With a contentious budget debate looming and hundreds of bills pending action in the House and Senate, the Louisiana Legislature has hit its midway point. It has completed four weeks of the ongoing regular session and has four more to go until adjournment on June 23. Public interest is focused on House Bill 1, the legislation that contains the state’s operating budget. The Appropriations Committee has already advanced the spending plan, and the full House is scheduled to weigh in on it Wednesday. As for the other 903 bills filed for the regular session, resulting new laws are beginning to surface.
Gov. Bobby Jindal signed his first bill into law late Friday afternoon. It’s House Bill 245 by Rep. Girod Jackson, D-Harvey, which allows oyster harvesters to sidestep federal regulations that went online earlier this month. Without the new law, which lawmakers fast-tracked, commercial fishermen would have only one hour to transport their product from the water to refrigeration during the period from May to October each year.
Today also marks the first meeting of a special legislative committee, the only one of its kind dedicated to investigating compensation matters related to the BP oil spill. The inaugural gathering of the Joint Select Committee on Oversight of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility is expected to be primarily an organizational meeting. The committee will look into the challenges coastal residents have faced securing cash payments from BP’s claims process and possibly recommend changes, according to committee chairman Rep. Joe Harrison, R-Napoleonville. —Jeremy Alford
