[StBernard] Louisiana still pays for Long's 1949 miscalculation

[Westley Annis]

By AP

2006-07-24 11:01 AM CST 

BATON ROUGE (AP) - Louisiana politicians have been trying for decades to get
more of the money the federal government makes from offshore oil and gas
drilling. It's a tradition now kept up by both the sitting governor and a
probable candidate to replace her. 
 
But it would not be an issue if not for a monumental miscalculation made in
1949 by then-Gov. Earl Long. 
  
The state was arguing with the feds over offshore money back then, too:
President Harry Truman thought the oil-rich coastal territory was a national
treasure, not a state treasure. He thought the federal government should get
all the revenue that comes from oil discovered farther than three miles off
the coast. 
  
In fighting that position, Louisiana managed to squeeze a compromise from
the feds: The state could keep 37.5 percent of the revenue from that oil. 
  
"It was a generous offer and would have given the state billions of dollars
over the next four decades, and Earl Long wanted to accept," authors Michael
Kurtz and Morgan Peoples write in their 1990 biography of Long. 
  
But Long rejected the offer, on the advice of Leander Perez, the political
boss of Plaquemines Parish. Perez was a Long legal adviser who made millions
from the oil-rich tidelands he owned in his home parish. 
  
Perez wanted 100 percent of the oil money to remain in the state. 
The feds refused, and Louisiana lost out. 
  
"In agreeing to Perez's argument, Long made a bad mistake," Kurtz and
Peoples write, "for the tidelands dispute remained in litigation for over a
dozen years, and the ultimate settlement was decidedly less favorable to
Louisiana than the original 1949 proposal." 
  
So today, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and Rep. Bobby Jindal are trying to
get more of that money and going about it in different ways. 
  
Jindal is sponsoring a bill to give Louisiana between 50 percent and 75
percent of the royalties the federal government now gets from the offshore
drilling. A congressional conference committee is expected to consider the
measure alongside a Senate bill later this summer. 
  
That would eventually equal about $2 billion per year, according to Jindal's
office, to be used in attempts to halt the erosion of the state's coastline.

  
The White House has said that's too much. The Bush administration is more
likely to back the more modest Senate bill that aims to send 37.5 percent of
the money - the same amount the feds offered in 1949 - to Louisiana and the
three other oil and gas producing Gulf states. 
  
Blanco took the matter to court - a lawsuit apparently being the last resort
for a state official who has no power over the federal agency overseeing the
money. 
Blanco's suit filed last week is her latest attempt to pressure the feds to
send more money here. The suit does not specifically seek cash but Blanco
has said she's willing to disrupt the selling of leases in the Gulf of
Mexico to bring more of the money home. 
  
The suit seeks to block the federal Mineral Management Service from holding
a scheduled Aug. 16 lease sale of 4,000 blocks in the western Gulf for oil
and gas exploration, accusing the agency of disregarding the environmental
damage caused by the drilling. Blanco said the agency plans to hold the sale
before getting adequate information about additional damage done to the
coast last year by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 
  
Blanco claims the legal right to block the sale but she has no veto power
over it. As a player sitting on the bench in the dispute, Blanco apparently
thinks a lawsuit is the only way she can inject her opinion into the fight
over the money. 
The lawsuit "is her card to play," said Sidney Coffee, the governor's
adviser on coastal issues. 
  
"The governor does not have veto power over this at all. That's why this is
in federal court." 
  
The idea that Louisiana deserves a good chunk of offshore oil money is one
thing that unites just about every politician in the state, including Sens.
Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans, and David Vitter, R-Metairie. 
  
And if Louisiana has another Blanco-Jindal election next year, both the
Democratic governor and the Republican congressman would love to be able to
say they corrected Earl Long's mistake - and brought home billions of
dollars for restoring the coast.