Deep Water Drilling Approved; Oil Industry Continues Whining

That whining Bobby Jindal complained about at the end of last year was apparently coming from his buddies in the oil and gas industry — not the heads of the state's colleges and universities.

The proof could be found this week when, after the Obama administration allowed 13 deep water drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico to resume, the industry cacophony of whining ratcheted up to a higher pitch.

Too little, too late. Not enough. Too slow. Too hot! Too cold! Bwaaahhh!! The industry and its apologists, accustomed to writing the rules they then chose to ignore, are perplexed by the notion of regulation and inspection by people who (at least for now) can't be bought.

Get used to it. The well has been plugged, new rules are in place, but the whining will not stop.

The legitimacy of the whining is best assessed in the context of the earlier rage against the moratorium and the dire predictions the oil and gas lobby, elected officials, academics and other said the temporary moratorium would have on Louisiana's economy.

Lies and Propaganda

The only way to describe the claims made about the moratorium and the way it was used to attack the Obama administration in Louisiana is to call them what they were: lies and propaganda.

The liar in chief was Governor Bobby Jindal who immediately recognized that the moratorium posed a financial threat to his legions of backers in the offshore oil services industry anchored primarily in coastal southeast Louisiana.

After GOP heavy hitter, former co-owner of the New Orleans Hornets, and Jindal backer Gary Chouest's companies threatened immediate layoffs after the moratorium was declared, Jindal spoke at the first anti-moratorium rally held in an Edison Chouest facility at Port Fourchon on June 11. Jindal spoke at the second anti-moratorium rally on June 24th which was held at the Gulf Island Fabricators facility in the port in Houma where that company is working on a Chouest project that is at least partially funded by the State of Louisiana.

That rally was held four days after the Jindal-ordered amicus brief filing in the suit against the moratorium in which the governor's attorneys, headed by Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, lied to the federal judge hearing the case. In the brief, Caldwell and the other attorneys said that the moratorium had cost thousands of Louisiana workers their jobs and cited the Louisiana Workforce Commission as the source of that information.

Only one problem. The claim was not true. It was not true then and was not true all through the summer when new unemployment claims in Louisiana showed no blip attributable to the moratorium. In fact, unemployment in Louisiana stayed below 2009 levels throughout the summer of 2010.

The fact-free attacks on the moratorium (and the Obama administration) reached a crescendo at the Lafayette Cajundome on July 21. On that day, the relentless campaign of economic fear waged by the industry, the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce (technically, there is a difference), and state and local government culminated in the gathering of about 12,000 to get two hours of personally delivered lies.

All of mainstream media in Lafayette bought into the so-called "Rally for Economic Survival," setting aside any pretense of objectivity and shutting down any semblance of critical thinking. There were on-air editorials by local television stations; a front-page editorial by the Gannett daily and a heavy serving of fear-dripping op-eds by opponents of the moratorium.

At the event, then-interim Lt. Governor Scott Angelle delivered the speech he'd been perfecting on smaller audiences in which he claimed President Obama didn't like the oil and gas industry. There was a blatantly misleading presentation from the Louisiana Workforce Commission on the jobs that would be affected by the moratorium. The end of the economic world was near and Lafayette would be in ruins before the summer was out if the moratorium was not lifted.

In September, the BP Gulf Gusher was plugged. In October the moratorium was lifted. The industry whining continued because drilling and/or coastal destruction was not allowed to immediately resume.

After a quick dip in the fund-raising business, Angelle returned to his prior role as Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources where he faced a decision on how to tax his old buddies (and recent contributors) in the oil and gas industry. Some saw the glaring ethical issue that Angelle and his boss the Governor chose to ignore.

New Whinery

Now, with drilling activity officially sanctioned, the industry's apologists have cranked up the whinery again.

Their lies of 2010 rob them of any credibility.

We know for a fact now that the moratorium cost very few jobs in Louisiana and in the offshore drilling industry. There were fewer than 400 claims made on the $100 million fund set up to help compensate those who lost their jobs or income due to the moratorium. We know that the moratorium was never cited as the cause of any spike in job losses in 2010 in the Louisiana Workforce Commission's official reports (which is separate from the propaganda work they did at the behest of the Governor and the industry).

The best evidence of the lack of the impact of the moratorium on the economy, though, came in Lafayette. In December, City/Parish President Joey Durel (a speaker at the anti-moratorium rally in July) got the Lafayette Consolidated Government Council to approve a pay raise for Lafayette Parish governmental workers. Durel cited increased sales tax collections in Lafayette Parish as providing the fiscal underpinning for the raises.

If the moratorium had any economic impact, it was indirect. The direct impact was from the fear campaign waged by opponents of the moratorium who succeeded for a time in convincing people that the 2010 moratorium would send the region's economy into a tailspin that would rival the oil and gas industry collapse of the mid-1980s.

None of that happened.

The people who inflicted this hoax on Louisiana know it. The people know it. The perpetrators of the hoax must not be allowed to go unpunished for their deception.

My Letter to the LCG Council: Ignore The Chamber

On Friday afternoon, I hand-delivered a letter to all nine members of the LCG Council to the Council office. Subsequent to that, I emailed each councilman a copy of that letter.

The core argument is this: The Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce has no special standing on the issue of Charter Repeal. Their concerns about the potential impact are legitimate, but those concerns are best discussed in public with the only entity with standing to decide the form of government we will live under here — the voters of Lafayette Parish.

The process that got us here was legitimate and straightforward. Any attempt to delay or defer putting this matter before the public will undermine the credibility of the Council, the Charter, and those organizations seeking to stop this from going to voters.

Here's the full text of the letter:

Friday, February 26, 2010

Council Chair, Jay Castille, District 2

Councilman Purvis Morrison, District 1

Councilman Brandon Shelvin, District 3

Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux, District 4

Councilman Jared Bellard, District 5

Councilman Sam Doré, District 6

Councilman Donald Bertrand, District 7

Councilman Keith Patin, District 8

Councilman William Theriot, District 9

Gentlemen,

I write today to urge you to vote on Tuesday to preserve the integrity of Consolidated Government and the current Charter. You can best do this by voting to approve the proposed ordinance that would call a November parishwide referendum on the question of whether or not to repeal the Parish Charter.

By voting to proceed with the ordinance and the referendum you will instill voter confidence in you, your processes and in the Charter amendment process that will serve the parish well regardless of the outcome of the vote on Charter repeal.

The credibility of the Council and Consolidated Government are at stake here because of the manner in which this issue was raised and the sole route the current Charter provides for resolving this issue.

The Charter Committee formed with the approval of the full LCG Council was duly constituted and charged with reviewing a range of issues relating to the functions of government under the current Charter. This committee was anything but radical; in fact, some argued that the committee was stacked with those with vested interest in the current Charter for any significant change to come from its work. After all, three of you were members of that committee; City/Parish President Durel was a member; two members of the original Charter Commission, Jeannie Kreamer and Nelson Quebedeaux, were members; and Greg Davis, a public employee who manages the Cajundome, was a member.

I attended both meetings of the committee. This was no wild-eyed bunch.

Importantly, the committee vote on this issue was unanimous. There was no dissent. There was no split vote. Your duly appointed and constituted committee charged with reviewing and addressing deficiencies in the Charter voted unanimously to recommend that you let the voters of Lafayette Parish decide whether they want to continue under this present form of government or not.

That is the issue that will up for consideration on Tuesday: will you allow a credible process for reform and/or repeal of the Charter run its course by allowing the people to vote; or, will you succumb to the special pleadings of The Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce to delay this matter?

The Chambers concerns about the possible impact of deconsolidation are valid. Their request for a delay in action calling the vote is not. At no point has the Chamber or anyone else suggested that there was anything suspect about the manner in which the Council created the Charter Committee or in the way that Committee conducted its business.

Cynics would argue that The Chamber's request to table the matter for 90 days is an attempt to reduce voter participation in this matter while enhancing the organization's relative power in a low-turnout election.

By The Chamber's own admission, if you vote to table the ordinance, the election cannot be held in November when turnout will be relatively high due to the referendum sharing the ballot date with federal elections. A spring ballot would ensure lower voter turnout for this election the critical nature of which The Chamber accurately assesses.

Viewed in this light, The Chamber is trying to shape the outcome of the election by shifting the election date.

The Chamber says they want to slow this down because there are too many unanswered questions. This is precisely the reason to proceed. Here's why: The form of government that we chose to live under is, by definition, the Public's Business. This requires a public debate. Not a series of closed door meetings involving Chamber operatives and members of the Council or the administration.

This debate belongs in the public square and a referendum is the only way to force it to take place there.

Because no procedural, legal, or ethical questions have been raised by anyone regarding the process through which this proposed ordinance was arrived at, there is no legitimate basis for The Chamber's request to be honored.

The Charter does not give the Chamber right of first refusal on reviewing Charter amendments. They have no special standing in this matter, other than the fact that their representative Bruce Conque has been the source of a series of poorly though-out suggestions — freezing current council districts for five years, extending the current council term to five years, and, now, letting the Chamber sit as a sort of House of Lords, deciding on the appropriateness and timing of matters under consideration by the council and which of those that might be allowed to find their way to the voters.

The power of changing, even repealing, the parish Charter is reserved exclusively to the voters of this parish. Acting in good faith, you created a committee and set in motion a process that produced repeal of the Charter as a unanimous recommendation to you. Doing anything less than allowing this issue to go to the voters as quickly as possible would call into question your credibility and the credibility of Consolidated Government.

You are not being asked to vote your opinion of repealing the Charter. You are being asked to call an election on this question that will not only allow, but force proponents and opponents of change to make their case to the voters of Lafayette Parish — the ultimate arbiters of this matter.

Like any other citizen of the parish, you will have the opportunity to study the facts, make a decision, pick a side, and argue your case. That is one thing the framers of the current Charter got exactly right: the real power of government in Lafayette flows directly from the people.

Your credible process resulted in this matter being elevated to a matter of public debate that can only be properly resolved by a vote of the people. Trying to now stifle or cut off that debate would demonstrate contempt for voters and their judgment that so far only the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce seems willing to publicly express.

The Charter says that Lafayette voters have the final say on this matter. The issue has been raised through a credible process. The Chamber has no special standing that could justify their request for a delay in putting this matter up for public debate and vote. Call the vote, let the debate begin, and let the facts on consolidation and de-consolidation come out.

This will provoke the kind of vigorous discussion this issue needs and cries out for.

Honor your processes. Respect the work of the committee you appointed to handle this matter. Trust the voters. Ignore The Chamber. Pass the ordinance.

Sincerely,

Mike Stagg