Who is this a good deal for?

I have a long history of being not very smart which is why I spend so much time typing stupid questions out on the internet.  So apologies for this one, but why does this read to me like a pretty sweet deal for Freeport?  I'm missing the point, I guess.

Lawyers representing coastal Louisiana parishes have negotiated their first settlement with one of the oil and gas companies accused in court of damaging the state’s coast, a potentially ground-breaking move in the effort to find funds for coastal restoration.

Hey that sounds pretty good.  Not great, though. It's just one company estimated to represent about 4 percent of drilling activity over the past century or so in Louisiana. (The story includes a helpful graphic clarifying that 4 percent still comes out to over 2,000 wells so let's not diminish Freeport's impact that much.)  The Advocate sees this as a good sign, though. As in, this $100 million is "only a fraction" of what we can expect to realize as other firms follow Freeport's lead and settle up.

Assuming Freeport's contribution is proportionately typical, that's potentially $2.5 billion if my math is good which is always a big if.  The 2017 version of the state's coastal restoration/mitigation master plan is expected to cost $50 billion if fully funded. Soooo, again, if we can trust my math, this means, the oil and gas industry, by a long stretch the first and greatest cause of coastal loss in Louisiana both in terms of physical damage and in terms of sea level rise brought on by global warming, will be on the hook for about 5 percent of the cost of dealing with that catastrophe.  Yay?

And that's if we assume every firm decides to pay up.  That's far from a given, if their lobbyists' statements are any indication.

Two of the state's most powerful energy lobbyists, the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association and the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, denounced the deal, calling it a win for trial lawyers and their plans "to shake down Louisiana oil and gas companies for legally conducting production activities" that followed the rules laid out by state and federal regulators over decades.

"This misguided effort to go back in time and rewrite history amounts to an all-out legal attack on the entire regulatory framework through which oil and gas operations have been conducted for nearly a century," the two lobbying groups said in a joint statement. "Regardless of how one company may choose to handle their case, LOGA, LMOGA and our members remain confident these claims will not stand up in federal court."

Well they sound really upset.  What about this assertion that the Freeport has been the victim of a "shake down"?  Remind us what they've agreed to again. 

As part of the deal, Freeport would make an upfront payment of $15 million upon formally signing the settlement, would pay an additional $4.25 million each in 2023 and 2024, conditioned on the creation of a special fund by the Legislature to receive the money, and would contribute up to $76.5 million more “subject to contemporaneous reimbursements from the proceeds of the prior sales of environmental credits,” according to Hayes.

Carmouche estimated that Freeport would disburse the money over 22 years.

So the only part of this that's real is $15 million. Five years from now there might be another $8.5 million if the Legislature does some things.  After that, we're off to the secondary market to sell our environmental credits. What this means. Or at least what I think it means is Freeport gets to pay over 75 percent of its fine to the state by selling "pay to pollute" licenses to other companies in the market to do that.  That doesn't sound like a particularly punitive burden on Freeport at all. I'm not even sure they won't make money on the deal in the long run.