U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy will try again today to secure Louisiana a greater share of offshore oil & gas royalties, with the re-introduction of his 2022 RISE Act. An acronym for Reinvesting In Shoreline Economies & Ecosystems, the bill would mean a roughly 20-percent yearly increase in offshore energy money for Louisiana’s coastal restoration efforts. Cassidy says the bill passed a senate committee last year, but fell to the wayside amid a backlog of legislation…:
“The bill has strong bipartisan support as the Senate energy & Natural Resource Committee passed it overwhelmingly. Unfortunately, bad politics got in the way and kept it from being signed into law in the last Congress.”’
Cassidy says his bill is bipartisan, with Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse co-sponsoring. He says the RISEE Act would lift a limitation on what coastal states can receive from offshore energy – currently at $375-million yearly…:
“It doesn’t increase the percent, but rather increases the amount…ummm raises the cap, if you will.”
Cassidy says passing the RISEE Act would mean a substantial flow of money into Louisiana, and Gulf Coast neighbors, to restore eroded coastlines and shore up against future hurricanes. He says conservatives in Congress – especially in the U.S. House – are concerned with how the bill would be funded. He says he and his staff are working to tweak the bill to win their support…:
“We have to have something that will be satisfactory to the people in the House, and so it would premature of me to say what that would be. We’ve not yet vetted it with them. That is the thing we’re working on right now.”
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