Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida are both claiming victory in their two-month feud over Cassidy’s proposal to send Louisiana and three other Gulf Coast states a greater share of offshore oil and gas drilling royalties.
USA Today reports GOP Senate leaders have brokered a compromise in the dispute, deciding the proposal won’t be part of a broad bipartisan energy bill but instead will receive a floor vote as a standalone measure. That persuaded Nelson to lift his hold on the energy bill, which passed the Senate last Wednesday.
But the feud isn’t over.
Nelson, whose state doesn’t allow offshore drilling, has vowed to oppose Cassidy’s proposal in any form. He says it gives states an incentive to expand offshore drilling, increasing the chance of another disaster like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that decimated his state’s tourist-driven economy.
“If at some point Sen. Cassidy tries again to bring the measure up for a vote, Sen. Nelson will again do everything he can to block it,” says Ryan Brown, a spokesman for Nelson.
Cassidy, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, says he’s happy his proposal will be considered as standalone legislation.
“This has worked much better for us,” he says.
Nelson, for his part, called the decision to stop Cassidy’s amendment from being considered as part of the energy bill “yet another small victory” in the fight to preserve Florida’s coastline.
Cassidy’s proposal would send more offshore drilling revenue to Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Other offshore drilling states along the mid-Atlantic and Alaska would get a future cut.
The proposal is similar to one offered in the past by Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and former Democratic Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, the committee’s chairwoman when she lost her seat to Cassidy in 2014.
That proposal, called the FAIR, or Fixing America’s Inequities with Revenue, Act was designed to speed up distribution of drilling revenue under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006. Under GOMESA, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas—and certain counties in those states—receive 37.5% of revenue from offshore oil and gas drilling.
