In a strong voice of bipartisanship, the U.S. Senate Thursday voted 76-22 for the RESTORE Act, legislation co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter to dedicate 80 percent of BP Clean Water Fines to Gulf states to restore coastal ecosystems and economies damaged by the 2010 oil spill. The RESTORE Act was agreed to as an amendment to the Highway Bill, MAP-21.
Clean Water Act penalties will be directed to where the injuries occurred, Landrieu said in announcing the vote. “Where 11 men lost their lives — we still mourn their loss — where our marshes and our beaches were devastated and where the economy was shut down for a period of time, losing billions of dollars for our area — this is where the money should go.”
The Senate also said some of those fines should go to establish an Oceans Trust Fund for the first time in the nation’s history, and should support critical programs for all 50 states for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. “This was a balanced and fiscally responsible compromise, benefitting both the environment and the businesses that depend on the Gulf Coast,” Landrieu said.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Landrieu introduced the RESTORE Act in July 2011. Joining them as original co-sponsors of the legislation were Sens. David Vitter, R-La.; Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; Thad Cochran, R-Miss.; Roger Wicker, R-Miss.; Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. A version of the RESTORE Act, introduced by Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., passed the House last month.
“This is a big, big win in the fight to save our coast — a major step forward,” Vitter said after the vote. “And as a leading Republican conferee tasked to hammer out the final version of this highway bill, I’ll place keeping the RESTORE language in the bill as an absolute top priority.”
One of the lead Republicans on the highway bill, Vitter will be on the conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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