The Louisiana Oil and Gas Association and the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association today released a joint statement applauding Louisiana senators for deferring SB490.
The bill, authored by Sen. Eddie Lambert, R-Gonzales, would have created a state and parish coastal zone recovery authority charged with implementing any settlement of the coastal zone lawsuits and approving the use of funding deposited from these settlements. The authority would have had a board comprising members of involved parishes, the chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration, and Conservation and the executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. The executive directors of LOGA, LMOGA and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry would also serve on the board.
The bill was considered this morning by the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, which deferred the bill and effectively killed the legislation.
LOGA President Gifford Briggs and LMOGA President and General Counsel Tyler Gray say in the joint statement that the “bill would have diverted funds away from Louisiana coastal restoration, incentivized more frivolous litigation targeting the energy industry, and allowed for the wholesale outsourcing of state coastal policy and regulatory enforcement authority to private attorneys at the expense of Louisiana’s integrated coastal resources program.”
Over the past five years, according to the statement from LOGA and LMOGA, Louisiana oil and gas companies generated more than $230 million for coastal restoration and hurricane protection, and, as a result, there are more CPRA projects underway today than ever before in our state’s history.
