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

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.

Grand Theft NOLA

In 1985, then Governor Edwin Edwards was indicted and tried on federal charges that he was selling hospital certificates of need to his allies in exchange for money. A hung jury led to a new trial in 1986 in which Edwards and four co-defendants were acquitted.

Suffice it to say that if the thought would have even entered Edwin Edwards' mind to do what Bobby Jindal is doing in New Orleans now with the still-to-be-built Teaching Hospital in New Orleans, grand juries would have already been impaneled and Judge Frank Polozola would be clawing his way back to the bench in anticipation of the indictments and trial.

Looting the Healthcare Infrastructure

What is Jindal doing? He's taking more than $1.2 billion in public money and giving it to a private corporation that will be beyond the control or supervision of the Legislature and the public. The first $800 million or so of the funds were either appropriated by the Legislature or awarded to the state by the federal government through FEMA to replace the former Big Charity Hospital in New Orleans that was flooded in the wake of the federal levee collapse after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The remaining $400 million or so will come through financing arranged through LSU which, when we last checked, was the state's land grant university and a public entity.

Killing the state's public hospital system has been a goal of Jindal's since the days when he ran the Department of Health & Hospitals for Governor Mike Foster. He's made considerable progress. Shortly after taking office, he killed plans laid by Governor Kathleen Blanco to build a new state hospital to replace Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville.

Last year, Jindal made clear to LSU that if it wanted a replacement hospital for Big Charity in New Orleans, it would have to scuttle Earl K. Long Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge. Governor Blanco had also started a funding process to rebuild this hospital, but Jindal made clear to LSU's Health Care Vice President Fred Cerise that killing EKL was the price the university would pay to get a hospital in New Orleans. So, Cerise struck a deal with Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge to take over the handling of some Medicaid patients and to serve as the home institution for LSU's medical education program in Baton Rouge.

Jindal insisted that the Legislature have no say in the appointments to the New Orleans hospital board, fighting hard in the recent Regular Session Senator Ed Murray's attempt to give the Senate the right to confirm appointments to the governing board.

This past week, Jindal grabbed full control of the project when his majority on the LSU Board of Supervisors overruled LSU System President John Lombardi's choice to chair the governing board and replace her with one of Jindal's biggest contributors, Baton Rouge meat magnate Bobby Yarborough. Jindal had appointed Yarborough to the LSU Board of Supervisors in June, apparently with some role like this already in mind.

Jindal's true intentions became abundantly clear when members of Jindal's staff convened a closed door meeting on Wednesday in New Orleans involving nine of the 11 members of the hospital governing board. Jindal legal counsel Stephen Waguespack described it as a "social meeting" that did not violate the state open meetings law. Waguespack told the Time-Picayune that he was not sure if the open meetings law applies to the new corporation.

Pure and simple, this is a power grab to enable a money grab.

The Jindal MO: Public Dollars to Private Donors

The so-called Ethics Governor™ has a record replete with lavishing public dollars in service of the projects of his biggest contributors. Gary Chouest's project got nearly $30 million. Lev Dawson's sweet potato farm just happens to be next door to a ConAgra plant that Jindal put $30 million of state dollars into. The Shaw Group, which gave the Louisiana Republican Party and the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority, a matching set of $50,000 contributions in recent years, got the contract to dredge for Bobby's berms without having to go through a bid process.

Nice rewards that a governor with a compliant Legislature can give. But, as has been clear for quite sometime, Jindal has much higher aspirations than Baton Rouge and to do that, it's going to take a lot more money than he's raised to run for re-election. To do that, he needs another mechanism to draw deeper from the deep pockets of the people who can fund his campaigns.

No, to do that, Jindal needs to do more than a couple of one-off investments in private projects. He needs to create lasting money streams for his supporters — or potential supporters. That business model was perfected under the Bush/Cheney administration. It is crony capitalism.

Jindal's fight to privatize the state's mental health hospitals, in retrospect, was where he showed his hand for what he has in mind for the New Orleans teaching hospital. He wants to be able to distribute lucrative contracts for management and services in a way that is beyond the reach of the Legislature and beyond the review of the public. Jindal said he vetoed HB 1443 by Rep. John Bel Edwards because the "additional steps" of legislative oversight of the privatization process "would hinder" the state's ability to accomplish his goals, which are to distribute the contracts as he sees fit.

Apply that logic to the teaching hospital in New Orleans and what you come up with is Jindal having (and exercising) the power to award contracts for managing and providing services to the hospital built with public dollars without anyone having any ability to review those contracts. Who would do that? The hand-picked board members from LSU? The other board members that Jindal influences or controls?

Jindal is all about monetizing his in-state political power to fuel his national political ambitions.

He intends to take the new hospital in New Orleans behind a wall of secrecy where he can wheel and deal as he sees fit. It will be interesting to see if this hospital, which was supposed to replace Big Charity, will actually provide care to the uninsured, or if they will be shunted elsewhere.


There can be no ethics if there is no transparency — and Jindal has a long record of resisting any and all attempts to bring transparency to the operation of his office.

The theft here is the taking of a public healthcare asset and turning it over to a private corporation so that it can become a profit center, economic engine and political funding machine. The well-being of the citizens who were dependent on Big Charity is nowhere in the Jindal agenda. Jindal's only interest in healthcare is as a political issue. It was a stepping stone for him early in his career. Until the BP Gulf Gusher it was his feeble last leg of credibility on the national scene. Now, it is a vehicle for political alchemy — turning public health into private political profit.

The scale of this power grab is unmatched by anything seen since the days of Huey Long. Unlike Long, Jindal does not pretend to be the least bit interested in throw even collateral benefits to the public as he diligently works to build his funding base upon the wreckage he is creating of Louisiana's public health infrastructure.

No, this is all about Bobby.

The Press Has Been Bamboozled

The mainstream media in this state is bamboozled. Despite Jindal's fierce (and thus far successful) efforts to preserve a wall of secrecy around his office, he still gets the benefit of the doubt on matters like does the open meetings law apply to the new hospital board.

There can be no ethics if there is no transparency. Jindal will not allow transparency. His claims of ethical conduct rest solely on his claims of ethical conduct.

But there is a strain of deception that is becoming more clear every day and it has emerged from his dealings with the Gulf Gusher. We know that he's lied about the origin of the berm plan. He's lied about the terms of the government permit to dredge for the berms. We also know that he's lied about the impact of the deep water drilling moratorium on the state's economy.

All these fresh lies and the press continues to defer to him. At what point do they allow themselves to engage in critical thinking again and begin to examine Jindal's maneuvers with a critical eye?

Probably not until he's hit the national campaign trail. At which point, the next governor will be left cleaning up his mess. Sounds exactly like the task that President Obama assumed after his predecessor's adventures in crony capitalism nearly wrecked the country.

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.

What's Wrong With Elbert Lee Guillory?

Democrats across the state have been asking that question about Opelousas Senator Elbert Lee Guillory since February when he leant his name to a Louisiana Senate reapportionment proposal produced by the conservative Louisiana Family Forum Action (LFFA).

The plan uses the cover of maintaining racial continuity in the Senate to advance a plan that would fundamentally alter the political tilt of the Senate. Under the plan put forward by Guillory and the LFFA, the Senate would become more conservative, more racially polarized and less likely to be sensitive to the needs of African Americans.

In terms of the color of the people holding the 39 seats in the Senate, things would look pretty much as they do now if this plan were to be enacted. There are 10 African American majority districts in the Senate now, held by eight African Americans and two whites. Under the Guillory/LFFA plan, there would be 10 African American majority seats, but fewer of those would be in New Orleans due to the population loss (the plan uses 2008 Census Bureau estimates of population in Louisiana) resulting from the flooding that followed Katrina.

But that visual continuity would conceal a fundamental shift in the ideological underpinnings of the politics of the Senate that the plan would set off.

Guillory and LFFA couch their plan in terms of “Demographic Equity” but a closer look at what the plan’s potential impact shows that it would make moderate Democrats (and independents) endangered species. It is probably just a coincidence that the only districts eliminated by the plan are held by term-limited Democrats (District 29 now held by Joe McPherson and District 17 held by Robert Marionneaux, Jr.). Or that term-limited Democratic Senate President Joel Chaisson’s district gets completely reconfigured and converted from a district with a 67% majority to one that has a 80% white majority.

The long-term impact of such a plan cannot be overstated as the reapportionment that will take place in the spring of next year will affect three statewide election cycles — 2011, 2015, and 2019 — before the results of the 2020 Census set the table for a new round.

Conservatives and Republicans are playing for keeps on reapportionment this year. That’s what the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM) effort was about in 2007. The Guillory/LFFA plan, in fact, appears to target senators that the LCRM worked to defeat in 2007. This is a coordinated attack for which Guillory is the front man.

There are hints in his campaign finance reports that this is no accidental combination.

Despite the name of their venture and their lofty rhetoric, the Guillory/LFFA plan would actually under represent African Americans and other minorities in the Senate. African Americans account for at least 30% of Louisiana's population. Applying that percentage to the 39 seats in the Louisiana Senate would mean that there should be at least 12 African American majority districts in a plan that was truly interested in Demographic Equity.

But that would only matter if Guillory and his friends at the LFFA were actually interested in such equity. That's just their cover story. What this is really about is ridding the Louisiana Senate of Democrats and moderates.

Clearly, Elbert Lee Guillory has signed on to help Republicans capitalize politically on the impact of the storms of 2005. The LCRM, to their credit, never made a secret of their intent. The Guillory/LFFA effort is more cynical because of the way it hides behind the language of racial equity to advance a fundamentally conservative agenda that most benefits the party that has built its power in Louisiana by working against the interests of African Americans.

Racial Gerrymandering

The Guillory/LFFA plan makes explicit the way that conservatives across the South have used racial gerrymandering to produce state legislatures that are at the same time more diverse but more conservative.

To understand how this works in Louisiana, it is necessary to understand how white Democrats get elected to office here. In the post-Voting Rights era in Louisiana, whites have abandoned the Democratic Party in large numbers. Those losses have been offset by the rapid growth of African American voters during the same period. For a time, something like a law of political thermodynamics — for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.

Edwin Edwards built the model that still mostly holds for white Democrats to win election: get about 1/3 of the white vote and carry a large percentage of the African American vote. That formula has begun to unravel (see the Fourth and Sixth congressional district elections in 2008), as African Americans have grown tired of waiting for white Democrats to return the political loyalty that has been expected of them.

While the formula held white Democrats who intended to stay in office under the party label had to pay attention to the needs and interests of the African Americans in their districts. After passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1982 (which built on the earlier landmark legislation of 1965), Republicans began to recognize that the push for minority majority districts in legislatures could be made to work to their advantage. Starting with reapportionment efforts following the 1990 Census, Republicans embraced racial gerrymandering. They furnished black caucuses across the South with redistricting software and encouraged them to pursue maximizing the number of minority majority districts.

The results have been that there are more African Americans in legislatures across the South, including Louisiana. At the same time, though, those legislatures have become more conservative, owing in no small measure to the fact that the creation of minority majority districts also resulted in the creation of majority districts that were more white. Legislators whose districts don't have significant minority populations in them can afford to ignore the interests of those voters.

That's what has happened across the South. It's happened in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Death to the Blue Dogs

"A blue dog Democrat is a Republican with blacks living in his district," according to Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell. Under the Guillory/LFFA plan, Blue Dog Democrats are headed for extinction.

Across the board, the Guillory/LFFA plan makes white majority districts whiter and black majority districts blacker.

Two districts currently represented by Democrats make the case clear. District 20 Democratic Senator Norby Chabert won a hotly contested special election in 2009 against a Republican candidate employed by LCRM heavy hitter Gary Chouest. According to the Secretary of State's office, voter registration in the district which includes parts of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes is about 81% white and 19% African American.

Under the Guillory/LFFA plan, the composition of the district jumps to 88%/12%. It looks pretty clearly that the plan has targeted Chabert by moving minority voters out of the district.

Eric LaFleur won election to the Senate 28 District seat in 2007. That district (which was previously represented by Dr. Don Hines of Bunkie) currently has a 74%/26% white/black voter composition.

LaFleur, who headed the House Caucus and led the fight against the LCRM's efforts to take over the House in 2007, was the target of LCRM opposition spending in his campaign. It took three amendments of that campaign finance report before LaFleur's name finally appeared on the list of those targeted for defeat. Here's the original. Here's the first amended report. Here's the second amended report.

It happens across the board. Seats currently held by white Democrats get whiter. Or get eliminated all together.

In Orleans Parish, Guillory/LFFA consolidates the five Senate districts there into two. Here are their words:

The Guillory/LFF Action plan acknowledges the unfortunate loss of population in the Metro area and recognizes that Orleans Parish can no longer support five senate districts.

The districts in the surrounding parishes are kept mostly in tact. Senator David Heitmeier sees his District 7 from a black majority district (38.5% white/61.5% black) flipped to having a 60% white majority. Senator John Alario's District 8 goes from 60% white to 64% white. Both Democrats will have tougher re-election races (particularly Heitmeier) because of these shifts.

The point here is not to evaluate the voting records of these senators, but to point out that they have been targeted for the crime (in the eyes of the Guillory and LFFA) being Democrats.

If this was taking place in a district or two, it might be considered accidental. The fact that it is a starkly recognizable pattern reveals this plan to be a naked attempt at a power grab by conservatives, with Guillory abetting their effort by giving it the patina of credibility that it could not otherwise muster.

The Costs of Racial Gerrymandering

There is a significant cost to pay for racial gerrymandering, like all forms of racial separation. The idea that only members of a race can represent the interests of a race was precisely the approach to life and politics that the Civil Rights movement was about ending.

The resulting political isolation of this approach to politics makes us strangers in our own land. Whites and blacks both benefit from the exchange of ideas. That familiarity makes demonizing less possible.

How are the interests of African Americans going to advance in the Louisiana Legislature if there are ten black senators serving with 29 whites who don't have any political reason to pay attention to the arguments being made by those senators because those whites don't have any significant number of minority voters in their districts?

But, advancing the interests of African Americans is not the LFFA's intent; it is, instead, advancing ideology. If advancing the interests of African Americans is Guillory's intent, he's either being badly used, duped, or playing way out of his depth.

Pay to Play the GOP Way

The Sunday edition of the Baton Rouge Advocate pulls back the curtain on the still legal, still ethical form of pay to play as practiced by Governor Bobby Jindal and his Republican patrons.

The subject is the brazen $15 million payoff that Louisiana taxpayers will make to GOP heavy hitter Gary Chouest. Chouest, his family and companies gave more than $134,000 to Republican causes in the recent state election cycle. It took Jindal only two months — had to get that ethics special session out of the way — to pay back Chouest's largess.

Here's how the story begins:

The first business to benefit from state economic development aid under Gov. Bobby Jindal is run by a man whose family and businesses donated at least $135,250 to the governor’s campaign and local Republican Party causes during the past year.

Jindal introduced the donor — Gary Chouest, of Galliano — as a leader of Louisiana business in the same March 9 speech when the governor proclaimed before the Legislature that the state’s political culture had moved beyond “who you know” motivations.

Jindal used part of the state’s $1.1 billion surplus to put $10 million in a Terrebonne Parish port expansion. Jindal also gave an additional $4 million grant to the project.

The state Legislature approved both proposals earlier this month.

The taxpayer dollars help Chouest’s privately owned companies expand a state-of-the-art shipbuilding facility and to upgrade the port where the new plant is located.

Yes, it will create jobs, but it fails to pass Jindal's own test for ethical conduct as laid out during his campaign. Louisiana, candidate Jindal was fond of saying, cannot afford even the hint of corruption.

Looks like that was just for public consumption. Governor Jindal has apparently re-calibrated his ethics standard a bit.

Chouest, The Advocate points out, ran circles around Louisiana campaign finance laws in making those contributions to Jindal and other Republican causes:

But, it’s the connection between public investment and the way the Chouest family made private political contributions that sparked criticism.

State law limits contributions by individuals and corporations to $5,000 per candidate per campaign.

In a practice often called “bundling,” a single businessman gives the maximum $5,000 in the names of a number of different entities he controls.

Chouest gave $5,000 on May 18, as did other family members, according to the financial disclosures submitted to the Louisiana Board of Ethics by Jindal’s campaign.

Additionally, companies in which Chouest is listed as a president or chief executive officer on corporate records filed with the Secretary of State’s Office, also donated the maximum $5,000 amount to the Jindal gubernatorial campaign.

Chouest’s companies further donated to the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority and the Republican Party of Louisiana.

Both organizations contributed to Jindal’s campaign and provided mailings of campaign literature that personally attacked Jindal’s opponents.

The Chouest-related contributions that could be tracked through public records totaled at least $135,250.

This is a practice that is rampant in Louisiana politics. Again, The Advocate:

About one-third of Jindal’s $14.5 million campaign war chest came from bundling, according to the Ethics Board disclosures.

Twenty-five businessmen gave donations in excess of $20,000 through different corporations to Jindal’s 2007 campaign effort alone, plus another $20,000 or more to state Republican Party efforts.

Jindal's recent Ethics Extravaganza special session of the Legislature did absolutely nothing to rein in the practice of bundling. It's apparent why he wouldn't touch a system that has worked so well for him and his Republican cohorts. So stark a break in Jindal's ethics effort demonstrates the partisan nature of the effort as well. Republican funding sources can continue to bankroll elections unmolested in the new squeaky-clean era of Jindal.

In short, if they're not touching the dough, the ethics game is all for show. Again, The Advocate story has quotes laying out the bigger picture:

Wendell G. Lindsay Jr., the Baton Rouge lawyer who heads the state’s branch of Common Cause, said bundling donations, such as Chouest’s, creates the appearance that the elected official is beholden to his contributor.

“Our system is legalized bribery,” Lindsay said.

On a national level, the self-styled citizens lobby is working to end bundling. In Louisiana, the group backed Senate Bill 31 and House Bill 42, which would have required identifying donors’ employers on contributions of $250 or more.

Elliott Stonecipher, a Shreveport demographer, argued for doing away with bundling in Louisiana when he testified before Jindal’s transition committee that developed ethics legislation.

“This is the quid pro quo,” Stonecipher said of the link between Chouest and Jindal. “I believe that this is a smoking gun, and to hear Jindal say, ‘I’m going to follow the law’ without addressing campaign finance bundling, well, that’s a way to game the system for your own advantage.”

The Advocate article also points out that Jindal's ethics transition task force looked at campaign finance reform, but dropped it because it was too hard. The degree of difficulty might have had something to do with the fact that there were bundlers on the ethics task force who were not interested in having their own ability to influence elections limited.

The mainstream media is catching on to the Jindal ethics scam. Word has it that there will by money for other GOP heavy hitters coming via the budget in the upcoming regular session of the Legislature.

Now that the pattern has been recognized, it will be interesting to see how Team Jindal resorts to delivering the goods to their political friends.