The Advocate. December 12, 2022.
Editorial: Facing deadlines, Congress taking action on Louisiana’s vital interests
On Capitol Hill nothing beats a real deadline, mandating efficiency, and the end of the current session of the lame duck Congress amid the Christmas holiday season, when members of House and Senate want to get back home, may be a promising confluence of events for some of Louisiana’s vital interests.
Action is moving fast on the Hill, and the huge impact of coastal erosion and the need for federally funded commitments to coastal states is a key element of the work of our delegation in Washington.
House passage of the Water Resources Development Act is a regular event, but it’s still of vital importance. WRDA, pronounced word-ah, authorizes projects for waterways and ports across the United States.
That includes many coastal protection projects, and those are of obvious interest to Louisiana. House passage of the bill for Army Corps of Engineers projects was linked to the must-pass legislation funding national defense.
Maybe deadline legislating is not the purists’ idea of the best way to legislate — we agree, generally — but this is real-life lawmaking. And for the key leader of the state’s House delegation, Steve Scalise of Jefferson Parish, the new WRDA bill will be good for his metropolitan New Orleans district and also for Louisiana as a whole.
State coastal czar Chip Kline added a statement: “This WRDA will be more valuable to the sustainability of our coast than any other such bill in over a decade. It not only clarifies roles and funding responsibilities for long-standing commitments to coastal protection and restoration, but also initiates new projects and policies that will provide major benefits to communities in Louisiana.”
His predecessor, Garret Graves, is now congressman from Baton Rouge, helping to draft key WRDA provisions.
As that is part of the action, Louisiana’s delegation is also seeking passage of the long-sought RISEE Act. That’s another of the long titles bestowed on legislation to make it more attractive: Reinvesting In Shoreline Economies and Ecosystems Act.
But it is very attractive in its provisions for the state, as it lifts the cap on Gulf Coast states’ share of federal offshore revenues. That cap was part of the necessary dealmaking to pass the landmark Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, or GOMESA — a major project of then-U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans.
If the RISEE Act passes, longstanding limits on GOMESA revenues to the states go up; Louisiana benefits disproportionately. Also, wind energy revenues, not just those for oil and gas production, will benefit our state as this new industry takes hold.
We don’t know if it will make it, but the measure was introduced with bipartisan support in Senate and House by Landrieu’s Republican successor, Bill Cassidy, of Baton Rouge. The bill will benefit not only oceanside states but those bordering the Great Lakes; nationally, projects funded through energy revenues would be of benefit to a large number of inland states.
Hopefully, even in the rush of deadlines, there are enough states invested in these areas to make these key measures successful: WRDA’s ports on all coasts, and along the nation’s rivers, and RISEE’s energy funding for not only Gulf Coast projects but parks and recreation across the nation.
The action will be fast and furious in the next few days. But we hope that the Louisiana delegation will continue to be successful as they have been recently on infrastructure funding like these vital bills.
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