NEW ORLEANS — With the Gulf oil spill approaching its 90th day, Gov. Bobby Jindal outlined an ambitious plan Wednesday to restore confidence in Louisiana and revitalize its oil-infested coast. His four-point plan puts the federal government and BP on notice for their role in the cleanup. Jindal was joined at the Port of New Orleans by 10 local leaders, including Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young, who will headline a Heritage Foundation event today at 2 p.m. They came with a clear message: Louisiana isn’t going to rest until the …
To many along the Gulf Coast, the oil spill response is Katrina… with a difference. With Katrina, says Mark Riley, an official in Louisiana’s Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Department, the problem was that the federal government showed up with its “hurricane bag” and found a disaster. This time, they showed up with “oil spill bag and found a catastrophe.”
The team Heritage sent to the Gulf has been reporting on what they found during their tour of the Gulf states. Last Thursday, one member of the delegation, Distinguished Fellow Ernest Istook, interviewed Loren Scott, professor emeritus at Louisiana State University on President Obama’s oil drilling moratorium. Professor Scott has garnered some attention recently for his research in to the economic cost of the President’s blanket ban. His projections were featured prominently in a Christian Science Monitor story about the ban: But how much could the moratorium really affect local …
After the BP oil spill, the Obama Administration offered little excuse for instituting a moratorium on deepwater drilling regardless of the fact that it brought one of the Gulf Coast’s main industries to a sudden halt. Despite federal judge Martin Feldman’s ruling on the moratorium and despite a federal appeals court upholding that decision, the U.S. Department of Interior issued a new moratorium on deepwater drilling this afternoon. The new ban will not apply to a specific depth but instead “apply to any deep-water floating facility with drilling activities.” But …
Last week, CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported that the federal government was blocking media access to coastal areas around the Gulf, preventing them from taking photos and reporting on the environmental damage of the oil spill. You can watch the video and see Cooper is livid that the Obama administration is treating him and his colleagues this way. Cooper of course compares this to Katrina when media were blocked from…well we’re unsure what the media was blocked from in Katrina, since the photos and video from the Superdome, the Convention Center, …
If you only listened to President Obama, you wouldn’t even know an oil spill is occurring in the Gulf. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the oil spill since June 22 when he announced it was on a laundry list of items discussed at a cabinet meeting. Before that, on June 16, he spoke briefly after negotiating his secret liability deal with BP. Other than those two instances, the president hasn’t spent another public moment focusing on the spill since he began fighting the “battle” against “the worst environmental disaster America …
This is not Governor Blanco’s Louisiana. Since Katrina, the state has reformed and refitted its ability to respond to disasters to the point that it has become a national role model in many respects. It starts with the Gov. Bobby Jindal. Everyday, Jindal convenes a meeting of the State Unified Command Group which manages the entire state response. Both BP and the Coast Guard brief. Jindal asks the tough questions. If he doesn’t get the right answers, people know it. He sets the tone for everything—and the tone is “make …
Angry. That is the first word that comes to mind listening firsthand to how folks on the Gulf Coast feel about the federal government’s response the oil spill disaster. For many, this far worse than Katrina. That hurricane swept through three states in hours, covering thousands of square miles; wiping out roads, communications, and everything else needed to respond to the disaster. It is understandable why it took aid too long to reach too many. The oil spill, on the other hand, has been a disaster in slow motion. Everyday …
Every year, residents of the Gulf come to Morgan City, Louisiana to celebrate the lifeblood of the region’s economy: seafood and oil. This September marks the 75th anniversary of this symbiotic relationship. The Shrimp and Petroleum Festival emphasizes “the unique way in which these two seemingly different industries work hand-in-hand culturally and environmentally in this area of the ‘Cajun Coast’.” One might think the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill would significantly mar this relationship, and the seafood industry would vociferously support President Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium. But the …
On June 30, The Heritage Foundation released a list of ten actions President Obama could immediately take to make a positive impact on the increasingly overwhelming Gulf oil spill. Since then, there has been some action on two of the items. The skimmer known as “A-Whale” is finally being tested in the Gulf, despite harsh weather. In fact, when weather was at its worst, the A-Whale was the only ship able to remain offshore, which is a promising sign. We hope the tests continue to prove its value and the …
