A bill aimed at limiting the Environmental Law Clinic at Tulane University School of Law was shot down by Senate Commerce Committee members last week after critics argued that it would have hampered operations at all of the state’s law clinics.
The measure would have prohibited university law clinics that get state funding from suing individuals for damages, taking government agencies to court or making constitutional challenges, according to the Associated Press.
Dan Borne, president of the Louisiana Chemical Association, said his organization asked Republication State Sen. Robert Adley to sponsor the bill after its members were angered by a clinic lawsuit that would require polluters around Baton Rouge to pay millions in fines for noncompliance with ozone standards.
The environmental clinic’s “mission seems to be to attack business advancement and development” in Louisiana, Borne told the committee.
Tulane President Scott Cowen pleaded against the bill, and said the measure would disenfranchise some of the state’s poorest citizens by forcing law clinics to shut their doors. He also questioned why the legislature was considering such a bill while millions of gallons of oil are swirl around in the Gulf of Mexico from a monthlong spill.
According to Cowen, Tulane University uses the state funding it receives to run its hospital, conduct cancer research and draw in some of the state’s brightest students. Interim Dean Stephen Griffin said the law school only receives around $30,000 from the state out of a total budget of $30 million, and none of that money is used to fund the school’s environmental clinic.
The committee opted to shelve the bill without objection.
The lobbying group for the Louisiana Chemical Association has urged its 63 corporate members to stop recruiting Tulane University students and cease all donations to the school, according to the Associated Press.
