Sound off: A week after the BREC Board of Commissioners delayed voting on a proposal to relocate the Baton Rouge zoo, the agency says it will hold six more community meetings to collect more input on the plan. BREC wants to move the zoo to more a visible location in south Baton Rouge and make its current home, Greenwood Community Park near Baker, into a regional, multiuse park. The board is scheduled to vote on the proposal at its Aug. 24 meeting. BREC says the meetings—taking place at various locations across the parish beginning July 11—will allow residents to review the proposal and suggest potential amenities at both locations. See a schedule of dates and times for each meeting. A livestream will be available for those who attend in person.
Analysis: A new Washington Post analysis has found that the number of uninsured Louisianans would increase 120% by 2022, if the Senate’s GOP health care plan is approved. The plan, the paper reports, would leave 410,000 Louisianans without insurance. The state also is projected to lose $2.7 billion, or 35% of its federal Medicaid and ACA funding under the health care bill. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that 22 million more Americans would be uninsured under the Senate Republicans’ health care bill than under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, by 2026. The loss is expected to fall harder on some states than others. Read more.
Unchanged: Like most oil producing states, Louisiana didn’t see any rise in the number of rigs actively exploring for oil and gas. The latest tally from Baker Hughes, a Houston-based oilfield services company, puts the state’s total rig count at 67—25 more than the comparable week one year ago. U.S. rig count, however, fell by one this week to 940. The nation’s rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed out in May 2016 at 404, The Associated Press reports.
