Posted on 02/04/2006 5:12:05 AM PST by Neville72
Dan Juneau, president of the Louisiana Association of Business & Industry contributed this column today:
BATON ROUGE — One of the recent "Texas Hold'em" poker champions summed up his winning strategy this way: "Play a weak hand weak and a strong hand strong."
Perhaps Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco should adopt that strategy in her efforts to generate more federal dollars for hurricane disaster relief.
Last week, the governor initiated a new approach to seeking federal funds, but she isn't playing from a position of strength. In a statement pushing for a larger share of oil and gas revenues from offshore drilling beyond Louisiana's coastline, the governor hinted that she might attempt to block future federal offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.
In poker terminology, that was a very strong "reraise" coming from the governor, just short of going "all in."
Blanco isn't the first elected official from Louisiana to push for a larger share of offshore revenues. For decades, our state leaders and congressional delegations have attempted to up Louisiana's share of the Gulf of Mexico petroleum bounty. No one questions the fact they have meritorious arguments. Louisiana isn't treated equally with other states when it comes to dividing the offshore royalty pie.
The problem stems back to the Truman administration when offshore drilling was just beginning in earnest. Truman offered Louisiana control of the first three miles beyond the coast and a percentage of oil and gas royalties coming from beyond that. At the time, Leander Perez was the political boss of Plaquemines Parish, and he wielded considerable influence in state government. Allegedly, Perez got the state to hold out for all or nothing, Truman didn't blink and we got what we now have. (Talk about overplaying a bad hand.)
Decades have passed and the federal government has grown quite dependent on the $6 billion it gets annually from offshore oil and gas activity. Even when Louisiana had more clout in its congressional delegation and greater access to the president, we were unsuccessful in changing the offshore revenue allocation formula.
Blanco has introduced the element of threat into the game and President Bush and Congress will respond to her gambit. Unfortunately, they probably aren't trembling.
It takes an act of Congress to change the offshore oil and gas royalty and severance allocations, which means Blanco and our congressional delegation will need to secure a majority vote in Congress and President Bush's signature on any bill that passes.
Could that happen? Yes.
Is it likely to happen? About as likely as a 2-3 has of beating a pair of aces in an "all in" battle in Texas Hold'em.
The "blame game," the partisan sniping, and the political posturing that surfaced in the post-Katrina/Rita aftermath have done little to improve Louisiana's chances of changing the offshore formula, regardless of the merits of our case.
One can understand the frustration of the governor in trying to deal with so many needs and so few resources. But frustration often clouds logic. If the governor takes the threat to its culmination and somehow succeeds in stopping future offshore lease sales, whom will she punish? It would only mean that the federal government would have slightly less money to do things, such as providing more disaster relief to areas that need it. At the same time, the loss of employment and economic activity that is driven by those lease sales here at home would come back to directly haunt Louisiana's recovery efforts.
This is a weak hand, governor. Play it weakly or, best yet, not at all.•
What's the matter, gov? Last remodel not spiffy enough for ya?
I think this was a desperate move on the gov's part. A special session of the legislature is coming up and things are bad. For example they are going to propose a second cut for higher ed,,8 % this time. LSU board of supervisors says they won't take it and are calling on their supporters, who gave money to the legislators to be elected, to put pressure on them.
The truth is the state is in dire financial straits and there will be cuts all over and it isn't going to be pretty as everyone fights over what little there is.
This is the Gov's Hail Mary pass and it isn't going to work.
I'm a soon-to-be evacuee from the state so I have little stake in what happens(except for a few friends I'll leave behind). That said, if Blanco truly had the people of the state's best interest in mind, she'd call for a special election and resign. She's got to know in her heart of hearts by now that's she's simply in over her head and the state is suffering for it.
Maybe the recall will work. For the people left behind, I hope so.
Well, LA, due to a natural manmade disaster is just the first state that is going to go through this type of cathartic experience. In the next five years, at 15 to 20 states will go through this very experience. Hopefully they will be more judicious in their choices and stop looking to Uncle Sam to bail them out for their failing socialist policies.
If they have governors as good as Jeb Bush in Florida, there will be no problem.
A Joke, Kidnapped... (too funny)
A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the I-110 in Baton Rouge.
Nothing is moving.
Suddenly a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down his window
and asks, "What happened?"
"Terrorists have kidnapped Kathleen Blanco, Ray Nagin, Mitch and Mary
Landrieu. They are asking for a $10 million ransom. Otherwise they are
going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We are going
from car to car, taking up a collection."
The driver asks, "How much is everyone giving?"
"About a gallon"
What curious is what behind the scenes as to LSU. This is where Blanco husband comes in I hear. For some reason he is not viewed as a big fan of the LSU system. Now alot of this could be ull vs lsu trash talk. However I know that certain powers that be at LSU are nervous.
I don't think NY, NJ, Ca, MA, Vt, IL or many others will. I don't mean that they are going to have natural disasters, but rather manmade economic meltdowns that call for drastic cuts, pension and tax reform among other things.
Their "we are not going to accept these cuts" sort of irritated me. Everyone is going to have cuts, why not LSU?
Thanks once again for posting information that contributes to the discussion rather than makes fun of it. Too bad the states didn't argue the point that equal treatment should have been required when setting those state water limits. Texas and Florida are either states of equal standing or they aren't. This would have been a minority argument back when this was originally argued as there were only 20 of the 48 states with "offshore" boundaries, two of which were perfectly happy to have an advantage (Texas & Florida). This is not counting the big lake states, of which only Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, & perhaps Minnesota would have possibly had enough shoreline to have benefited from fighting for additional offshore coverages. This means that at most, the maximum number of states who might have favored fighting the feds on this issue would have been 24 out of the 48 if you include Texas and Florida which would not have been likely on the coverage issue. 50% maximum, but more than likely, this was always a minority position for the states with offshore waters. Not good to be outnumbered when money is being divided.
My "Give-A-Damn" is busted on anything regarding Louisiana for the forseeable future.
bump
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