re: Louisiana Coastal Erosion.

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how exactly would it be the fault of the oil companies?

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you can quantify the effect in 2 ways: direct removal which would be direct digging of channels and intrusion/erosion/habitat loss that was precipitated by the construction of those channels. the Houma Navigation Canal, Calcasieu Ship Channel, and MRGO are all large scale examples of what thousands of small oilfield canals have done to ecosystems. they create direct pathways for saltwater to kill off brackish and freshwater plant species, which held together the soil...they also introduce much higher energy (waves) and velocities (currents) of water to areas which used to be 'calm.' since those areas now have nothing holding their soil together, they erode and disappear. the low end of estimates from several studies of land loss caused by oil companies are in the range 10% of all land loss since 1930s or so. thats what is easily directly provable. high end estimates are up to several times larger.