Politics
J. Bennett Johnston, Who Helped Shape U.S. Energy Policy, Dies at 92
J. Bennett Johnston Jr., a Louisiana Democrat and four-term United States senator who helped shape America’s energy and science policies in an era of rising concerns over the perils of nuclear power and the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, died on Tuesday in Arlington, Va. He was 92.
His death was confirmed by his son J. Bennett Johnston III.
One of a new breed of polished Southern Democrats that included Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Mr. Johnston served in the Senate from 1972 to 1997, a tenure that included Middle East conflicts that threatened American oil imports, and nuclear licensing and safety changes in the aftermath of the nation’s worst nuclear accident, the partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979.
A target of environmentalists’ wrath, he favored more nuclear power plants, although public safety concerns limited new construction for decades. But he won fights to sharply expand oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the major offshore petroleum-producing area for the United States, and sponsored laws to let coastal states share federal revenue from offshore drilling.
As chairman or a ranking member of the energy and natural resources committee from 1973 to 1996, he was involved in virtually all Senate energy legislation, from rewriting the nuclear licensing provisions of federal law to developing synthetic fuels and deregulating oil and natural gas prices to spur production. It was a delicate balancing act for a senator from a state with ferociously competing energy interests.
In a state also renowned for flamboyant politicians like Huey and Earl Long and corrupt rogues like former Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, Mr. Johnston was a notable exception — a quiet intellectual with finely honed political judgments who grasped the technical intricacies of energy exploration and production and could also lucidly discuss astrophysics, subatomic particles and tennis serves.
A trim, athletic man with receding hair, Mr. Johnston — an inveterate apple muncher who was said to be the Senate’s most avid tennis player in his 50s — was an approachable, friendly man, responsive to questions and easy to talk to or negotiate with.
His voting was not based on loyalties. Colleagues said he switched sides according to his views on the merits of proposed legislation. He advocated higher gas-mileage standards for auto manufacturers, but opposed President Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense initiative — a plan to use weapons in space to protect America from nuclear attack — calling it ill-conceived and too costly.
On international policy, he often sided with liberals in support of the United Nations and foreign aid. But he joined conservatives in opposing abortion and most gun-control measures, and championed a 1981 bill to limit busing for racial integration in public schools to five miles or 15 minutes. The measure died in the House of Representatives.
In Senate fights over candidates for the Supreme Court, Mr. Johnston helped lead a 1987 rejection of Robert H. Bork as President Reagan’s nominee, but broke with his party in 1991 to support confirmation of President George H.W. Bush’s nominee, Clarence Thomas.
In 1988, with Democrats in control of the Senate and Robert F. Byrd of West Virginia stepping down as their leader after a decade, Mr. Johnston and Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii ran for majority leader, the Senate’s most powerful post. Both lost to Senator George J. Mitchell of Maine.
Mr. Johnston’s support for higher education landed $110 million for five national research centers at universities in Louisiana. He crusaded for years for billions for the Superconducting Super Collider, a pure research particle accelerator, in Texas, to search for fleeting subatomic structures. “It was lynched by the know-nothings,” he said when the project was canceled in 1993.
“I’m interested in understanding where the universe came from and where it’s going,” Mr. Johnston told Physics Today magazine in 1996. “I’m interested in the Higgs boson, which high-energy physicists hope to find if it exists at all, and, like them, I also hope the search produces surprises.” (In 2012, scientists announced that they had discovered a new subatomic particle that appeared to be the Higgs boson.)
John Bennett Johnston Jr., who rarely used his first name, was born in Shreveport, La., on June 10, 1932, to John Bennett Johnston Sr., a lawyer, and the former Wilma Lyon. He graduated from Shreveport schools and attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and Washington and Lee University before graduating from law school at Louisiana State University in 1956.
He married Mary Gunn the same year. They had four children: J. Bennett Johnston III, Hunter Johnston, Mary Johnston Norriss and Sally Roemer.
In the Army from 1956 to 1959, he became a first lieutenant with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in Germany. After practicing law in Shreveport for several years, he began his political career in 1964 with election to the Louisiana House of Representatives. In 1968 he won a four-year term in the State Senate.
In a state dominated by Democrats, with nominations tantamount to election, Mr. Johnston in 1971 ran for governor, but narrowly lost the nomination to Representative Edwin Edwards, who then won the first of his four terms as governor. Mr. Edwards later went to jail for eight years for bribery and extortion. In 1972, Mr. Johnston contested the renomination of United States Senator Allen J. Ellender, who had held his seat since 1936 as a protégé of the assassinated Senator Huey P. Long.
But Mr. Ellender died during the campaign. Mr. Edwards named his own wife to the seat pending a special election, and Mr. Johnston won the nomination and the general election. He was re-elected in 1978 and again in 1984 against token opposition, despite a landslide for President Reagan that hurt other Democrats.
Mr. Johnston’s last campaign, in 1990, was his toughest — against David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who had become a popular state legislator. Even by Louisiana’s baroque political standards, the race was strange: a powerful three-term Democratic incumbent overshadowed by a political neophyte who had not sponsored a single bill in the Louisiana Legislature.
Mr. Duke dominated the campaign with appeals to white resentment over affirmative action and welfare programs, and allusions to his racially charged agenda. But his candidacy and his past associations with white supremacy groups were widely condemned, and Mr. Johnston won a fourth term.
When that term ended in January 1997, Mr. Johnston, who lived in McLean, Va., retired from politics and founded Johnston & Associates, a Washington a lobbying firm that later went out of business.
Mr. Johnston’s son said that he is survived by his wife, his four children and 10 grandchildren.
Yan Zhuang contributed reporting.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Saturday that the Trump administration is sanctioning a senior Nicaraguan official over alleged human rights violations.
Rubio said the U.S. is designating Vice Minister of the Interior Luis Roberto Cañas Novoa for his role in “gross violations of human rights” under the government of President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo, marking what he said was the latest effort to hold the regime accountable.
“The Trump administration continues to hold the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship accountable for brutal human rights violations against Nicaraguans,” Rubio said in a post on X. “I’m designating Nicaraguan Vice Minister of the Interior Luis Roberto Cañas Novoa for his role in human rights violations.”
RUBIO TESTIFIES IN TRIAL OF EX-FLORIDA CONGRESSMAN ALLEGEDLY HIRED BY MADURO GOVERNMENT TO LOBBY FOR VENEZUELA
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the State Department, April 14, 2026. The U.S. announced sanctions on a Nicaraguan official tied to alleged human rights abuses under the Ortega-Murillo government. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The designation was made under Section 7031(c), which allows the State Department to bar foreign officials and their immediate family members from entering the United States due to involvement in significant corruption or human rights abuses.
The State Department has said the Ortega-Murillo government has engaged in arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings following mass protests that began in April 2018.
“Nearly eight years ago, the Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega dictatorship unleashed a brutal wave of repression against Nicaraguans who courageously stood against the regime’s increased tyranny, corruption, and abuse,” the statement reads.
The State Department said that the sanction marked the anniversary of the 2018 protests, after which more than 325 protesters were murdered in the aftermath.
A panel of U.N.-backed human rights experts previously accused Nicaragua’s government of systematic abuses “tantamount to crimes against humanity,” following an investigation into the country’s crackdown on political dissent, according to The Associated Press.
The experts said the repression intensified after mass protests in 2018 and has since expanded across large parts of society, targeting perceived opponents of the government.
TRUMP ADMIN ANNOUNCES EXPANSION OF VISA RESTRICTION POLICY IN WESTERN HEMISPHERE
Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega delivers a speech during a ceremony to mark the 199th Independence Day anniversary, in Managua, Nicaragua Sept. 15, 2020. (Nicaragua’s Presidency/Cesar Perez/Handout via Reuters)
Nicaragua’s government has rejected those findings.
The designation follows a series of recent U.S. actions targeting the Ortega-Murillo government. In February, the State Department sanctioned five senior Nicaraguan officials tied to repression, citing arbitrary detention, torture, killings and the targeting of clergy, media and civil society.
Earlier this week, the department also announced sanctions on individuals and companies linked to Nicaragua’s gold sector, including two of Ortega and Murillo’s sons, accusing the regime of using the industry to generate foreign currency, launder assets and consolidate power within the ruling family.
The State Department said the move is part of ongoing efforts to hold the Nicaraguan government accountable for its actions.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Nicaraguan government and its embassy in Washington for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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A man waves a Nicaraguan flag during a demonstration to commemorate Nicaragua’s national Day of Peace, which is celebrated in the country on April 19, and to protest against the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in San Jose, Costa Rica on April 16, 2023. (Jose Cordero/AFP)
The Trump administration has taken an increasingly aggressive posture in the Western Hemisphere in recent months, including a Jan. 3, 2026, operation that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
The U.S. has also carried out a series of strikes targeting suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the region, part of a broader crackdown tied to regional security and narcotics enforcement efforts.
WASHINGTON — Upbeat claims from President Trump over an imminent peace deal to end the war with Iran were met with deep skepticism Friday across the Middle East, where Iranian and Israeli officials questioned the prospects for a lasting agreement that would satisfy all parties.
The outlines of an agreement began to emerge that would provide Iran with a major strategic victory — and a potential financial windfall — allowing the Islamic Republic to leverage its control over the Strait of Hormuz to exact significant concessions from the United States and its ally Israel as Trump presses for a swift end to the conflict.
In a series of social media posts and interviews with reporters, Trump announced that the strait was “fully open,” vowing Tehran would never again attempt to control it. But Iranian officials and state media said that conditions remained on passage through the waterway, including the imposition of tolls and coordination with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iranian diplomats posted threats that its closure could resume at any time of their choosing, and warned that restrictions would return unless the United States agreed to lift a blockade of its ports. Trump had said Friday that the blockade would remain in place.
“The conditional and limited reopening of a portion of the Strait of Hormuz is solely an Iranian initiative, one that creates responsibility and serves to test the firm commitments of the opposing side,” said a top aide to Iran’s president, dismissing Trump’s statements on the contours of a deal as “baseless.”
“If they renege on their promises,” he added, “they will face dire consequences.”
In an overture to Iran, Trump said Israel would be “prohibited” from conducting additional military strikes in Lebanon, where the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to prevent Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy militia, from rearming, a potential threat to communities in the Israeli north.
But in a speech delivered in Hebrew, Netanyahu would say only that Israel had agreed to a temporary ceasefire, while members of his Cabinet warned that Israel Defense Forces operations in southern Lebanon were not yet finished. A top ally of the prime minister at a right-wing Israeli news outlet warned that Trump was “surrendering” to Iran in the talks.
It was a day of public messaging from a president eager to end a war that has proved historically unpopular with the American public, and has driven a rise in gas prices that could weigh on his party entering this year’s midterm elections.
Yet, Republican allies of the president have begun warning him that an agreement skewed heavily in Tehran’s favor could carry political costs of its own.
Trump was forced to deny an Axios report Friday that his negotiating team had offered to release $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets in exchange for Tehran agreeing to hand over its fissile material, buried under rubble from a U.S. bombing raid last year.
That sum would amount to more than 10 times what President Obama released to Iran under a 2015 nuclear deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, that was the subject of fierce Republican criticism in the decade since.
“I have every confidence that President Trump will not allow Iran to be enriched by tens of billions of dollars for holding the world hostage and creating mayhem in the region,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a strong supporter of the war. “No JCPOAs on President Trump’s watch.”
Still, Trump said in a round of interviews that a deal could be reached in a matter of days, ending less than two weeks of negotiations.
He claimed that Tehran had agreed to permanently end its enrichment of uranium — a development that, if true, would mark a dramatic reversal for the Islamic Republic from decades developing its nuclear program, and from just 10 days ago, when Iranian diplomats rejected a U.S. proposal of a 20-year pause on domestic enrichment in favor of a five-year moratorium.
He said Iran had agreed never to build nuclear weapons — a pledge Tehran has made repeatedly, including under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, in a religious decree from then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and in the 2015 agreement — while continuing nuclear activities viewed by the international community as exceeding civilian needs.
And he repeatedly stated that Iran had agreed to the removal of its enriched uranium from the country, either to the United States or to a third party. Iranian state media stated Friday afternoon that a proposal to remove the country’s highly enriched uranium had been “rejected.”
Iran’s agreement to allow safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is linked to a ceasefire in Lebanon that the Israeli Cabinet approved for only a 10-day period. Regardless of whether it holds or is extended, Israeli officials said their military would not retreat from its current positions in southern Lebanon — opening up Israeli forces to potential attack by Hezbollah militants unbound by a truce brokered by the Lebanese government.
The Lebanese people, Hezbollah officials said, have “the right to resist” Israeli occupation of their land. Whether the fighting resumes, the group added, “will be determined based on how developments unfold.”
An Iranian official threw cold water on the prospects of reaching a comprehensive peace deal in the coming days, telling Reuters that a temporary extension of the current ceasefire, set to expire Tuesday, would “create space for more talks on lifting sanctions on Iran and securing compensation for war damages.”
“In exchange, Iran will provide assurances to the international community about the peaceful nature of its nuclear program,” the official said, adding that “any other narrative about the ongoing talks is a misrepresentation of the situation.”
Trump told reporters Friday that the talks will continue through the weekend.
While Trump claimed there aren’t “too many significant differences” remaining, he said the United States would continue the blockade until negotiations are finalized and formalized.
“When the agreement is signed, the blockade ends,” the president told reporters in Phoenix.
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.
CHAMBERS OF
JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN
Supreme Court of the United States Washington, D. C. 20343
February 7, 2016
Memorandum to the Conference
Re: 15A773 West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, et al.
15A776 Basin Elec. Power Cooperative, et al. v. EPA, et al. 15A787 Chamber of Commerce, et al. v. EPA, et al.
15A778 Murray Energy Corp., et al. v. EPA, et al.
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15A793 North Dakota v. EPA, et al.
I agree with Steve that we should direct the States to seek an extension from the EPA before asking this Court to intervene. We could also include, at the end of such an order, language along the lines of the following, to encourage the D. C. Circuit to act expeditiously in its resolution of this matter: “In light of that court’s agreement to consider this case on an expedited schedule, we are confident that it will [or even: we urge it to] render a decision with appropriate dispatch.” See Doe v. Gonzales, 546 U. S. 1301, 1308 (2005) (GINSBURG, J., in chambers); Kemp v. Smith, 463 U. S. 1344, 1345 (1983) (Powell, J., in chambers); Holtzman v. Schlesinger, 414 U. S. 1304, 1305, n. 2 (1973) (Marshall, J., in chambers).
The unique nature of the relief sought in these applications gives me real pause. The applicants ask us to enjoin a regulation pending initial review in the court of appeals. As we often say, “we are a court of review, not of first view.” See Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718 n. 7 (2005); cf. Doe, 546 U. S., at 1308 (“Re- spect for the assessment of the Court of Appeals is especially warranted when that court is proceeding to adjudication on the merits with due expedition.”). As far as I can tell, it would be unprecedented for us to second-guess the D. C. Circuit’s deci sion that a stay is not warranted, without the benefit of full briefing or a prior judi- cial decision.
On the merits, this is a difficult case involving a complex statutory and regu- latory regime. Although the parties’ abbreviated discussion of the issues at stake here makes it difficult for me to determine with any confidence which side is likely to ultimately prevail, it seems to me that at this stage the government has the bet- ter of the arguments. The Chief’s memo focuses on the applicants’ argument that the “best system of emission reduction” refers “solely [to] installation of control technologies (e.g., scrubbers).” 2/5 Memo, at 2. The ordinary meaning of “system” is in fact quite broad, appearing to encompass what EPA has done here. Of course, we would want to consider this term in the larger context of the Clean Air Act’s regula-
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