A House committee approved Wednesday a bill by Rep. Jerome “Zee” Zeringue, R-Houma, to let the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority handle its own accounting and budget operations instead of relying on another state agency for those services.
The Daily Comet reports the agency, which oversees the federal and state dollars allocated for coastal restoration and protection, currently relies on the Department of Natural Resources to manage accounting, contracts, data processing, personnel management and grants management.
Zeringue says CPRA has been transferring $2.4 million each year to cover those services. His House Bill 241 would allow CPRA to take over those services from DNR, which Zeringue says would save the coastal agency $400,000 next year and up to $800,000 a year.
“It’s going to help expedite and improve the contracting services, which are currently causing us some loss of time in advancing some of these projects,” Zeringue says.
The House Natural Resources and Environment Committee unanimously approved the bill on Wednesday, sending it to the House floor.
In other legislative action Wednesday, the House approved a bill by Rep. Jerry “Truck” Gisclair, D-Larose, that replaces references to “oyster dredges” in state law to “oyster scrapers” and limits certain types of larger oyster scrapers on public oyster reefs.
In earlier committee testimony, Cole Garrett with the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said the name change was important because scraper was a more accurate term for the tool used to remove oysters from reefs. A dredge, he said, implies a tool that removes underlying dirt rather than merely oysters.
House Bill 290 also bars so-called large “diving board” scrapers from public oyster reefs because they can damage the reef, and it limits scrapers to 175 pounds. The legislation was supported by the oyster industry.
The House approved the measure with a 96-0 vote. It now moves to the Senate.
