Impunity & Immunity: Governor Jindal out of control on the coast & at the Capitol

Bobby Jindal says he's not running for president. That's probably because he's too busy acting like a king.

It's been a heady couple of weeks for the Governor of a state mired in a deep fiscal crisis largely of his own making and confronting an epic ecological and economic catastrophe that he had a hand in creating.

Jindal swept into Baton Rouge on the Friday before the final day of the legislative session to declare his support for the Senate version of the budget and House conservatives rolled over and gave him what he wanted. He ignored large majorities in both houses and strong public support for transparency in his office by vetoing a bill (HB 37) that would have made all state records relating to the BP Gulf Gusher available under the state's open records act.

Jindal acted with impunity towards the Legislature and the public with his veto of HB 37. In his veto letter (bottom of the page) to Clerk of the House, Alfred Speer, Jindal added insult to injury by giving a completely bogus explanation of his action:

The Deepwater Horizon incident is a man-made event with responsible parties that will create long-term challenges for the State of Louisiana. This bill would allow BP and other parties with potential liability to the state to obtain information retained by any state agency responding to this tragic event. Such access could impair the state’s legal position both in responding to the disaster that is unfolding and in seeking remedies for economic injury and natural resource damage.

As was pointed out here, attorneys in lawsuits always petition records from the other party. It's called discovery and the state has no power to shield any records from such a process in a court proceeding. Jindal's veto, though, will keep those records out of the court where he is most vulnerable — the court of public opinion, where his high-handedness and disregard for the opinions and views of those outside his immediate circle have created a backlash against him in both houses of the Legislature.

Another veto prospect is HB 1443 which would require legislative involvement and oversight of the privatization contracts for state mental health hospitals. That bill passed by smaller margins than the Gulf Gusher records bill, but it did have the support of a broad bi-partisan coalition of legislators in both houses. Department of Health & Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine all but promised a veto in an attempt to block passage, but neither body would back down.

Jindal displayed so little regard for the Legislature that some of his allies in the House (at least they were allies before the budget deal) tried to sneak provisions into a Senate-passed bill that would have granted immunity from liability for state and political subdivisions for actions taken in the effort to combat the results of the BP Gulf Gusher. Another House amendment in the bill would have eliminated the need for Jindal to veto the Gulf Gusher records bill by protecting them. Senators caught on to what was happening and killed SB 520 and the sneak attacks contained in them.

The reason Jindal might have sought the immunity provision only became evident after the session ended when the U.S. Department of the Interior shut down dredging for Jindal's pet berms project because the state was violating the terms of the permit issued.

Jindal screamed "bureaucratic red tape." The Department of the Interior responded that the state had been told the dredging was not being carried out in compliance with the permit and had dragged its feet in moving the dredging operation to an approved source of sand. The Time-Picayune summed it up in a story that appeared on Wednesday, June 23, two days after the session ended and three days after the attempt to grant Jindal and Nungesser immunity from liability:

Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser criticized the delay Tuesday and asked the federal government to allow the state to continue dredging from the current site as it prepares to move operations to another sand borrow site a mile farther offshore.

But the Obama administration said the state has been unprepared since the beginning, has caused further delay because it did not have the proper pipe available and has continued to ask for more time to shift to the offshore site. According to the Interior Department, it gave the state permission for more than a week to use the closer source of sand while locating the pipe, but that allowing the state to continue dredging could have negative impacts on existing barrier islands.

Jindal and Nungesser risked destroying the fragile island with their dredging ostensibly in order to save the coast from the oil. It is disturbing but consistent with this project that was never the subject of any scientific review and was rammed down the throats of federal regulators by the fear that Jindal or Nungesser — or both — would stroke out if their request for a permit of some kind was not granted. Having received the permit, the Governor, his parish government sidekick and his hand-picked contractor — the Shaw Group (who happens to be a heavy contributor to the Louisiana Republican Party) — immediately proceeded to ignore the terms of that permit.

By the time the dredging was shut down, Jindal had been resisting the federal government's prodding of the state to move its operations for at least a week. That means that Jindal was engaged in resisting the federal government at the very time his liability immunity amendment was inserted on the House side and the attempt was made to sneak it through the Senate.

The senators could not be fooled and Jindal was not able to intimidate the Department of the Interior on the dredging permit, so the work was forced to stop. The immunity question became moot. As is his custom, Jindal ranted and he raved, but the operation was stopped while the dredge was moved.

The New York Times pointed out that Jindal gets petulant when he does not get his way. He's not getting his way much along the coast — nor has he used the tools he's been given to handle the state's portion of the response to the disaster.

For starters, the paper reported, Jindal had gutted the state oil spill coordinator's office — with predictable results.

The state has an oil spill coordinator’s office. Its staff shrank by half over the last decade, and the 17-year-old oil spill research and development program that is associated with the office had its annual $750,000 in financing cut last year. The coordinator is responsible for drawing up and signing off on spill contingency plans with the Coast Guard and a committee of federal, state and local officials.

Some of these plans are rife with omissions, including pages of blank charts that are supposed to detail available supplies of equipment like oil-skimming vessels. A draft action plan for a worst case is among many requirements in the southeast Louisiana proposal listed as “to be developed.”

Initially the state and federal responders worked well together until Jindal started grandstanding.

On May 3, Mr. Jindal went public with his dissatisfaction.

“We kept being assured over and over that they had a plan, that there was a detailed plan, that it was coming; we never got that plan,” he said.

But under the law, oil spill experts said, there are only two kinds of government plans pertaining to spills, and the state is partly responsible for both.

Jindal had met the enemy and it was himself. Still, he insisted on blaming the federal government.

More evidence emerged that Jindal's frequent displays of public outrage were coming at the expense of the steps he should have been taking to effectively respond to the catastrophe.

CBS discovered that Jindal has not used all the resources at his disposal to fight the encroachment of oil into coastal waters. Specifically, the network reported that Jindal had not called out all of the National Guardsmen that President Obama had authorized him to use in the clean up.

According to the network, Jindal offered a tart response to that story. As posted at Pro Publica, the response from Jindal's spokesman doe not respond to the point of the CBS story but is filled with continued criticism of the federal government. Jindal apparently believes that the best defense is a good offense.

Jindal has left the business of governing the state to others in Baton Rouge. He's been bounding along the coast from microphone to camera to microphone for almost 60 days. In front of cameras, complaining about the federal government's inability to respond to his every whim, Jindal has felt empowered. He has not had to hassle with legislators or budget holes or people wanting to know what he's really doing besides preening for cameras.

So, he vetoed the spill records law. He'll veto the legislative oversight of his privatization push. But, he's staying on the coast — and near the national spotlight — until the gusher's capped or something really bad results from his berm idea.

The only viable alternative would be for Jindal to turn on the (again) disgraced Senator David Vitter and challenge him in the Republican primary, saying that he has to go to Washington to get more face time on TV this right for Louisiana. Don't forget that the Vitters' post-prostitute press conference near the New Orleans airport took place just 30 minutes prior what was supposed to be the final, triumphant stop on Jindal's announcement tour for his campaign for governor.

Don't think for a minute that Jindal's forgotten that. And, don't think for a second that he's going to stick around Baton Rouge to deal with a $2 billion budget shortfall next year. Been there; done that.

He's out of here. Like Sarah Palin, his day job is holding Jindal back. A fight with Vitter looks like the most attention-grabbing way out.

Say Anything: Bobby Jindal's Hypocrisy on Science Gushes in the Gulf

Bobby Jindal's public life can be seen as a marathon wrestling match between his intellect and his political brain. The intellect is evident by the biology degree from Brown and the year-long stint at Oxford. Yet, when Jindal's political brain gains the upper hand, science gets tossed overboard as it did when the Governor signed legislation that allows the teaching of creationism in Louisiana's public schools.

Most of the time, Jindal is able to put enough distance between his intellect and his political brain to keep the differences, if not muted, then in the background. But the strain of dealing with BP Gulf Gusher and its attendant political opportunities sent Jindal into a full bi-polar eruption on science this week that calls into question the governor's mental stability.

The issues that provoked the eruption were two issues where he has staked a lot of political capital. The first issue is the berm building venture that Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser whipped up and that Jindal then rode back into the national spotlight as the 'can-do' governor. The second is the six-month deep water drilling moratorium that the Obama administration ordered in the wake of the BP Gulf Gusher.

Berms — We Don't Need No Stinkin' Science

The berm venture showed Jindal at his political best. Seeing an opportunity and talking about it until incessantly until the issue either died or he got what he wanted. In this case, he got some of what he wanted when Admiral Thad Allen recommended that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approve the construction of six berms along the coast in the hope that they might help stop some of the millions of gallons of oil that continue flowing into the Gulf from what was BP's well.

In the weeks leading up to Allen's recommendation, what is most striking about Jindal's effort on the berms is the fact that there is no hint anywhere that he and Nungesser consulted with any scientist about the project. The Governor certainly did not contact any of the scientists at any of the various coastal and estuary research centers at the state's public and private universities. He did use LUMCON as the backdrop for a press briefing but apparently never responded to an offer from the scientists there to serve as information resources to the Governor on any of the state's response efforts to the Gulf Gusher.

In fact, the only public record of Jindal and Nungesser ever having heard from scientists on the berm plan was at the June 1 meeting to discuss the matter in New Orleans, where scientists attended (at Allen's request, apparently). The fact that anyone would question their brainchild so infuriated Nungesser that he left the meeting and attacked the scientists during an encounter with reporters who met him outside the meeting room. Jindal at least stayed in the meeting but the scientists and their concerns left him unfazed.

There are no verifiable reports that our Governor sat through the meeting with his hands over his ears. There was, though, no indication that anything the Governor heard in the meeting made any impression on him, either. Jindal went into the meeting committed to dredging for berms, regardless of the facts. He maintains that position today.

That is apparently why the dredging has now been shut down. The Department of the Interior ordered it shut down after several days of trying to get the state-hired contractor to carryout the work in the manner defined in the permit and in a way that does not endanger the barrier islands the berms are intended to bolster.

According to the Times-Picayune account of the shutdown:

The state's contractors were told by the Army Corps of Engineers to shut down dredging operations Tuesday evening, after the Interior Department in Washington expressed concerns that if the state continued to dredge in the current location it could pose long-term risks for the current barrier island system. Federal officials said they had already given the state more than a week to get sand from a more distant borrow site, but that contractors have continued to ask for more time.

Predictably, Jindal erupted, railing against bureaucracy — and ignoring the science. "Get out of the way; move this bureaucracy out of the way," Jindal was quoted by the Times-Picayune as saying.

Earth to Jindal: It's the science, stupid!

The Times-Picayune explains:

Tom Strickland, assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said that if the department had allowed the state to continue digging where it was digging, officials feared it would approach a "tipping point" with an "impact on that island chain that may never be restored."

The concern with the current borrow site is that sand circulating in the island system could become trapped in the borrow pit, thus accelerating land loss throughout the Chandeleur chain. According to the federal government, a site a mile farther offshore poses less of a risk.

"We're acting in good faith. We have a good working relationship with the state on so many elements of this," Strickland said. "We are going to continue to work with the state."

The problem is that the bureaucrats that Jindal and his pal Nungesser are attacking have based their decision on the hydrology of the barrier island ecosystem. What separates the people at the Department of the Interior from Jindal and Nungesser is an appreciation that the dredging has, all along, carried with it the real possibility of doing more harm to the already ravaged coast than good.

Politicians Jindal and Nungesser, having ignored the science throughout their touting of this plan and their dismissal of the science is what led to the temporary closing of their berm building operation.

The dredging for the berms is shut down precisely because Jindal insisted on ignoring what the science was telling the Department of the Interior about the currents around the barrier islands. He did this fully aware of the possible consequences, despite being warned repeatedly that it was critical.

The shutting down of the berming operation falls on Jindal's political brain overriding his intellect on the matter of science.

Moratorium — You Must Listen to the Scientists!

The second issue that runs parallel to the berm issue is the deep water drilling moratorium. Jindal has been opposed to it all along, owing in no small part to the fact that it will heavily affect some of his staunchest financial backers.

When Hornbeck Offshore, Bollinger Shipyards, Edison Chouest and other deep water oil service companies filed suit against the moratorium, Jindal had the state file an amicus brief in support of those companies. The plaintiffs list read like a list of heavy hitters from a Jindal campaign finance report.

When Judge Martin Feldman ruled against the moratorium and in favor of the service companies, Jindal pounced but in so doing revealed a disturbing disconnect in his thinking.


In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon shortly after Feldman's ruling, Jindal — the man who steadfastly rejects the scientific concerns regarding his berm building project — lashed out at the Obama administration for — get this — ignoring what scientists were saying about the safety of deep water drilling.

"Listen to your own scientific experts that met with Secretary Salazar yesterday, to say they never recommended a six-month moratorium," Jindal implored the White House. "Listen to the same experts who said that six month moratorium was not necessary to improve safety in the Gulf,"

So, ignore the widely recognized science on the berms, but heed a small group of scientists who were miffed that the Obama administration actually exercised more caution than they recommended on the moratorium.

Do you think that this caution might have something to do with the fact that the Gulf Gusher that prompted their being called in on the issue remains uncapped more than two months after it started? This despite the fact that the best minds in the industry are tackling this problem.

Or, perhaps that the emergency response plans of the other companies paying for drilling in the Gulf looked frighteningly similar to BP's non-existent flawed inadequate plan?


Unprincipled Certainty In Pursuit of Ambition

Jindal's split personality on science has always been there, but it took the close interweaving of these two issues to bring it into such sharp focus. What it really reveals is that he is a rank opportunist perhaps unrivaled in this state's rich history of rank opportunists.

Clearly, any argument he makes is valid only so long as it works for him. It is a strictly utilitarian, unprincipled approach to truth. It is whatever he says it is. The fact that he can debase the value of science one minute while extolling it the next on a subject related to the first topic puts Jindal well outside the moral certitude crowd of modern day conservatism. The only thing Jindal is certain about is his desire to become president. His own advancement is the only principle he holds dear.

What his bi-polar approach to science demonstrates is that he will say anything so long as it fits his purpose and advances his personal cause. For proof, look no further the fiscal conservatives he just betrayed in the Louisiana Legislature.

Jindal's Oil and Sand Woes

Bobby Jindal has problems with oil and sand these days. Each is where he would prefer they not be.

The oil on the Louisiana coast is on our few sandy beaches and spreading into our seafood-rich marshes, threatening long-term damage to both.

The sand in Jindal's heretofore well-oiled legislative machine threatens to exacerbate his problems with three years of state budgets as well as deny him the claim to fame that he needs to continue his national political quest — privatizing state services, particularly health services.

The impact of the still uncapped and unfettered BP Gulf Gusher continues to ominously build. More fisheries have been closed, this time in so-called "inside waters" — areas not out in the open Gulf, but adjacent to it. The order, issued late Saturday by the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, according to The Advocate, includes closures of most of Barataria Bay, all of Caminada Bay north of Grand Isle, and most, if not all, of Terrebonne and Timbalier bays. The closure order effectively shut down all fishing in the Grand Isle, Grand Terre, Four Bayous Pass, Red’s Pass, Lakes Pelto and Barre and all points in the Cocodrie area.

BP this week conceded that the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf is bigger than they earlier indicated. For weeks, the company maintained that 5,000 barrels per day were blowing into the Gulf from their drilling site. After finally connecting a tube into the leaking pipe on the Gulf floor, BP said the pipe was drawing up 5,000 barrels per day of oil but that oil was still leaking. That confirmed earlier suspicions based on the limited amount of video of the spill that a lot more oil was escaping than BP had admitted to.

BP also had to admit late in the week that their suction tube was not getting anywhere near 5,000 barrels of oil to the surface, that it was less than half that amount. Today, the news got even worse. BP now has zero credibility on the size of the gusher or the degree of success they are having in trying to deal with it. Imagine what the real numbers are. BP had real reasons for underestimating the size of the spill.

Jindal: Drill, Baby, Drill Dredge, Baby, Dredge

Bobby Jindal, like most good Republicans, has never paid much attention to environmental issues. He's paid some lip service to coastal protection but there is no environmental initiative of any significance with his name attached to it.

There is now, however, a plan initially developed by Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser to build sand berms in the coastal waters that Jindal has been touting as the best hope to keep BP's oil off the coast and out of our coastal marshes.

The plan is changing even as it is under review by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers. As it has become a matter of public discussion, serious doubts have been raised about the plan by people who have much deeper knowledge about Louisiana's coast than do the newly converted Republican environmentalists Jindal and Nungesser.

Interestingly, the national media has discovered that there are numerous coastal experts who have done extensive research on Louisiana's coast who happen to be employed on projects operating on the campuses of Louisiana's public colleges and universities. There is no public indication that Jindal or members of his administration have been in touch with any of these people.

What the so-called Smartest Guy in the Room knows about the coast was taught to him by Billy Nungesser. Ponder that for a minute.

Jindal has ordered the Louisiana National Guard to begin some dredging near Elmer's Island. He said it was to prove the concept behind the Nungesser plan. But, unless the Coast Guard gives its approval to the work, it is possible that BP will not cover the cost of that work. It has been a while since Jindal has spent time in Baton Rouge, but surely he must recall that the state is in a budget crisis?

Jindal has continued flying and boating around the coast, trailing photographers and reporters with him along the way. A fawning conservative blogger tagged Jindal's approach as "governor-as-action-hero," forgetting for the moment the difference between talking and doing.

What Jindal has not been able to muster is results. For a man whose campaign coffers are littered with the names and dollars linked to energy companies, Jindal has not proven particularly effective at opening the doors he used to get campaign donations to get additional help to the region to deal with the gusher, its impact, or its aftermath.

What we do know is that, on the Louisiana coast, Bobby's in charge. Except when he's not.

BR Harder than BP

In some significant ways, the BP Gulf Gusher is an easier issue for Jindal than the current legislative session. After all, Jindal is not calling the shots. He's allowed the luxury of second-guessing both the federal government and BP.

Baton Rouge, though, is another animal and, since Jindal has gone coastal, things appear to be spinning out of control on the budgets (2010, 2011 and 2012). Members of the House have risen up to fight Jindal and Alan Levine's attempts to privatize broad swaths of state-owned healthcare infrastructure.

House Appropriations Chairman Jim Fannin raised the possibility that the session could end without a budget in place for the next fiscal year. He did not mention whether that prospect included the possibility of not being able to close the hole in the budget for the current fiscal year.

While the BP catastrophe has enabled Jindal to fly around playing 'that dashing young executive in his state-owned helicopter,' he was elected to govern and he has done precious little of that in the last month.

The depths of Jindal's problems at the Capitol were on full display on Thursday when a healthy majority of the House (64-27) voted to require legislative approval of privatization contracts of longer than three years at the state's mental hospitals in Mandeville, Jackson and Pineville. House Bill 1443 is being pushed by Democratic caucus leader John Bel Edwards of Amite and St. Francisville Republican Tom McVea.

They got the bill out of the House Health and Welfare Committee on a 13-3 vote earlier in the month, then beat back three Republican attempts to water down the bill on the floor of the House on Thursday. None of the votes were close.

DHH Secretary Alan Levine, whose department pushing the privatization drive, thumbed his nose at Edwards and McVea in the Times-Picayune on Sunday, saying the bill won't affect the current privatization efforts in Jackson, as the privatization contracts under consideration there would be for less than three years. But it could affect the long-term plans for turning over mental-health services in Pineville to a private contractor.

Levine's taunting of the legislators does not indicate that he recognizes the change that has taken place in the House in recent weeks as the implications of the privatization move have become clear and Jindal has been away playing beachcomber.

Even more dangerous for the administration is a bill introduced by Republican Representative Kirk Talbot of River Ridge that would create legislative oversight on all state contracts. House Bill 1316 is due to be heard in the House Appropriations Committee tomorrow. The roots of the bill apparently come out of the Government Streamlining Commission hearings where it was revealed that state government has more than 5,000 professional service contracts operating at any given time.

Talbot's bill puts the Edwards/McVea bill in a context that undermines Jindal's privatization rationale. If state government spending is bloated, is the problem state employees or is it the explosion of unexamined, frequently no-bid professional services contracts? If it is, then is the solution still more contracts?

If a solid majority of the House is opposing Jindal on privatization, the Senate is going to be even tougher.

Jindal Operating Outside the Constitution

Democratic Senator Joe McPherson of Woodworth claims that the entire privatization scheme being pushed by Jindal is unconstitutional. McPherson told The Advocate in an article published today that the proposed state budget bill is filled with language amendments that are really substantive law changes that should require separate legislative approval.

McPherson told the Advocate he is particularly concerned about three pages of substantive health-care policy changes inserted in the budget bill’s section on state Department of Health and Hospitals financing.

McPherson pointed The Advocate to a 1977 court case that he said addressed the matter of using the budget bill to set state policy, rather than separate legislation.

A key court case governing the issue involved a dispute between Gov. Edwin Edwards and then-House Speaker E.L. “Bubba” Henry. In that 1977 case, the court concluded that all appropriations bills are banned by the Louisiana Constitution from containing substantive policy more appropriately enacted in separate legislation.

In the same case, the court said the Louisiana Legislature can include “qualifications, conditions, limitations, or restrictions on the expenditure of funds which would not be dealt with more properly in a separate bill.”

McPherson says that elements of the DHH portion of the budget involve sweeping policy changes that have not been subject to legislative review, particularly changes in state Medicaid policy.


In that same article, Levine appeared to say that he was prepared to go ahead on the privatization unless the Legislature specifically moved to stop him.

In comments to the Times Picayune, Levine raised the prospect of Jindal vetoing the privatization legislation.

On Solid Ground?

Jindal's attention-grabbing gig on the coast was put in some context this week when it was revealed that he's already being paid for his book, "On Solid Ground" which was ghost written and will be published by right-wing publisher Regnery Publishing. The book deal was announced in February and is scheduled to be released in July.

At the time it was announced, it was considered to be the soft launch of Jindal's presidential campaign. At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans in April, Jindal said he was not running for president in 2012 thereby saving himself the embarrassment of a weak showing in a weak field of candidates.

The book was scheduled to hit stores after the end of the current legislative session, where Jindal was expected to emerge triumphant from another few months of dazzling legislators and the public with his brilliance.

Things have taken another turn. Fannin raised the possibility that the budget work might not get done during the session, requiring a special session in July. That kind of crisis in Baton Rouge might be able to draw Jindal back to the Capitol, but it's no guarantee. The national media will probably still be hanging out on the coast because the problems associated with the gusher will not have disappeared but have the very real possibility of being much worse than they are now.

Into this uncertain environment will come Jindal's book which he did not write and — judging by his dependence on federal stimulus dollars for his budget and federal aid to help mitigate the impact of the BP gusher — it will be about principles that he no longer holds.

The best answer might be for Regnery to ship the books directly to the coast where they can be put directly work in the effort to protect Louisiana's coast and marshes. Use the books as booms, Bobby! It might be a way to spare you from further embarrassment.