/ympr22ae

(“Hurricane Katrina caused significant direct damage to offshore

rigs, refineries, pipelines, and ports in the Gulf of Mexico . . . .

Katrina initially reduced oil supplies by an estimated 1.4 million

barrels per day and natural gas supplies by an estimated 8.8

billion cubic feet per day.”); see also A.M. Cruz & E. Krausmann,

Damage to Offshore Oil and Gas Facilities Following Hurricanes

Katrina and Rita: An Overview, 21 J. Loss Prevention in Process

Indus. 620 (2008) (“Energy production from the Gulf region

accounts for 30% of US oil supply and 20% of its natural gas.”).

About

NAS

JRB

New

Orleans,

U.S.

NAVY,

https://tinyurl.com/3tvnj8sc (last visited Nov. 20, 2025)

(describing NAS JRB New Orleans as home to Navy Reserve

units, the 159th Fighter Wing (Louisiana Air National Guard),

•

The Port of New Orleans, one of the largest

ports in the United States and critical to

military logistics;10

•

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which

supplies 13% of U.S. oil and is critical to the

military’s fuel supply.11

The parishes are not seeking to second-guess the

government’s wartime decisions. See infra Part II.

Rather, Congress intended Louisiana to regulate

petitioners in this manner, enacting the Coastal Zone

Management Act of 1971, 16 U.S.C. § 1451. See

Parishes Br. 2-3, 42-43; La. Br. 5-6. “The key to more

effective protection and use of the land and water

resources of the coastal zone,” Congress concluded, “is

to encourage the states to exercise their full authority

over the lands and waters in the coastal zone.” 16

U.S.C. § 1451(i) (emphasis added). The parishes thus

seek to litigate state-law claims in state courts based

on a state statute designed to prevent crude oil

Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans, and Marine Corps

Reserve units with aviation operations supporting Navy and

Marine Corps).

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Waterborne Commerce

Statistics Center, Principal Ports, 2023 Port and State Data

(2023) (listing Port of New Orleans as No. 6 among America’s

ports by total tonnage and ranking Louisiana as home to five of

the busiest 13 of America’s ports as measured by total tonnage:

South Louisiana (No. 2), New Orleans (No. 6), Greater Baton

Rouge (No. 8), Lake Charles (No. 10) and Plaquemines (No. 13)).

Oil & Gas – Energy Diversity, La. Econ. Dev.,

https://tinyurl.com/y3t26dab (last visited Nov. 20, 2025) (“The

one-of-its-kind Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) handles 13%

of the nation’s foreign oil and connects by pipeline to 50% of the

nation’s refining capability”).

producers from harming wetlands that protect

infrastructure vital to our national defense. As

discussed, every bit of wetland lost directly increases

the vulnerability of our critical infrastructure.

Enforcing state laws that protect those wetlands

therefore serves, rather than threatens, both the

federal government’s express goals, see ibid., as well

as our national security.

II. PETITIONERS’ CRUDE PRODUCTION METHODS

WERE NOT NECESSARY TO REFINE AVGAS FOR

THE MILITARY DURING WORLD WAR II.

As discussed above, the parishes’ suits challenge

only conduct that occurred after the SLCRMA’s

effective date in 1980. See supra pp.8-9. But

petitioners claim they are immune from suit in state

court because some of their challenged exploration

and extraction methods were used during World War

II when petitioners also had contracts to deliver

refined avgas to the military. Petitioners and their

amici argue that their continuing crude production

practices were once “necessary” to fulfill the military’s

avgas needs, implying that petitioners had no choice

but to produce crude from Louisiana’s coast and in the

unlawful manner that destroyed it. That’s false.

A. The Federal Government Did Not

Concern Itself With Where Crude Oil

Came From Or How It Was Produced.

During World War II, Louisiana—not the federal

government—regulated the State’s oil production.

That is because the government left crude oil

production decisions to state regulation and industry

discretion. In 1943, the United States argued to this

very Court that “state agencies, being acquainted

through past experience with the peculiar problems of

their respective states and possessing adequate

administrative personnel to secure the requisite

knowledge concerning individual [oil producing]

fields,” were “well equipped to inaugurate and

administer comprehensive programs of conservation

and to adjust the interests of common owners in any

pool.” Br. for the Petroleum Administrator for War as

Amicus Curiae, Hunter Co., Inc. v. McHugh, 320 U.S.

222 (1943) (No. 25), at *5. “Their activities,” according

to the government, were “important factors in the

national program sponsored by the [PAW].” Ibid.

What the PAW argued during wartime ought to

apply with even more force today. Although the PAW

controlled refinery output and product allocation, it

had hardly any say where crude was produced, let

alone how. “Except in California, PAW did not concern

itself with individual fields.” Wartime Petroleum

Policy Under the Petroleum Administration for War:

Hearings Before a Special Comm. Investigating

Petroleum Res. Pursuant to S. Res. 36, 78th Cong. 76

(1945) (“Hearings”) (statement of Philip H. Bohart,

Dir. of Prod. Div., PAW). The agency would certify an

amount for each State, “then the State assumed the

responsibility of allocating production between the

fields”; “there was no noteworthy or substantial

resistance to [industry] meeting the rates which PAW

certified.” Ibid.

The federal government did not need to direct

crude oil production because it was unnecessary. Left

largely to its own devices, private industry ensured

crude supply met refinery demand. Dozens of other

crude producers operated in Louisiana, Texas,

Oklahoma, and California during the relevant period,

creating a surplus of crude in the Gulf area during the

war. See PAW History, supra, at 217 (“[T]his gulfcoast-southwest area ha[d crude] productive capacity

far exceeding its own demand.”). Before the war, oil

was already an enormous industry employing about

one million people and consuming around two million

tons of steel per year. See Hearings, supra, at 71

(statement of Philip H. Bohart, Dir. of Prod. Div.,

PAW). It had a reserve daily capacity of about one

million barrels of crude to absorb increased demand

once World War II began. See id. at 72 (statement of

Philip H. Bohart). With “coordinated effort, schedules

were met and no shortage was experienced.” Id. at 80.

In the Gulf Coast, refined products piled up at

refineries to the point where “these refineries would

soon have to cut back their operations, or actually

shut down for lack of storage capacity.” PAW History,

supra, at 217 (footnote omitted). Shell Oil’s avgas

contract, for example, reflects this surplus by

requiring storage capacity for sixty days of avgas

refined at their facilities; if full, Shell no longer had to

refine avgas. See, e.g., JA171.

And much of the avgas was not refined from crude

oil to begin with. Rather, it was further refined from

other petroleum products—like heating oil, motor

gasoline, and gases that had been refined before the

war and improved by new equipment during. See

Surplus Prop. Admin., Aviation-Gasoline Plants and

Facilities: Report of the Surplus Property

Administration to the Congress 9-12 (1946). “In

essence the expansion was an expansion in quality

production, not in total [crude] refining capacity or

basic refining installations.” Id. at 12. “No new

industry had to be created to meet the aviation-

gasoline demand.” Ibid.; see also PAW History, supra,

at 193 (“[W]hile nearly a billion dollars was spent for

new refining facilities, only a small proportion of this

was for increasing the crude capacity of the plants.”).

B. The Federal Government Directed Only

Avgas Delivery In The Contracts.

The federal government’s wartime petroleum

program was focused on obtaining avgas and other

refined petroleum products for military use. The

PAW’s responsibilities “with respect to the domestic

refining industry were (1) to direct the activities of all

domestic refineries so as to obtain essential petroleum

requirements, both military and civilian, and (2) to

spark the drive for the construction of necessary new

refining facilities.” Hearings, supra, at 133 (statement

of A.P. Frame, Dir. of Refin. Div., PAW).

The avgas contracts reflected this focus: They

specified only avgas delivery. As petitioners

acknowledge, the agreements had no “reference, let

alone direction, pertaining to crude oil production.”

Petr. Br. 33 (quoting Pet. App. 33). The “contracts by

their terms gave petitioners ‘complete latitude to

forego producing any crude.’” Ibid. (quoting Pet. App.

29-30) (alteration omitted) (emphasis added). In fact,

the contracts contained a force majeure provision

providing that if a refinery could not supply avgas as

agreed due to delays in crude delivery or lack of

availability, the refiner did not have to perform. See,

e.g., JA183-84 (Shell Oil avgas contract).

C. Petitioners’ Choice To Maximize Crude

Oil Profits Had Nothing To Do With

Their Refining Obligations.

The crude oil produced during World War II was

widely traded to meet refinery demands. See JA26

(PAW History, supra, at 215) (PAW committees

“maintained constant studies as to where crude could

be had” and “analyzed various crudes to determine

which could be used by which plants”); JA26-27

(describing how public/private committees “worked

out and recommended new schedules of crude

shipments” and managed crude allocation across

refineries). Some refineries purchased all their crude

from other producers; indeed, petitioners purchased

substantial quantities from third parties to refine into

avgas. See, e.g., JA211-12 (“From 1941-1945, the Shell

Oil Company purchased over 174 million barrels of

crude oil on the open market from non-Shell affiliated

oil producers for use in their own refineries.”)

(footnote omitted); see also Pet. App. 30 (noting

petitioners’ “use of crude oil purchased on the open

market from other producers to comply with their

contractual obligations”).

Meanwhile, the PAW only allocated enough crude

to petitioners’ refineries for them to fulfill their avgas

obligations; producing more upstream crude did not

mean refining more avgas downstream, as their

refinery capacities were limited. See, e.g., Pet. App. 38

n.92 (“[T]he PAW sent crude produced by [petitioners]

in the Operational Areas to other companies’

refineries”); JA27-28, 218-19 (PAW History, supra, at

215) (PAW established a “system of monthly

allocations of specific volumes of crude to specific

refiners on the basis, always, of providing first for the

minimum quantities estimated to be necessary to

assure maximum output of war products”). Put

simply, petitioners’ choice to maximize profits using

unlawful crude oil production practices in Louisiana’s

coastal zone was a business decision the war effort did

not need and the government did not request.

III. REQUIRING A CAUSAL CONNECTION TO A

FEDERAL DIRECTIVE WILL NOT THREATEN OUR

NATIONAL DEFENSE.

A. For 200 Years Federal Contractors

Could Not Remove State Court Cases

Like This, Yet They Answered Their

Country’s Call.

The amici curiae brief submitted on behalf of

General Myers and Admiral Mullen suggests that if

petitioners are not permitted to remove the parishes’

state law cases to federal court, future contractors will

not agree to provide necessary supplies and

equipment to the military. “After 9-11,” they note for

“example, our Nation needed specialized protective

equipment, which the military did not have.” Gen.

Myers & Adm. Mullen Amici Br. 14. “If private-sector

parties producing the equipment had said ‘no,’ fearing

future liability from the government not spelling out

every detail in their contracts,” amici argue “that

would have left our troops at great risk.” Ibid.

That may be so. But General Myers and Admiral

Mullen do not suggest that any federal contractor in

fact said “no” when the need for specialized protective

equipment arose in the aftermath of the terrorist

attacks that brought down the Twin Towers, even

though the federal officer removal statute would not

be amended for another decade.

The causal-nexus requirement that applied in the

aftermath of 9/11 is not new. The federal officer

removal statute has existed in some form since 1815.

See Watson v. Philip Morris Cos., Inc., 551 U.S. 142,

147-49 (2007). Since its first iteration, the United

States had a Civil War and fought in World War I,

World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Gulf

War I, Gulf War II, and the “War on Terror.” For much

of that history, even many federal officers could not

remove. See ibid. And since well before World War II,

this Court has consistently required private parties to

prove a causal nexus to remove under the federal

officer removal statute. See, e.g., Jefferson Cnty. v.

Acker, 527 U.S. 423, 431-33 (1999) (requiring “causal

connection” and “essential nexus”); Mesa v.

California, 489 U.S. 121, 131-33 (1989) (requiring

“causal connection”); Willingham v. Morgan, 395 U.S.

402, 409 (1969) (same); Maryland v. Soper (No. 1), 270

U.S. 9, 33 (1926) (same); see also Watson, 551 U.S. at

147-51 (discussing each of these cases).

No one claims that the inability of federal

contractors to remove a case like this during those 200

years frightened private industry away. Quite the

opposite. “Born in World War II, . . . the militaryindustrial complex” has “cut a swath through

American history unmatched by the experience in any

other nation. No country claimed as much for its

military technology or achieved as much. No country

worried more about militarization of its institutions.

No country was shaped as forcefully by the science

and technology of war.” Alex Roland, The MilitaryIndustrial Complex: Lobby and Trope, in The Long

War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy

Since World War II 361 (Andrew J. Bacevich ed.,

2007).

In 2020, NAVSUP Fuels and the Supply

Corporation celebrated their 225th anniversary

supplying the Navy with petroleum products. See

NAVSUP Fuels: What the Fleet Runs On, Navy Supply

Corps Newsl. (Naval Supply Sys. Command,

Mechanicsburg, Pa.), Spring 2020, at 1, 32,

https://tinyurl.com/59475xs2; see also Gen. Myers &

Adm. Mullen Amici Br. 7-8 & n.3 (quoting same

publication to note that the Department of Defense

works “hand-in-hand” with contractors “like

Defendants-Petitioners” to obtain fuel). Petitioners

themselves answered the call during World War II,

negotiated contracts, and fulfilled them—all while the

causal-nexus standard applied. They continue to do so

today, despite a decade of rejected attempts to remove

these and related state cases to federal court under

the federal officer and other removal statutes.

B. A Federal Forum Is Available To Private

Contractors When Warranted.

General Honoré appreciates that at times it may

be appropriate for a government contractor acting

under a federal officer with sufficient direction to be

able to remove as the federal officer could. When

federal officers specify how something must be done,

for example, contractors following those specifications

should not face state court liability for the reasons the

federal officer removal statute has long been applied

by the circuit courts to conduct causally linked to the

federal directives.

Even after the 2011 Removal Clarification Act

added the “relating to” language to the federal officer

removal statute, the circuits uniformly recognize that

defendants seeking to remove must establish more of

a causal connection than what petitioners present

here. See La. Br. 22 & n.3; see also La. BIO 21-22. Cf.

Br. of Former Gov. John Bel Edwards as Amicus

Curiae Supporting Respondents, at 12-20 (Congress

intended this conforming amendment to effectuate

the Act’s application to pre-suit discovery). Here, the

panel affirmed the remand order because petitioners’

WWII-era agreements to refine avgas for military use

were too “tenuous” to be “related to” their upstream

crude oil production. Pet. App. 33. Petitioners want

much more: A federal forum for conduct federal

officers neither directed nor cared about.

If this Court accepts petitioners’ interpretation,

any federal contractor could remove any lawsuit by

pointing to any feeble connection between the

challenged conduct and a federal contract. A weapons

manufacturer sued for dumping environmental waste

in violation of state law could claim the contamination

“relates to” weapons production, even if federal law

expressly leaves regulating such waste to the States.

Cf. La. Br. 5-6 (discussing how federal law encourages

states to regulate their own coastal zones and that the

federal government has approved of Louisiana’s

SLCRMA under the federal CZMA); Parishes Br. 2-3,

42-43 (same). Federal courts will be flooded with

private suits removed from state courts in which the

federal government has no interest.

Moreover, the non-integrated producers’ crude oil

was just as necessary to fulfilling the military’s avgas

requirements as petitioners’ crude. And all crude

producers were directed to supply their crude oil to

avgas refineries under the PAW’s allocation program.

The non-integrated producers sought to remove as a

federal officer might, to no avail. See Plaquemines

Parish v. Chevron USA, Inc. (Plaquemines II), 2022

WL 9914869 (5th Cir. Oct. 17, 2022) (denying

removal), cert. denied. 143 S. Ct. 991 (2023). The

equipment manufacturers who sold drilling rigs and

the workers who operated them were also necessary

in some broad sense to producing the crude that was

ultimately routed to avgas refineries during the war.

Even so, petitioners do not suggest that any of them—

the non-integrated firms or anyone else—should have

the right to remove under Section 1442(a)(1). This

Court should reject petitioners’ bid to invoke federal

officer removal as well.

CONCLUSION

The Court should affirm.

Respectfully submitted,