Two state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries commissioners — who also happen to be Acadiana lawyers — are using their statewide legal contacts to find someone willing to sue the state.
The Advocate’s outdoor writer Joe Macaluso writes that the WL&F Commission is livid over the Jindal administration’s move to strip $26.4 million from the state’s Artificial Reef Development Fund Program. According to the LW&F website, the program, which transforms obsolete, abandoned oil platforms into artificial reefs that support marine habitat, is a win-win for oil and gas companies and the Gulf’s marine life. For oil companies, funding artificial reefs on now defunct platforms is a cheaper alternative to removing the platforms from the Gulf within a year of their closure, as federal law mandates:
Since the program’s inception, 65 offshore reef sites utilizing the jackets of 263 obsolete platforms have been created off Louisiana’s coast. The use of obsolete oil and gas platforms in Louisiana has proved to be highly successful. Their large numbers, design, longevity and stability have provided a number of advantages over the use of traditional artificial reef materials. The participating companies also save money by converting the structure into a reef rather than abandoning it onshore and are required to donate a portion of the savings to operate the state program.
The major funding loss was part of a House bill that diverted $108.2 million from several state agencies to cover shortfalls in the state’s general fund. But commissioners argue that the program has received roughly $50 million in private donations from oil and gas companies since the program began in 1986:
Acting Commission Chairman Patrick Morrow, a lawyer from Opelousas, asked for a resolution to establish a special three-man committee inside the commission to “… engage outside counsel to represent the commission at no charge.”
Morrow, with the support of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation and other sportsmen’s groups, said he knows of attorneys across the state who are ready to pursue the matter. He said his study of the bill made him believe the Artificial Reed Fund is afforded the same constitutional protection as the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ Conservation Fund.
Commission member Stephen Oats, a Lafayette lawyer, offered the motion to “… authorize the committee to pursue legal action to prevent taking these funds. We have to remember that the Legislature took $18 million from this fund last year. This is a necessary step. It’s clear that this is Conservation Fund money and this needs to be looked at through our legal process.”
Read more here.
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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