Jindal Goes to Court

Governor Bobby Jindal is now fighting the deepwater drilling moratorium in court.  The Hill reports:

Jindal and state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell on Sunday filed a legal brief in support of a Louisiana-based offshore services company that’s asking a federal judge to lift the ban. The ban is “effectively turning an environmental disaster into an economic catastrophe for the state,” the brief alleges.

The brief also points out that federal officials are required to work with states in such matters and in this case, the State of Louisiana was ignored:

The brief supports a lawsuit filed earlier this month by Hornbeck Offshore Services, which alleges the ban violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Jindal is raising his own claims too. The brief cites language in the offshore statute that calls for federal officials to work with states in making decisions about development policy in federal waters.

“Inasmuch as the State of Louisiana was completely ignored by Defendants in the establishment of the moratorium for alleged safety reasons, the question arises whether that failure renders Defendants’ action invalid,” the brief states.

 How are the coastal residents faring this week?  Poorly.  NPR has the story of Marty Theriot who operates an ice house in Dulac, La.   There isn't much need for lots of ice now that the fisherman aren't fishing and the shrimpers aren't shrimping:

"I'm making as less as possible," Theriot says. "Trying to save money. I just make a little ice during the day, so I can sell them ... to keep my doors open. Just made a batch of ice."  This year, the Monday after Mother's Day was supposed to mark the start of Theriot's busiest season.

"We worked all day Saturday," Theriot says. "Then we get a telephone call saying they just closed the shrimp season because there's oil coming into the coast."  Instantly, 90 percent of Theriot's customers stopped fishing, and therefore buying ice.

Paul Clement in Chauvin opened Paul's Drive-Thru in January in anticipation of the upcoming tourist season which, of course, will not materialize.   He's going to cleanup sites begging workers to patronize his business, so far, to no avail.

There are hundreds of stories like theirs.

As for the cleanup efforts, many locals in the local service industry are finding that BP is bringing in materials and equipment from the outside that are already in place locally.  The locals are getting shut out:

Don Griffin, who owns Griffin's Marina in Leeville, said he has watched BP contractors bring in portable fuel tanks and doing construction on a nearby dock to supply cleanup boats. His business, about a mile away, has been providing fuel services for years.  “It seems mysterious: Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on something that's already there?” he asked.

Same goes  for Jimmy Lirette who owns a rental company.  His business has dropped since the moratorium but even worse, he, too, sees BP bringing in equipment from the outside:

“I kept seeing trucks from Florida and Missouri with the same equipment I had here in the yard, not on rent,” Lirette said. “It was just a bit frustrating.”

Maybe the people at the Daily Kooks can explain to all these residents why the moratorium should stay in effect.  Jed Lewison calls Bobby Jindal "a fool" and his position "stupid beyond belief."  Lewison believes we should "fully understand" deepwater drilling before it is resumed.  Lewison will likely never understand anything more complicated than a keyboard but he does represent the views of many leftists who would shut down all drilling altogether, which, as we all know, is totally unrealistic.

State Attorney General Buddy Caldwell explains:

The drilling ban may cost Louisiana’s economy, “which was already weakened by Katrina and is now crippled by the Deepwater Horizon disaster,’’ almost 11,000 direct and indirect jobs in five months, Caldwell said in papers filed yesterday in federal court in New Orleans.

“Even after the catastrophic events of Sept. 11, the government only shut down the airlines for three days,’’ Caldwell said in support of Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC’s lawsuit seeking to end the moratorium.

A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments today regarding the moratorium.  

And, as I've suggested before, nobody suggested placing a moratorium on coal mining after the April explosion in West Virginia in the Massey coal mine which killed 29 workers.

The brief filed can be found here. (PDF/17 pgs.)

Louisiana's ACORN Investigation

The non-profit Pelican Institute for Public Policy is reporting a new state investigation into ACORN. According to Steve Beatty, reporter for the Pelican Institute, La. Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has opened an investigation and is asking for anyone with credible information to phone in.

Beatty reports that "The chief complaints involve a case of a nearly $1 million embezzlement by the brother of the group’s founder which was never reported to authorities; the lack of accountability for the millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars that ACORN and its related groups have received over several years; and the potential for public money to be used by partisan affiliates of ACORN."

Of the embezzlement, Beatty writes:

"Only last year did most of the 51-member governing board of ACORN learn ofnearly $1 million in inappropriate charges to an ACORN credit account byDale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder and then-leader Wade Rathke. Rather than report the incident to authorities, Wade Rathke worked with a small group of ACORN leaders to arrange for a repayment schedule by his brother. After more than $200,000 was repaid, an outside donor stepped in and repaid the balance."

See Beatty's story here for more.

The New York Times reported on the embezzlement in July 2008, pointing out that ACORN chose to treat the matter as an internal "error" and not report it to the board. A whistle-blower forced ACORN to finally report it.

On July 31, 2009, Bill O'Reilly took some credit for forcing AG Caldwell to finally open an investigation, saying that he, along with Glenn Beck, had been pushing for such an investigation by putting pressure on Bobby Jindal.

Nobody is saying much about the investigation at this point as it is ongoing, but it should be interesting to watch.