The state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority will lead a delegation of representatives from four gulf coast states to Washington D.C. this week, where they will lobby for a greater share of revenues generated by offshore drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico.
Nearly 50 members of the delegation—including several CPRA staffers, CPRA board chair Chip Kline and local lobbyist Scott Kirkpatrick—will hold more than 40 separate meetings with congressional leaders and Vice president Mike Pence, asking they support bills sponsored by Louisiana’s own U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy and U.S. Reps. Garret Graves and Cedric Richmond to increase the share of offshore drilling revenues that goes to coastal states under the GOMESA program.
GOMESA, or the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, was passed in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and created a revenue-sharing program, funded by revenues from certain offshore drilling activity, for Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Under the program, the four participating states receive 37.5% of revenues from eligible leases in the gulf, which, in the case of Louisiana, amounted to nearly $83 million in 2018. By law, that money is dedicated to the state’s coastal trust fund.
Inland producing states, however, receive 50% of revenues from drilling activity under a separate federal law, creating what Kline says is a huge and unjust disparity.
While Louisiana received nearly $83 million last year in GOMESA money, New Mexico, which produces far less oil and gas than Louisiana waters, raked in $634 million under the federal Mineral Lands Leasing Act.
“It’s important for people across the country and all members of Congress to realize that GOMESA, yes, it’s about coastal restoration and hurricane protection,” Kline says. “But it is also about reinvesting money in our coast, which supports the infrastructure that allows for oil and gas exploration for the entire country.”
The Cassidy and Graves’ bills seek to increase the coastal states’ share of GOMESA revenues from 37.5% to 50%. Congress is expected to take up the measures later this fall.
“we service 90 percent of the deepwater exploration in the gulf,” Kline says. “So this is about reinvesting dollars in our coast, which supports activity for the entire country.”
