Letter to The Advocate: Gulf oil, gas value exaggerated

On February 23, The Advocate published my Letter to the Editor written in response to an article the paper published asking leaders of the anti-deep water drilling moratorium leaders to explain how tax collections were up and unemployment down in the state and in the markets where the moratorium was predicted to spread economic calamity.


Here's the text of the letter:

Advocate Capitol news bureau reporter Michelle Millhollon’s Feb. 15 article on reality not conforming to the hysteria generated by critics of the deep-water drilling moratorium served a valuable purpose beyond forcing those critics to confront the facts that their scare campaign against the moratorium was a hoax perpetrated against the people of this state.

The oil and gas industry, its lobbyists and public officials dependent on the industry for political funding fanned the anti-moratorium hysteria.

The signs of the hoax can be found in the lawsuit filed to overturn the moratorium a month after it was declared.

When 37 companies joined Hornbeck International in the suit against the moratorium, it looked like an industrywide revolt against the moratorium.

The reality was that those 37 companies were owned or controlled by two prominent Louisiana Republicans, Boysie Bollinger and Gary Chouest. Bollinger controlled 21 of the companies, Chouest 16.

Gov. Bobby Jindal directed state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to file an amicus brief in the case in which Caldwell and his attorneys lied to Judge Martin Feldman.

On page four of that June 20 brief, in his “Statement of the Case” Caldwell declared: “Because of the moratorium, many thousands of Louisiana workers have lost their employment and many more are at risk of losing it in the near future.”

The only problem with the statement is that it was not true. The Louisiana Workforce Commission weekly reports on new unemployment claims never mentioned the moratorium at any time during the spring and summer of 2010 because thousands of jobs were not lost. In fact, new unemployment claims fell through most of the summer.

Lobbyists such as Don Briggs, of Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, can be forgiven; after all, they are paid to spin stories so as to put their clients in the best light. But those supposedly independent organizations that joined in fanning the fears last summer — Greater New Orleans Inc., the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, the LSU Center for Energy Studies — have had their credibility seriously damaged.

Public officials who were active players in this hoax — Gov. Bobby Jindal, then-interim Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle and Caldwell — must also be held accountable. Either they were knowing participants in this hoax or their industry patrons duped them.

All of this raises the possibility that we might have all been victims of a larger, longer-running hoax.

In light of the moratorium’s failure to cripple our economy, could it be that the economic importance of the offshore oil and gas industry to the state has been vastly overstated all these years?

Who can we now trust to give us an honest answer on this?

Mike Stagg
independent IT consultant
Lafayette

Waritorium: The Deep Water Moratorium Threatens Two of the State's Republican Oligarchs

Any chance for good cooperation between the federal government and the state of Louisiana in the response to the BP Gulf Gusher died on May 30 when the U.S. Department of the Interior declared a six-month moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the then month-old disaster.

Although the New York Times reported that Governor Bobby Jindal's personal dissatisfaction with the federal response to the disaster had gone public by May 3, the moratorium ratcheted up the pressure in the already tense situation by threatening losses in the industry that had caused the disaster.

The logic of the moratorium was impeccable. Here was an on-going gusher on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico from a well that was owned by one of the major energy companies, BP, and it was out of spewing ever larger quantities of oil into the Gulf. The best minds in the industry were helping BP develop strategies to cap the well, but nothing appeared to be working. And, in fact, nothing has worked yet.

There were published reports of at least one other deep water rig with safety issues. The emergency response plans of the other major operators in the deep water areas open to drilling looked suspiciously like BP's which mentioned the need to protect walruses that might be impacted by a potential spill. Walruses in the Gulf of Mexico, remember?

So, the moratorium looked like the prudent call until the cause of the BP Gulf Gusher could be identified, the well capped, and a new set of safety rules issued based on what was learned from this incident.

But, alarm about the potential impact from the moratorium quickly went up along the coast and from within state government. Tens of thousands of jobs were threatened if the moratorium was allowed to stand. The job loss numbers fluctuated but trended downward in the first weeks after the moratorium was announced.

Jindal assigned his newly minted Lieutenant Governor Scott Angelle the task of heading up the effort to generate public opposition to the moratorium. Angelle formed a coalition and had an online petition created. He traveled across the southern part of the state rallying opposition. He met with federal officials, parroting dire predictions of the impact of the moratorium. He followed Jindal's lead and bashed the President.

"Mr. President, I get the fact that you don't like big oil and gas," said Jindal's recently appointed interim lieutenant governor, Scott Angelle. "But this is not about the stockholders of BP and Shell and Exxon and Chevron. This is about the Cheramises and the Callaises and the Boudreauxs and the Thibodeauxs!"

Still, the moratorium stuck.

Oligarchs In The Open

Then Hornbeck Offshore Services, LLC, of Covington, announced its intention to file suit challenging the moratorium. It was assigned to Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans and the rest is history. Feldman overturned the moratorium.

Hornbeck was joined in the challenge by 37 other companies in the challenge, giving the impression that a broad swath of the industry opposed the moratorium. The governor's office filed a brief in support of Hornbeck's claim.

In retrospect, it was something of a charade. The 37 companies that joined Hornbeck in the suit were owned by two families, both headed by second-generation scions to empires that their fathers built from scratch. Donald T. Bollinger (21) and Gary Chouest (16) and their families controlled all 37 companies that joined the Hornbeck challenge. The companies are mostly based in Louisiana with one Bollinger company in Texas, a Chouest company in Mississippi and one in Florida. All but two of the companies at limited liability corporations, meaning that they are personally controlled by the people heading the LLCs.

For the relevant corporate documents (PDFs) on each of the Bollinger companies that took part in the challenge, click on the name: Bee Mar-Worker Bee LLC; Bee Mar LLC; Bollinger Algiers, LLC; Bollinger Marine Fabricators, Inc.; Bee Mar-Bayou Bee LLC; Bollinger Amelia Repair, LLC; Bee Mar-Bee Hive, LLC; Bee Mar-Queen Bee, LLC; Bollinger Shipyards, Inc.; Bee-Mar-Honey Bee LLC; Bee Mar-Busy Bee LLC; Bee Mar Crews LLC; Bee Mar-Bumble Bee LLC; Bollinger Texas City, LP; Bollinger Calcasieu, LLC; Bollinger Shipyards Lockport, LLC; Bollinger Quick Repair, LLC; Bollinger Morgan City, LLC; Bollinger Gretna, LLC; Bee Mar-Bee Sting LLC; and Bollinger Fourchon, LLC.

Here are the names of the Chouest companies (click names for corporate details): North American Fabricators, LLC; Offshore Support Services, LLC; Martin Holdings, LLC; Sea Fluids, LLC; C-Port 2, LLC; C-Port, LLC; Fourchon Heavy Lift, LLC; C-Innovation, LLC; Clean Tank, LLC; North American Shipbuilding, LLC; Alpha Marine Services, LLC; Nautical Solutions LLC; Nautical Ventures, LLC; and Reel Pipe LLC. Two other Chouest companies took part in the challenge: Tampa Ship, LLC and Gulf Ship, LLC. Those links take you to pages on the Chouest web site.

The involvement of these 37 companies did not constitute a broad industry response. It was, instead, a shriek of anger at the federal government that had thrown into jeopardy the empires of two of the key members of the new Republican oligarchy that has been ascendant in Louisiana politics in recent years. The Bollingers and the Chouests were reliable heavy hitters for the party and its causes.

In trying to prevent another blowout in the hazardous deep water environment, President Obama had unwittingly delivered would could prove to be a lethal blow to some of some of the wealthiest arch conservative activists in the state. If the President did not realize the full extent of the in-state political implications of the moratorium, it did not take too long to become evident.

Joining the lawsuits either constituted political theater on the part of Bollinger and the Chouests, or significant parts of their compartmentalized empires are in real financial jeopardy if the moratorium stands. Their respective empires are segmented into numerous limited liability corporations which enables the owners to derive significant tax breaks from profitable ventures and to confine losses to under-performing companies in the event of an industry slow down — or a deep water drilling moratorium.

The companies owned by these men and their families generate huge sums of money. They have facilities scattered across south Louisiana. Their customers of their offshore supply vessels are the largest energy companies in the world. Increasingly, the companies compete against one another. Bollinger began as a boat building company and has now gotten into the offshore supply vessel business (the Bee Mar companies listed in the suit are mostly individual companies based on specific boats). Bollinger has built boats for Chouest. Now, Chouest has entered into the ship building business and competes against Bollinger. He's also chasing the deep water expansion getting ready to take place off the coast of Brazil.

Both companies have ventured out beyond the state line, but the bulk of their business is in this state. Chouest became a minority owner in the New Orleans Hornets a couple of years ago and has announced his intention to buy the team. One indicator of the severity of the impact on Chouest operations would be if the already-delayed was pushed further back or called off.

Party Animals

Both Donald Bollinger and Gary Chouest and their families have been major players in the Republican Party in recent years. Chouest was a $100,000 contributor to the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority back in the 2007 statewide campaign cycle. Bollinger was one of the original contributors to the group and went in for $77,500 over the 2006-07 span. LCRM head Joseph Canizaro named Bollinger to the board of directors of his bank at least in part in recognition of their political work together.

Bollinger also made numerous contributions to individual candidates through his various LLCs. Chouest and his family and various LLCs they control have made large financial contributions to the state Republican Party and to various campaigns and candidates.

In fact, with Bollinger and Chouest leading the way, the southeast Louisiana oil patch has become the money pot for Republican politicians in the state. In state and local elections, in particular, the Bollinger and Chouest method of making maximum legal political contributions through multiple LLCs has enabled them to amplify their influence in political campaigns across the state.

Jindal's 2007 gubernatorial campaign tapped heavily into this means of circumventing the spirit if not the letter of state campaign finance laws. Jindal drew big bucks out of the southeast Louisiana oil services industry during that campaign.

Jindal Gives Something Back

The Chouest family and their companies were solid supporters of candidate Bobby Jindal and all things Republican in the 2007 statewide election cycle, giving Jindal and others in the party more than $132,000.

Governor Bobby Jindal went right to work to repay the Chouests' largesse as soon as he took office.

A Chouest project at the Port of Terrebonne was the first new economic development project to receive funds from the new governor in 2008. First, there was a $10 million grant to the port for a portion of Chouest's LaShip project and immediately added $4 million to that total. The ethical questions raised about the self-proclaimed 'Ethics Governor' giving tax payer dollars to one of his biggest contributors were not the last raised by the project.

The project itself was delayed by ethics questions when one of the Chouest companies (North American Ship) submitted the low bid for a portion of the construction work on the LaShip project. Ethics flags were again raised, with this matter going to the State Board of Ethics, which ruled that giving the bid to Chouest's North American Ship to build a state funded project for Chouest's LaShip would constitute a conflict of interest. Gary Chouest did not see any problem with the original bid.

According to a story in the Houma Courier in 2009, the entire deal was set up so that the Chouest LaShip project had access to about $20 million in state funds through a combination of allocations, grants and low-interest loans. There are local dollars at work on the project as well, according to the Terrebonne Port Commission.

To The Barristers!

When Hornbeck filed their challenge to the deep water moratorium and the various Bollinger and Chouest companies joined in, they were acting on old industry loyalties as well as seeking to stave off potential financial ruin. Bollinger once built barges and boats for both Hornbeck and Chouest. Bollinger had also built boats for Tidewater, Inc., where two officers of Hornbeck had served prior to moving to that company in 1997.

When Jindal's office filed an amicus brief in support of Hornbeck, Bollinger and Chouest, the circle was closed legally and politically. Here was the governor allied with his biggest financial backers and party loyalists lined up in court to fight a drilling moratorium imposed by an administration they all opposed.

Interestingly, despite the public pronouncement of tens of thousands of potential job losses resulting from the moratorium, in their court filing Jindal and Attorney General Buddy Caldwell say the immediate losses would amount to 3,336 Louisiana jobs with an additional loss in support jobs totaling 7,656 jobs within five months. Job losses approaching the range of 20,000 are projected 12-to-18 months out by Jindal's Department of Economic Development, but no basis for that number is provided.

The bottom line is that when confronted with court standards for truth, Jindal had to ratchet down his job loss numbers.

Judge Feldman's court was not the only place the political stars aligned to cast the Louisiana Republican oligarchy in stark relief.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Jindal appeared at an anti-moratorium rally at Port Fourchon on June 10 which, appropriately enough, was held in an Edison Chouest facility at the port. The event was rightly called a rally as that's how it was staged and its focus was purely political. Jindal was in his element. He was on friendly ground, in a facility owned by one of his stalwart patrons. The Governor was preaching to blue collar workers to unite to save their jobs by defending the interests of their common patrons — the Chouests, the Bollingers and the other oil service millionaires whose wealth were built on servicing the industry that is killing Louisiana's coast and fisheries.

Jindal took part in another anti-moratorium rally on June 24, this one in the Port of Terrebonne in Houma, next door to the Chouest LaShip project into which he's poured so many state dollars.

The potential job losses are real and not to be lightly dismissed. But, Jindal and his administration have destroyed as many public sector and healthcare jobs over the past two years than will be lost to the moratorium in the coming months and he exercised those cuts with a certain detachment that failed to indicate that he connected in any way with those workers or the impact of those job losses on their families or their communities.

On the moratorium, though, Jindal is fully engaged because he's got a skin in the game, namely his own. Despite the fact that he's got a fat campaign war chest, he's bored with governing and faces another big budget shortfall next year. His adamant refusal to consider tax increases has locked the state into a pattern of continuing cuts of service that are building a backlash against those policies among some of his base, particularly those in healthcare and those who value higher education.

Even with no Democrat making noises about opposing him, Jindal will have a rough year next year if he decides to stick around. He will need every campaign dollar he can get his hands on in order to convince state voters that his sow's ear policies are actually silk purses.

If the oil service oligarchs are wounded, so too will Jindal's campaign coffers. That explains why he's passionate about fighting the moratorium. His job could well be at stake.

So, too, will be the coffers of Republican candidates down the ballot next year, particularly in legislative races. Although the LCRM is coming to play again, its method in 2007 was to supply nearly over-power media resources to Republican candidates and against Democrats in selected races. They use a lot of direct mail and a lot of radio. If Bollinger, Chouest and other oligarchs are wounded, they might take a more restrained approach to their participation in state elections next year.

That could work to the benefit of Democrats, particularly if Jindal tries to ram through another year of draconian budget cuts.

The BP Gulf Gusher was unexpected and has had a lot of unexpected consequences. That it could have a dramatic impact on the state's political landscape would be another one of those unanticipated consequences. If the moratorium stands either officially or because companies are hesitate to resume drilling because of the regulatory uncertainty, big changes could roll through Louisiana politics in the coming year, courtesy of the gang that could not drill straight and the people who enabled them.

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.

'Believe in Louisiana (Committee for a Republican Majority)'

The Times Picayune carried an Associated Press story earlier this week on the pro-Jindal gra$$root$ organization "Believe in Louisiana."

Turns out that this group is funded primarily by members of the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM).

Let's let the AP tell the story:

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A nonprofit group formed to tout Gov. Bobby Jindal's political and policy plans raised nearly $750,000 since forming three months ago — nearly all of it from 10 big money contributors.

• • • • •

Though the group received contributions from 189 people, $625,000 of the donations came from fewer than a dozen people or companies, including four that gave $100,000 apiece: Lee Domingue, of Baton Rouge; Joseph Canizaro, of New Orleans; Bollinger Shipyards, of Lockport; and Edward Diefenthal, of Metairie. McCollister donated $4,100 himself.

Canizaro is the chairman of LCRM and a $100,000 contributor to that organization over the 2006-2007 campaign cycle. Bollinger contributed $100,000 during that cycle to LCRM via his Bollinger Shipyards company.

Edward Diefenthal contributed nearly the same amount, plus bundled contributions to Jindal's campaign from his LLCs. In appreciation, Jindal appointed Deifenthal to his Ethics Reform Transition Team — right, the one that didn't make any recommendation regarding campaign finance reform. Not surprisingly, the Ethics Governor failed to include campaign finance reform in the call for his special session on Ethics.

Southern Recycling was once owned by Diefenthal, so his involvement could be deeper than the AP reports.

LCRM funder Phyllis Taylor came up with $10,000 for 'Believe.'

When the money is followed, the real story here is not that these people believe in Louisiana; instead, three months into the Jindal administration, they are not yet experiencing buyers' remorse.

Meanwhile, they are spending the big bucks to convince the public that they should ignore those stories about how Jindal is using public dollars to demonstrate his appreciation to his strongest supporters.

"Ignore those stories — and those fat cats behind the curtain!"

Katrina, Rita and the GOP Crony Capitalism

I'm taking part in a two-day NOLA/Gulf Blogathon over at DailyKos. This is my diary from Thursday, April 17.

You can click the headline to go to the DailyKos post.

• • • • •

Hurricane season is about six weeks away. The Mississippi River is very high due to heavy rains in the MidWest. The Bonne Carre Spillway has been opened for the first time in 11 years to let some river water flow through Lake Pontchartrain into the Gulf of Mexico.

Things are tensing up down along the Gulf Coast. Less than three years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck and the levees failed in New Orleans, nature is reminding us of what a tenuous hold we have on the lives we've created and are still rebuilding for ourselves down here.

We don't want to — and can't — go through another disaster again. Especially with the current administration in place. Real help will not come.

The hard and, yes, bitter lessons learned along the coast over the past two-and-a-half years are going to come in handy for the rest of the country it focuses on the coming federal elections.

The core lesson is this: Republican crony capitalism doesn't fix anything that's broken. It's all about them taking care of their own while the rest of us are left on our own. The proof is being lived out daily on the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi.

The federal response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita should tell Americans all they need to know about modern Republican crony capitalism as practiced by the Bush/Cheney administration and its heir wannabe John McCain.

There are three places that illustrate the model and its impact on the recovery: Biloxi and Pascagoula, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The better known places show the business model in all its awfulness. Cameron, in a way, demonstrates how far the GOP has lost touch with its roots and its basic decency in less than 20 years.

Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it hit the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana and, later, the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The blows it delivered there were natural disasters — the combined effect of wind and storm surge. The floods in New Orleans were the result of levee failures caused by a relatively weak storm. Winds in Lake Pontchartrain never exceeded 90 miles per hour. As we should all know by now, the cause of the floods in New Orleans were defective levees built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

So, what happened in New Orleans was a man-made disaster.

LET 'EM EAT CHIPS

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has been trying his best to turn the natural disaster of Katrina into a man-made disaster by diverting federal housing money from low income families into projects like improvements at the the Port of Pascagoula that could include luxury condos.

Scandal-plagued HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson granted Barbour's request to use $600 million in money appropriated for low income housing for use at the port instead of on housing. The result is evident. A drive along US 90 on the Mississippi coast reveals freshly repaired casinos standing a parking lot or two away from houses that are still in ruins.

Oh, and one of the scandals helping drive Jackson from office deals with him allegedly giving preferential treatment to a contractor for work on public housing-related contracts in post-Katrina New Orleans.

In a speech to the Delta Regional Authority annual meeting in 2007, Barbour said his wife was his "eyes and ears" on the Gulf Coast in the weeks and months immediately after the storm hit. Other members of his family, it appears, were his wallet. Barbour didn't spend much personal time on the coast, apparently only finding time to travel down there when George W. came looking for a photo-op.

Compare that to (now former) Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, who actually went to the Louisiana Superdome in the first days after the levees broke in New Orleans. She was there. She also took extraordinary measures to ensure that federal dollars sent to Louisiana were used for their intended purpose — disaster relief and the recovery of our citizens.

As Michael "Heck of a job, Brownie" Brown pointed out, Blanco worked under the additional burden of being a Democratic governor seeking help from a highly partisan Republican administration. The storms and their aftermaths eventually cost Blanco her job, or at least made her decide not to seek re-election.

HOOKED ON POWER

Republican opportunism in Katrina's wake in New Orleans arrived in full force about the time the water was finally pumped out of the city (almost 60 days after the storm).

The first hint of what was to come was when New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appointed Bush Pioneers Joe Canizaro and Boysie Bollinger to head up his Bring New Orleans Back Commission.

But, the real power grab began in December of 2005 when U.S. Senator David Vitter and his wife Wendy convened a group of Vitter's biggest contributors to a meeting to launch an effort to turn the diaspora of the poor and African Americans out of Orleans Parish into a political transformation of Louisiana politics.

The result of that meeting was the formation of the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM). It was led by Canizaro and funded by a core group of other Republicans (some, though not all, from Louisiana) who committed to raise $2.5 million to try to elect a Republican majority in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

That Canizaro and Bollinger were never committed to the rebuilding of the city was exemplified by Bollinger's decision to shut down his shipyard in Algiers and shift the work and the jobs to other of his operations across the coast. And, he collected recovery money in the process!

Modeled after Tom DeLay's criminal enterprise, Texans for a Republican Majority, the LCRM was raising barrels full of money until Vitter's links to prostitutes were made public in the summer of 2007.

The LCRM did not succeed in winning Republican control of the Louisiana House, although they came close enough for Democrats to hand the speakership to a Republican after Bobby Jindal won election as governor.

The LCRM and its members are committed to defeating Mary Landrieu and will definitely be active fighting to defeat the U.S. Senator who has done more to ensure that the recovery in Louisiana gets the federal financial help it needs.

Again, as in Mississippi, the recovery is viewed as nothing more than an opportunity for Republicans to advance business and political agendas that have little or nothing to do with alleviating the suffering and mitigating the losses that resulted from the disasters that prompted the relief efforts.

NOBLESSE OBLIGE & CONNECTIONS

In Cameron Parish, though, the proof of how far the Republican Party has fallen is evidence by the new hospital there. South Cameron Memorial Hospital was destroyed by Hurricane Rita two weeks after Katrina hit eastern Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The hospital is located a mile or so off the Gulf of Mexico in what is the community of Creole.

Cameron Parish is the largest parish in Louisiana in terms of area. Prior to Rita, there were about 10,000 residents in this vast parish that is home to fishermen, offshore oil workers, and now liquified natural gas plants.

Knowing that access to healthcare was essential to rebuilding the devastated parish, local officials committed to working to get FEMA and the Louisiana Recovery Authority to support rebuilding the hospital. Both entities provided financing to "restore" what had been destroyed. That meant that no new services could be added; what had been destroyed could be replaced, but there could be no expansion of services.

The federal assistance was also conditional on residents in the parish agreeing to tax themselves to ensure that there was operating revenue for the hospital if it was to be rebuilt. That tax passed overwhelmingly in 2006.

Still, there was a shortage of money to build the hospital, so residents turned to the Bush/Clinton Katrina Fund for help. All of the money raised by the fund was earmarked for Katrina-related recovery and restoration efforts. But, locals made their plea to former President George H.W. Bush who used his personal connections to bring help to the residents of Cameron Parish.

At the hospital grand opening last month, it was announced that Bush Sr. had gotten the government of Kuwait to provide the $2 million needed to complete the hospital rebuilding project. There was nothing in that effort for Bush Sr. And, so far as can be determined, there was no benefit to any of the contractors involved other that the work they were obligated to perform.

Cameron Parish has their hospital back due in no small part because Bush Sr. still has in him that sense of decency and empathy — yes, noblesse oblige — that the current batch of craven Republicans so evidently lack. The decency gap between Bush Sr. and George W. is in itself the story of the core of the story of what has happened to the Republican Party and to this country.

It is evident in the federal response to the credit crisis: bail out the investment banks, the home builders, and other lenders, but leave homeowners and their families to fend for themselves.

In the GOP's America, we are on our own. The rest of the world saw it in the wake of Katrina and Rita. Americans may have forgotten. The people on the Gulf Coast know it now. The rest of the country is getting ready for the refresher course.

Mike Stagg

Talking LCRM on Blue Mondays

Stephen Handwerk, producer of the Lafayette Democrats' Blue Mondays series on Acadiana Open Channel, invited me into the studio to discuss the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM).

The result is the program that aired on Monday, October 15.

Bollinger: LCRM Mission Unchanged by Vitter Credibility Crisis

Lest there be any doubt, Senator David Vitter's credibility crisis will not deter the organization he and his wife front from pursuing its appointed mission.

The Shreveport Times has the story:

The Republican effort to win a majority in at least the Louisiana House will continue with or without Vitter, said New Orleans shipbuilder Boysie Bollinger, who, along with Vitter and New Orleans developer Joe Canizaro, founded the Committee for a Republican Majority as a political action committee.

The committee's most recent financial disclosure report filed in June showed it had $736,000 in cash on hand after having spent $72,000 during the two-month period ending June 4.

Bollinger said the committee will continue its work.

"The mission is the same," said Bollinger, reached en route to Australia on a business trip. "We are tying to get a Republican majority in the House."

The actual name is The Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority which is modeled after two organizations founded by disgraced former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — Americans for a Republican Majority and Texans for a Republican Majority. DeLay's 'American' committee contributed heavily to Vitter's congressional campaigns before the former bug killer found himself in trouble with the law in Texas, where he now faces charges of violating campaign finance laws in that state.

Wendy Vitter has a letter on LCRM's front web page saying that the organization was formed by "concerned citizens" but does not mention that one of those citizens and co-founders is Texas home builder (and DeLay fund contributor) Bob Perry who believes the mission of LCRM was worthy of a $100,000 contribution.

The Vitters' financial model for this operation probably grows from the Senator's engagement with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Abramoff, who contributed to Vitter's senate campaign in appreciation for the then-congressman's help in defeating a casino license for the Jean Choctaw Tribe (thus benefiting Abramoff's other Indian tribe clients), operated an extensive influence peddling operation funded in large measure by the fees he charged Indian tribes to protect their gambling interests.

No doubt, part of the LCRM's call for change will include a cry for ethics reform. Claims to ethical standards coming from the likes of the Vitters, Bob Perry and Boysie Bollinger (read about how his company botched the U.S. Coast Guard fleet modernization here) are part and parcel of the dishonesty at the core of the various Abramoff/DeLay/Vitter working models.

Getting that word out to voters in coming months will be the challenge of this election cycle.