Led by an Acadiana lawmaker, it took a Senate committee only a few minutes late Tuesday afternoon to approve a set of subpoenas for Transocean officials.
In a rare legislative move, the Senate Natural Resources Committee voted unanimously to issue subpoenas for officials from Transocean Ltd., the company that owns the Deepwater Horizon Rig that was leased to BP.
According to Sen. Nick Gautreaux, D-Abbeville, Transocean officials told the committee that they would not be sending a representative to a planned briefing Thursday morning because there are a series of conflicting hearings being conducted the same day in Washington, D.C.
With both BP and Halliburton, which cemented the well prior to the April 20 explosion, on the agenda, Gautreaux says Transocean has no excuse not to be at the witness table. “I might add that BP has people over there [for the Washington hearing], and they’re coming [to Baton Rouge],” Gautreaux says. “Also, Halliburton has people over there, and they’re coming. It just seems like Transocean is the only one who doesn’t want to come.”
The state constitution gives the committee the authority to issue subpoenas, but its approving vote was only the first step in the process. After the committee endorsed the motion, Senate President Joel Chaisson, D-Destrehan, whose district includes the Thibodaux region, was required to sign off on the order. A sergeant-at-arms, one of the legislative officers responsible for providing security at the State Capitol, was then charged with delivering the subpoenas.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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CO-JOINED AT THE HIP POCKET, LEGISLATORS !
JESUS, soneone shouild speak to the survivors of the blowout, and you will find that the fng. culprit here " MMS "is also co-joined to the BP Oil Operator. """ MMS was fully aware of BP's unsafe operation and the extreme chance BP was taking by going ahead with an uncured cement job and inoperable well equipment down at the ocean bed,,,,,,,,,, This is not my opinion, this is a survivor's account of the blowout/fire, this eye-witness account related to me by a survivor, A close relative, (WHOSE WELL-BEING, I PRAYED FOR UNTIL NOTIFIED OF HIS SAFETY) places the blame on 1. MMs for not enforcing regulations and for allowing BP to continue unsafe drilling operations, and 2. BP for taking advantage of the fact that the top officials at MMS would roll over for "CHUMP CHANGE, and allow their unsafe operation to continue making hole and result in some fine hard-working men to go to their death, before their time. How these greedy leeches will go on and live with the fact that for chump change they allowed/partnered with BP to send some HARD WORKING MEN, with families to their grave, TOO EARLY !