If Republican former Pres. Donald Trump doesn’t win back the presidency in just under two weeks, Louisiana could face some real headwinds in coastal protection and restoration.
Not attracting the attention that it should, this summer a Maryland Democrat Pres. Joe Biden-appointed judge threatened to shut down oil and gas exploration and extraction in the Gulf of Mexico, giving as a reason the federal National Marine Fisheries Service insufficiently took into account the endangered species designation of Rice’s whales in rules promulgated for transit around the area. Basically, her ruling said, despite the extreme unlikelihood of a repeat of the Macondo well blowout in 2010, that this had to be worked into the rules. If the rules weren’t made by December, oil and gas-related activities could have been ordered to cease.
But this week the deadline was extended to May, 2025, as the agency said it didn’t have the resources to redo the process so quickly. Notably, this puts the final product months into the next presidential administration, which could influence the final rules.
There’s a certain amount of silliness to all of this. This species of whale was declared different from existing, larger-populated species only a few years ago, and the odds that a catastrophic repeat of 2010 that would be so extensive as to wipe out the 50-100 Rice’s whales estimated to live in the vastness of the northern Gulf is beyond super-remote. Chances are greater that a passing vessel in the Gulf, plenty of which have nothing to do with oil and gas, would knock off a whale or two.
This silliness masks the deadly serious ideological anti-fossil fuel motivation behind all of this. It’s actually a product of suing and settling between special interests and the Biden Administration as a way to hamstring fossil fuel-related activity in the Gulf using backdoor methods that extends any prohibitions far beyond the affected area. Caring about the fate of Rice’s whale is but a front for the real desire of trying to hamper fossil fuel activity, with this tactic becoming an offshore punch to go along with the onshore punch of still-lingering prohibited liquified natural gas activity.
It's no accident that the suit was filed after the Biden Administration came to power and the goal was to spit out the new rules that could crimp oil and gas activity before the start of next year. Employment and economic activity could fall as much as over a quarter with something as simple as restricting vessel movements. And this didn’t count the thwarted attempt by special interests to block a lease sale over this allegation.
The delay, however, offers a chance that a Trump win puts more even-handed folks in charge of the rewrite. Less obtrusive/more balanced rules would hamper to a lesser extent oil and gas activity in the Gulf, which through the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act gathered $156 million last year with the majority of that going towards coastal protection and restoration.
Louisiana could use every dollar it can get to reinforce the coast. A Trump win magnifies the chance that will occur and gives the state’s voters another reason to back him.
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