Unified effort on coast projects urged

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration should quickly establish a system to coordinate hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipated federal financing for coastal restoration, Louisiana political and business leaders said Wednesday.

"Years after catastrophic hurricanes such as Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike devastated our communities, little has been done to restore the coastal wetlands and barrier islands that protect this vulnerable region," R. King Milling, chairman of the America's WETLAND Foundation, said at a Washington conference sponsored by the group's America's Energy Coast initiative.

A report released Wednesday by the organization said a maze of conflicting federal agency rules threaten the restoration of vital wetlands.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., expressed hope that a new multi-agency initiative established recently by President Barack Obama will lead to better federal coordination and implementation of water policy, including wetlands restoration.

Five years ago, Landrieu said, the state lacked a financing source and a plan to oversee wetlands restoration efforts. The state now has a money source, thanks to a revenue sharing program passed by Congress in 2006, and a comprehensive plan, Landrieu said. "What's missing is a mechanism to implement the plan among federal agencies that bring different goals and different regulations" to the objective, she said.

Based on data from the Minerals Management Service, Louisiana's share of Outer Continental Shelf royalty revenue should range between $222 million and $570 million a year beginning in 2017.

Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority chairman Garret Graves said the Energy Department should set up rules for release of the money even if significant financing isn't due until 2017.

With rules in place, he said, the state could sell bonds for important wetlands restoration work backed by the promised future federal funding.

Graves said one idea being floated to federal officials is to model the wetlands program on the federal highway fund in which the federal government provides funding through federal gasoline taxes and leaves it to the states to contract out the work.

Also announced at the conference are plans for "Deltas 2010" in New Orleans on Oct. 18-20, 2010. It is billed as an international conference to identify best practices and comprehensive strategies for creating sustainable deltas.

Preliminary details are to be worked out today at the Netherlands Embassy in Washington, which is sponsoring the conference along with America's WETLAND Foundation, the Nature Conservancy and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

The WETLAND Foundation is billed as a coalition of business and environmental organizations looking for solutions to Louisiana's declining wetlands. But the group has been criticized by some environmental groups because its sponsors include Shell, Chevron and other oil companies that are part of the American Petroleum Institute, which is running ads against pending global warming legislation that some say is critical to protecting communities like New Orleans from more storms made more intense by global warming.

The American Petroleum Institute says the Senate bill, now being worked on in the Environment and Public Works Committee despite a boycott by most Republicans, puts too much of the costs of reduced emissions on energy companies and their customers.

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Bruce Alpert can be reached at balpert@timespicayune.com or 202.383.7861.