From our “Money Never Sleeps” department…..
(07/21/2011)
Paul Quinlan, E&E reporter
A bipartisan group of nine senators unveiled legislation today that would send most of the billions of dollars in fines collected by the federal government from last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill to Gulf Coast states.
The bill would capture 80 percent of the Clean Water Act penalties resulting from the spill and divide it among Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Under current law, the money would flow into a Treasury trust fund to pay for future spill cleanups.
Total fines expected from the Deepwater Horizon disaster are expected to range from $5.4 billion to $21.1 billion. The final dollar figure will likely be negotiated between companies deemed responsible for the spill and the Justice Department.
“This is a very exciting and promising day for the Gulf Coast, a region of our country that has suffered significantly in the last several years from a variety of storms, hurricanes, floods and a major oil spill,” Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu said.
Of money diverted to the Gulf Coast, 35 percent would be divided among the five states in equal shares; 60 percent would go to a newly created, state-federal Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council; and 5 percent would go to a new science, monitoring and fisheries-management endowment.
Half the cash that goes to the council would be used for ecosystem restoration, while the other half would be further divided among states based on an “impact driven” formula, under the Senate proposal. The impact formula would be based on the weighted average of oiled shoreline miles, proximity to the crippled oil well and average coastal population.
The Senate deal emerged after months of closed-door meetings of Gulf State senators and staff led by Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). The talks were salvaged by Landrieu’s after- hours phone call to Boxer at her home to encourage her to continue the effort, lawmakers said at a press conference this afternoon.
“We had some very, very tough meetings,” Boxer said. “Every once in a while, these magical moments happen where you find the sweet spot and everyone comes together.”
Boxer had declared two weeks ago that a deal had been reached and set a date for her committee to vote on a bill sponsored by Landrieu and Louisiana Republican David Vitter. The vote was called off after other senators publicly disputed that the group had reached a consensus (Greenwire, June 29).
Disagreements centered not only on how to fairly divide up the money among the states but also how to divide cash between economic
development and environmental restoration.
“The bill will speed economic and environmental recovery to the Gulf Coast following last year’s oil spill,” Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker said. “It represents a balanced approach by all Gulf state senators to support economic and environmental restoration.”
Boxer’s committee will likely vote on the bill before the August recess. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet assigned a pricetag to the legislation, but Landrieu said the figure would be “much less” than the project penalties and would be offset.
Also backing the bill are Sens. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Marco Rubio (R- Fla.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas.).
House lawmakers have yet to introduce a Gulf revenue-sharing bill. But Steven Bell, a spokesman for Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) who helped form the House’s Gulf Coast Caucus earlier this year, said late this afternoon that the lawmaker expects to introduce legislation soon that would closely resemble the Senate bill.
Special thanks to Richard Charter