CCS future, not past, relevant to LA Senate race

Republican Senate candidates trying to differentiate themselves in a field where daylight barely shines among them on issue preferences should stop playing “he said/she said” and instead concentrate on telling voters what they will do on the issue of carbon capture and sequestration.

In a battle largely played out in gatherings and on social media, Treas. John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez supporters have taken to trading accusations about whether each is against CCS and when. Fleming indirectly started it when some months ago he began proclaiming that he was the only candidate not to have voted for expanding CCS at some point in his legislative career.

That hit both Miguez and, although perhaps not intended since she didn’t enter the race until recently, state Rep. Julie Emerson where they live. Since 2020, with both being members of the Legislature throughout, several matters have come through that regulate CCS in some fashion, sometimes expansionary, sometimes restrictive, that scarcely any legislator ever voted against. As late as 2024 both were voting in favor of bills expanding the scope of CCS.

While neither publicly have addressed the controversy, supporters of Miguez’s have been by trying to shoot the messenger. They claim, using a trail of web material, that not only did Fleming have a pro-expansion CCS vote while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives but also his opposition to CCS only became public when he began touting his line about CCS votes cast. They also assert that back when these votes were taken too little was known about CCS and its safety concerns and need to dislodge private property rights to hold legislators accountable for these in the present.

That’s a weak argument, akin to ignorance of the law being an excuse to break it, and could be applied as well to Fleming’s supposed 2015 vote on an omnibus energy bill where the section in question only in the absolutely vaguest sense could be read as an endorsement of CCS – it instructed the federal government that it could shovel more funds to CCS research if an evaluated project seemed promising. Keep in mind that there’s nothing wrong in conducting CCS research, or even in having CCS as long as it has adequate safety measures attached, buy in from local governments, and that government isn’t subsidizing it.

A recent executive order by GOP Gov. Jeff Landry touched many of these bases but could not address the single biggest failing attendant to CCS: federal government tax policy favoring, to taxpayer detriment, the highly uneconomical practice. Outside of enhanced oil recovery, there’s no use for captured and stored carbon at present that pays for itself.

It’s done in most cases only because of a lucrative tax credit known as Section 45Q. So, the relevant issue for the campaign is preference regarding the retention of that credit, regardless of when opposition really began or whether everybody was asleep at the wheel.

Fleming has publicly spoken about it, saying it should be repealed. We also reasonably can infer that the remaining major candidate, Republican Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, even if he has yet specifically to address publicly the issue, would be against it since he is on the record in a public forum, a year prior to launching his Senate bid, calling CCS part of  a “scam.”

So, let’s hear from Miguez and Emerson about 45Q credits. And if they pledge to try to dump them, then voters can take note that only GOP incumbent Bill Cassidy, to the chagrin of state voters, among quality candidates shows any genuine backing of CCS, giving them another reason to toss him out of office in favor of any of the Republican front runners.

LA case may moot recent Democrat election gains

Recent election results that cheered Democrats may prove short-lived, if not possibly reversed, when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a Louisiana case that will affect its electoral maps on multiple levels.

The Bayou State now waits upon the Court’s decision in Callais v. Louisiana to determine whether race will be allowed to be used as a proxy for partisan goals. A decision to rein that in and to provide new, likely more restrictive, parameters for when racial categories can become relevant and legal in drawing district boundaries would give the state a chance to revert back from a map gerrymandered to produce two majority-minority districts almost guaranteeing two of six seats won by Democrats to one where only one such seat exists and Republicans likely would win five of six seats in a state where a third of voters are black.

The whole country watches for this, especially the handful of states where such a decision could lead to new reapportionment options. One such is California, which like Louisiana over the past few decades has had an electorate become increasingly skewed towards one party, but in the opposite direction.

LSU Board chooses wisely new governance, leaders

The Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors delivered a welcome surprise this week with the hiring of a new system president paired with a reorganization that stands to make the delivery of education by the system’s institutions more relevant and vital to improving the state’s quality of life.

The Board hired McNeese State University’s current president Wade Rousse to lead the system. But instead of also making him chancellor of the Baton Rouge campus additionally, it hired a late applicant, University of Alabama Provost James Dalton, to serve as LSUA&M’s leader, returning the governance structure to what it had been a dozen years ago.

Perhaps there was a plan beyond what appears to be a last-minute decision to spit the jobs had they once had been. It isn’t unusual for a search firm to solicit candidates, but apparently after the deadline had closed when Dalton wasn’t even initially a semi-finalist for the combined post is an atypical process. Regardless of the provenance, it’s a wise move.

BC to weigh new fee to stem white elephant red ink

If at first you don’t succeed, knock seven dollars off the price and call it something different to stem the red ink from the white elephant known now as the Brookshire Grocery Arena.

Just over three years ago, ASM Global, the management company decided it would institute a $12 parking fee at Bossier City’s arena, where $2 would go to the company handling the parking through a cashless system and the other $10 would be split evenly between ASM for operations and the city for capital expenditures. As if to highlight the city’s acceptance of the deal, at the next City Council meeting discussion about taking $350,000 out of the 2017 LCDA Bond Fund to buy a new generator for the facility focused on how the new bounty would offset such costs, particularly as the arena has lost money since its inception 25 years ago, over $10 million cumulatively.

That idea went over like a lead balloon. Almost as suddenly as it had appeared it quickly disappeared. But the problem remained. Despite barely making money for only the third time in its history in 2024, not only does the facility continue to hemorrhage funds generally, but also this is on top of capital improvements being made. The 2022 dip into the 2017 LCDA bond fund actually came as part of a one-time effort to perform capital improvements. Over the past several years, over $15 million has gone to that purpose, with a typical budget of $250,000 each year reserved out of the Hotel/Motel Taxes Fund from occupancy and related sales taxes for this purpose.

Suit, recall latest challenges to Monroe's Ellis

It was take-your-shot at Monroe independent Mayor Friday Ellis last week, in the courts now and maybe later at the polls, early.

As previously threatened, the three Democrats on the City Council, plus local publisher Roosevelt Wright, filed suit against Ellis, as well as Republicans Gov. Jeff Landry and Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill, plus new Monroe fire chief Timothy Williams. This involves the selection of Williams by Landry for his post that a new state law allowed. Ellis had mentioned that the City Council, led by the Democrats, twice turned down (for conflicting reasons) Ellis nominees for it, including Williams, to GOP state Sen. Stewart Cathey, who then authored and had passed into law a bill giving the governor the power to appoint the official from qualifiers for cities about Monroe’s size (only Alexandria also could qualify) when conflict between a mayor and council dragged on for too long.

The suit goes all over the legal map, alleging both race-based claims prejudicial against blacks and violation of home rule provisions. To say the least it is a long shot in arguing just because a majority-black populated city didn’t have a black fire chief appointed that racial discrimination occurred, and in its claiming the state usurped home rule powers when in fact state law supersedes conflicting charter provisions.