America’s WETLAND Foundation Calls on President to keep national promise
New Orleans, La. – Following years of hard fights in Congress to gain recognition of the role played by Louisiana in supporting energy security. For the moves by the Obama Administration today to take back Outer Continental Shelf revenues shared with Gulf states. Well it has the America’s WETLAND Foundation (AWF) calling foul.
It was a bi-partisan act of Congress led by former Senator Mary Landrieu and Senator David Vitter that finally passed an increase in revenues coming to energy producing states from offshore oil development. Appearing on WWL Radio’s Garland Robinette show, AWF’s senior advisor, Sidney Coffee, called the reneging of a promise by the U.S. “unfortunate but not surprising.”
Wetlands Need a Promise by Americans
First of all, what happens on our coast affects everyone. Especially all throughout the nation. That’s because we support America’s energy development. Yet we don’t look at the impacts. So we deserve the support; it is not an entitlement to have a clean environment.
“In the back of our minds, when we built the national coalition in Congress to get this passed, we worried that the closer the time came for the money to kick in, there would be a grab for the money, and this is what we’re seeing now. This legislation passed as essential to the national economy and not a give-away in any sense,” Coffee added.
The irony of the Administration’s move is that interior states share royalties on minerals to the tune of 50% and Louisiana and other Gulf Coast producing states share a fraction of that amount, only moving higher in 2017.
Source: America’s WETLAND Foundation www.americaswetland.com
