Republican voters ousted Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy on Saturday, ending his pro-oil and natural gas career after two Senate terms.
Cassidy, long a target of President Donald Trump due to his 2021 vote to convict the president in his impeachment trial, came in third place in the GOP primary for his reelection bid. Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming now advance to a June runoff, since no candidate got a majority of the primary votes.
Cassidy is a senior member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and has long pushed for more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, easier permitting and regulation for producers and more exports of liquefied natural gas.
His toppling is also a loss for efforts to charge tariffs on certain imported goods that are more carbon-intense than their domestic competition, something he argued would help domestic oil and gas companies with cleaner operations but that conservatives say would amount to a carbon tax. He is the lead sponsor of the “Foreign Pollution Fee Act” to institute those tariffs.
