With La. 1 being the only route through the marshes of south Louisiana to Port Fourchon, state officials have been clamoring to come up with a plan to fund a further elevation of the highway that is crucial to the energy industry.
While Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration last month proposed using BP oil spill fine money left over from coastal restoration work to upgrade the highway, The Daily Comet reports that Treasurer John Kennedy has another funding idea: using sales from unclaimed property bonds.
A representative from Kennedy’s office presented the idea last week in Port Fourchon, arguing any extra money from coastal projects completed with federal Restore Act dollars from BP oil spill fines should not be used to pay for the transportation project.
“La. 1 is hugely important,” Kennedy tells the Thibodaux newspaper. “I don’t think we ought to fund it out of our coastal restoration money, not because it’s not an important project—it is—but because once you start doing that, there will be a lot of other proponents of other projects, other road projects, that aren’t as important as the continued elevation of La. 1.”
An alternative funding source could be selling unclaimed property bonds, where excess annual collections from the unclaimed property program are used to pay the debt service on the bonds. The system is more a cash management tool than anything else, and no one would lose their unclaimed property in the process, Kennedy says.
The funding mechanism raised about $200 million for Interstate 49 North and South, and Kennedy says he would like to meet with other leaders to discuss its application to La. 1.
“I do think it’s an idea that’s worth exploring,” he says. “The new governor may disagree and or the new Legislature may disagree, but we ought to at least talk about it.”
Construction on a $46 million portion of La. 1, the only road leading to Port Fourchon, is expected to start next summer. An estimated $275 million is needed to finish the project’s next two phases.
