Posted on 02/06/2006 6:51:58 PM PST by Ellesu
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/113886577878520.xml
LA is looking for 250 miles out, not 3 leagues.
In fact, everyone knows what LA is after. They think that the area to the west of Lease Area 181 and south of Louisiana will produce some Arabian grade wells. They are probably right.
That's completely wrong. Texas gets no money from federal offshore leases, while Louisiana already does.
Maybe Texas ought to try to get the same deal that Louisiana currently has.
Louisiana is only asking for the same deal Texas and Florida get.
But it's only about 6 miles more.
In the 60 years since offshore production began, the close-in stuff has mostly been found and produced, so it's a fairly moot point.
But somehow this historical difference of six miles of jurisdiction is used as justification for Louisiana now demanding 50% of the royalties out to the extent of US federal territorial waters.
It's a leap in logic that one can't honestly make.
There's equity: Coastal energy producing states like Louisiana aren't getting a fair shake compared to inland states that get 50 percent of the revenue from minerals extracted from federal lands within their boundaries. Louisiana has an especially poor deal. While Texas and Florida get 100 percent of the revenue from production 9 miles in the Gulf, Louisiana has control over only the first three miles and gets 27 percent of the revenues from drilling from 3 to 6 miles out. After that, Louisiana gets nothing.
Why doeas Texas and Florida get 9 miles out and Louisiana only gets 3? Louisiana is only asking for 50% of these 6 miles. Texas and Florida get 100% of these 6 miles. Why the disparity?
Louisiana wants 50% extending out to edge of the continental shelf, some 200 miles offshore. Not six miles. 200 miles.
Texas and Louisiana have state waters extending further out than Louisiana because they came in under Spanish law which had previously established those state offshore boundaries prior to admittance to the union.
And I'll point out that there is very little federal land in Texas for the US government to split royalties with the state 50/50. It's mostly in private hands, and the state only gets a piece of production through ad valorem taxes, far less than 10% of the value.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/113886577878520.xml
Why the disparity..... did you read the article you linked?
Here' the article's version;
...
The Truman administration initially offered Louisiana control of the first three miles off its shores and a share of royalties beyond that. But, according to Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., Plaquemines Parish boss Leander Perez demanded all of the royalties or nothing -- and the state got nothing.
Under mounting pressure in 1953, Congress gave coastal states the rights to the waters up to 3 miles off their coasts. Texas and Florida were given control of about 9 miles in the Gulf of Mexico because they had established those boundaries before becoming states.
....
As far as the inland quote you provided in another post.... that's apples / oranges to the discussion of offshore lands.... none of which are inland to any state.
The Civil War was not a natural disaster.
Dan Juneau, President of La Association of Business and Industry
So had Louisiana...
From the “History of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Southern Louisiana Interim Report, Volume I: Papers on the Evolving Offshore Industry”, Page 39
link address is :
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/regulate/environ/studies/2004/2004-049.pdf
“in August 1954, Louisiana’s state legislature had asserted those rights by passing a statute, Act No. 33, which redefined the states’s seaward boundary as a maximum of three leagues beyond the coastline, as described in the act of admission of Louisiana to statehood and union. The novel aspect of the legislation was the definition of the coastline, which the state argued was the dividing line between inland waters and the open sea as determined by the Coast Guard and authorized by acts of Congress in 1807 and 1895. The Coast Guard fixed lighthouses and buoys along this line, as the U.S. Department of Justice pointed out, for navigational purposes, to determine where ships changed from rules for the open sea and to rules for inland waters.”
Why there is a current descrepancy between the Texas and Florida limits and the Louisiana limits is beyond me. All coastal states should be treated equally under the law.
I wasn't aware of that part of Louisiana history, and I don't know why it wasn't able to maintain the three league limit to state waters upon admission.
Texas had a different bargaining position as it was an independent nation seeking admission to the union on its terms, which is why the only federal land in Texas is land that was sold to the US Government (unless some land was condemned for interstate highways).
However, arguing the three league limit is a far different matter than arguing for proceeds 190 miles further out to sea than that.
I haven't looked at the coastline of the Pacific and Atlantic coast states.... Do you know offhand what their limits are? Don't search if you don't know offhand.
It may well be that the Perez thing may well have played into the legislation of 1953.
One interesting aspect of Louisiana coastal erosion is the fact that the state is now claiming land that was private landowners property.
It's happened to my company, and it potentially involves the shift of millions of dollars of royalty revenues for wells drilled onshore near the coast.
The flip side for Lousiana is that it also shifts the federal boundary three miles from the new subsea lands they are now claiming.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=363&invol=1
Basically, Louisiana got screwed by the feds. Here's an excerpt...
"Louisiana's claims, like those of Texas, are based on the contention that it had a three-league maritime boundary which existed "at the time" it was admitted to the Union, and must be judged by the same standards.
The Act of Congress admitting the State to the Union in 1812 107a described the new State's boundaries as follows:
"beginning at the mouth of the river Sabine; thence, by a line to be drawn along the middle of said river, including all islands to the thirty-second degree of latitude; thence, due north, to the northernmost part of the thirty-third degree of north latitude; thence, along the said parallel of latitude, to the river Mississippi; thence, down the said river, to the river Iberville; and from thence, along the middle of the said river, and lakes Maurepas and Ponchartrain, to the gulf of Mexico; thence, bounded by the said gulf, to the place of beginning, including all islands within three leagues of the coast . . . ." (Emphasis added.)
Louisiana claims that the concluding clause "including all islands within three leagues of the coast" should be read to mean that Congress fixed as the State's seaward boundary a line three leagues from its coast, and that such a reading is supported both by the State's preadmission history and by subsequent events.
The Government, on the other hand, insists that the phrase includes only the islands themselves lying within three leagues of the coast, and not all waters within that distance as well."
Texas had other treaties and documents to back up it's claims. Unequal treatment is the net result.
Ah, thank you. I can see that contraflow is the buzz word for the Blanco defense.
It's not defense of Blanko, it's simply stating the truth. Whether you agree or not is not my problem. The problem was she didn't issue the mandatory evacuation sooner.
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