Pass RESTORE Act Sen. Coburn!
15th December 2011 · 0 Comments
Walking the beaches of Grand Isle, one is amazed how much has been achieved since the Horizon/BP Oil Spill over a year ago. The beaches are wider and cleaner than ever before, open to tourists year wide. But, a keener observer will note that every few yards, a strange frothy substance seems to emanate from the surf. It’s not wave action on saltwater, but something else. It’s the chemical remains of the dispersants that BP sprayed into the Gulf.
Representatives of British Petroleum argue that the dispersants all dissipated, and if any remain, they pose no toxic risk. It is of little assurance to the residents and visitors of the barrier Island, who endured one of their worst tourists seasons ever over the past two summers.
It’s not much better further up Bayou Lafourche.
As one drives the length of LA 1 towards the coast, signs speak, “Oyster Company, Open 90 years, Closed because of BP”. Old Oyster trawlers lay on blocks with forlorn ‘for sale’ signs, and families face a bleak Christmas if they did hang on last year, nearly bankrupt from a slew of months where they were prevented from fishing the waters of the Gulf.
There is a depression both of spirit and pocketbook all along the Gulf Coast. We struggle and barely survive because of yet another man-made disaster, which makes the comments of U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn so galling!
Gulf Coast legislators, both Republicans and Democrats, have sponsored the RESTORE Act – designed to make sure Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Texas get 80 percent of the fine money that BP will pay as a result of the oil spill. But the Oklahoma Senator believes that is a bad idea. He has pledged to block the bill in the Upper House.
Coburn ostensibly thinks that the coastal states would benefit too greatly from such a fund. Without the legislation, the fine money would go into a trust fund for future oil spills and to the U.S. Treasury.
In other words, most of the BP fines would go into the General Fund to be spent as the Congress sees fit. Little would be returned to the Gulf Coast that endured chemical, biological, and economic damage too great to measure.
“Time is our enemy,” GOP Rep. Steven Palazzo of Mississippi said. “We need to get moving on this.”
Palazzo acknowledge what Coburn refused to see. Most of the fines would go to further re-compensate the Gulf Coast businesses that barely survived the spill. Carrying loans and notes just to make payroll last year, even a small financial influx could mean the difference between staying in business, and thousands of layoffs along the already economically strapped coastal communities.
We endured Katrina, Rita, and Gustav — all in a decade. We recovered from the storms asking for little in the grand scheme of things. And, when the future looked bright once more, and the Saints passing game won the Super Bowl, the Gulf Coast was nearly stopped again by a reckless British company that refused to follow rig safety rules.
It is a covenant of civil law that those who are damaged have first claim on the assets of the guilty. As Louisiana’s own Steve Scalise, who sponsored the RESTORE Act put it, it’s only fair “that those penalties return to the areas where the disaster occurred.”
Coburn, though, sees the estimated $1.2 billion as a means to plug the ever growing federal deficit. This is being penny-wise and pound foolish. What good is it to plug the deficit, if taxpaying business close as a result–and the debt just grows all the bigger next year?
Please call Sen. Coburn’s Office, and let him know how much we need those funds to survive her in Louisiana and down the Gulf Coast. The telephone numbers are Washington: 202-224-5754; Tulsa: 918-581-7651; and Oklahoma City: 405-231-4941.
This article originally published in the December 12, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
