BATON ROUGE — Starting Wednesday, the state Department of Energy and Natural Resources will formally be reorganized into the Department of Conservation and Energy.

The reorganization has been in the works for the last two years and was spurred by an executive order from Gov. Jeff Landry. 

Earlier this month, former DENR Secretary Tyler Gray stepped down, leaving Deputy Secretary Dustin Davidson in charge of the department.

The reorganization, Davidson said, will see the agency continuing to do "things the way it did when first created as DNR nearly 50 years ago."

"Technology, industry and environmental best practices have changed a great deal over those decades, and it's time this agency caught up," Davidson added.

The reorganized department will be made up of six divisions, while the former DENR had four. 

According to officials, the new divisions include: 

- Office of the Secretary: overall strategic management of agency, legal services, staffing the Natural Resources Commission and specialized functions such as Oilfield Site Restoration and LOSCO oil spill response

- Office of Administration: Overseen by the undersecretary, functions as the centralized nexus for all core administrative and strategic operations of the agency, including strategic planning, human resources and fiscal/budget functions

- Office of Permitting and Compliance: Permitting responsibilities formerly split between the Office of Coastal Management and the Office of Conservation, which created potential overlaps and inefficiencies, have been integrated into a centralized structure, creating a unified framework for permitting processes across both coastal and non-coastal areas

- Office of Enforcement – Site inspections, documentation, enforcement of state rules and rules for federal programs over which the state has primacy (i.e. Underground Injection Control)

- Office of State Resources: Oversight of leasing, servitudes and right-of-way for state lands and water resources, staffs the state Mineral and Energy Board

- Office of Energy: Endeavors to catalyze Louisiana's development of a reliable and resilient energy ecosystem, fostering economic advancement while fortifying energy infrastructure against emerging challenges – tracks energy-related statistics and trends, acts as a conduit for energy/resilience federal grant funding