After less than a month at the helm of Gulf of Mexico oil spill settlement claims, Lafayette lawyer Patrick Juneau surveyed his huge operation and had an epiphany. He realized his Deepwater Horizon Claims Settlement office wasn’t just doling out billions of dollars of BP money to those with legitimate spill damage, he was also overseeing Louisiana’s biggest economic engine. “We’re going to be paying big-time revenues to people and they’ll be spending that money here, but there are also huge benefits for Louisiana and in particular New Orleans,” he said.

“We didn’t need one grant, not one tax exemption to set this up. This plant is here. It’s been spending money and it’s gonna continue spending money. It’s the single biggest thing we got going in our state.”