LOCKDOWN UPDATE: Energy Industry Exempted from Harris and Galveston County Stay-at-Home Orders

On Monday night and Tuesday morning, respectively, Galveston County and Harris County issued stay-at-home orders.

As we discussed in our prior blog covering Louisiana’s statewide order, Galveston County has expressly incorporated the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) guidelines for essential workers, which generally exempts the energy industry from its order.  So energy work will continue in Galveston County.  The text of the Galveston County order is available here.

Harris County’s order is not yet available because the County Judge, for reasons that elude me, decided to announce the order without the County Attorney having finalized its text.  In the press conference, she and Mayor Turner stated that the energy industry, along with the Port of Houston, would remain open for business – they alluded to the 16 essential sectors in the CISA guidelines, so we are assuming the CISA guidelines will be incorporated by reference in the Harris County order.

We’ll update this post when we have the Harris County order’s text.

UPDATE: The Harris County “Stay Home, Work Safe” Order has now been published and incorporates the CISA guidance, essentially exempting the energy industry.  Essential businesses are, however, asked to “implement screening precautions to protect employees and all activities shall be performed in compliance with social distancing guidelines.”  The order is available here.

About the author:

Demetri Economou is a Director in Kane Russell Coleman Logan PC’s Energy & Transportation Practice Group, counseling clients on business and employment law matters. If you have questions about the Louisiana order or any other local, state, or federal directives, please contact Demetri at (713) 425-7432 or deconomou@krcl.com.