LA climate policy paper mugged by reality

On the heels of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards skipping off to a meeting dominated by climate alarmists comes news of his wasteful Climate Initiatives Task Force’s mission already getting mugged by reality.

Before departure, Edwards delivered a bizarrely ignorant spiel about how Louisiana had to join the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming bandwagon because of a presumed huge worldwide move towards renewable energy in the next decade that otherwise would leave the state behind economically, and also miss out on shedding other energy jobs for those on the renewable side. He didn’t acknowledge this transition would happen very slowly because of increasing global energy demand, huge physical challenges, and tremendous costs that voting publics won’t tolerate, nor that the transition would cost jobs and leave worse ones in the place of those that survived.

As if on cue, preliminary conclusions released by this group he created and appointed that operates on taxpayer funds, loaded with CAGW fellow-travelers with a couple of deer-in-the-headlights representatives of industry, showed the state would miss Edwards’ self-imposed net zero carbon deadline of 2050, or any of his interim goals – and would have to hit the jackpot on several minor miracles even to get close. In essence, that would require extensive government intervention, both at the state and federal level, both in terms of heavy-handed regulation and lavish subsidization, that would be enormously expensive and rely on technology that doesn’t even exist.

Edwards renewable delusion wasting tax dollars

After signaling to the world his continued infatuation with his zero Covid fantasy, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards left the state to chase his other zero fantasy, after making comments that would be risible if they didn’t promise punishment to Louisiana.

That road trip heads to Scotland, where a gathering of governments and nongovernmental organizations infested with climate alarmists will commit further propaganda wedded to the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming belief system that prompts mania for a net zero carbon regime. At Louisiana taxpayer expense, Edwards will troop there with other members of his administration to pledge his fealty to this faith.

But also, he insists, he’ll use his time there to stump for Louisiana to jump onto the economic opportunities engendered from the hysteria. “I want to be in front of people from all over the world who are making decisions about where they are going to deploy their capital over the coming years and decades as they seek to invest in these opportunities that will decarbonize,” he said in the days before his departure.

Edwards order keeps fantasizing, harming kids

Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards bowed to reality in mostly scrapping the face covering mandate he dictated months ago, but even in partially doing the right thing his action betrays the fundamental misunderstanding that has shaped his botched response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

His announcement papers over that the scientific case for reimposing the mask mandate nearly three months ago was weak, besides the obvious facts that such an order does little to reduce transmission. That it included children bordered on state-authorized child abuse, as children almost never become seriously ill from the virus but face coverings cause developmental drawbacks for some.

At the time, Edwards and his appointees stirred up visions of apocalyptic scenarios without revisiting the mandate, despite the real-world evidence that showed with no new government intrusions a peak in new cases would occur soon, followed shortly thereafter by hospitalizations, and finally deaths (which, predictably, unlike the other two indicators didn’t reach an all-time high precisely because disproportionately the healthier population comprised the new cases). That’s exactly what happened, with the mask mandate (the research argues) contributing little to that.

LA Downs sale illustrates state track problems

Completing the sale of Harrah’s Louisiana Downs illustrates the massive problems facing Louisiana’s once-mighty horse racing industry.

The state’s Gaming Control Board signed off on the $22 million deal last week, and the state’s Racing Commission is expected to follow suit this week. The new owner, Rubico Acquisition, pledged as part of the deal to keep the thoroughbreds and quarter horses running, and hopes to expand casino gaming.

For the once-proud racetrack really has become a racino first and foremost. Handle from both live and simulcast racing in the first half of fiscal year 2020 totaled just short of $13.2 million, while revenue from slot machines (of which 15 percent gets kicked back to supplement race purses) for the whole year nearly tripled that at $37.6 million. That source in FY 2019 also exceeded the FY 2019 total for racing including off track betting, at Bossier City and the satellite location just west of Mississippi in Mound, by a few hundred thousand.

More new LA higher education spending unwise

Last year, it worked, but at long-term expense to Louisiana taxpayers. Legislators need to decide more wisely this year when it comes to Louisiana higher education.

With a legal requirement to submit budgetary suggestions, the Louisiana Board of Regents for Higher Education traditionally has launched its annual version well in advance of budget formulation and quite publicly in October or November. In recent years, this typically involves asking for the moon when it appears the state could run a surplus, but then settling for peanuts. In other apparently leaner years, it asks for restoration of recent cuts and some more, and hopes for the best.

But last year, things were different. Backed by $331 million in federal government largesse from Democrats sending the country  much deeper into debt, higher education scored a $175.7 million increase, with more than $80 million coming from the general fund. Unlike every other state agency, almost all higher education funding comes from self-generated funding and the volatile general fund as opposed to dedications, so when it makes ongoing new commitments, it risks not having money available to fund that when budgets become tighter. Worse, higher education has to compete with other parts of government for general fund dollars, agencies less dependent upon these.

Panel prepares to bat away leftist power play

As the Joint Governmental Affairs Committee of the Louisiana Legislature hits the road to start discussing reapportionment of the state’s congressional districts next year, one of its leaders thanked members of the state’s political left for playing as it started the process of posterizing them.

Earlier this week, a group of the usual suspects issued an open letter to the panel of members of the governance committee in each chamber, who are charged with deriving the state’s new map for discussion – and inevitable passage almost entirely unchanged – for the six districts. This occurred just before the committees began a tour of metropolitan areas across the state to gather public input on their task.

The note stumps for the drawing of two majority-minority districts, where one now exists, presenting several scenarios. Selectively drawing from reapportionment jurisprudence, it alleges the law “likely requires” that, given that 31.4 percent of the state’s population according to census data are ethnically alone black, two such districts must come into fruition, and issued a veiled threat of litigation if that doesn’t happen.

LA local govts should commit to bid competition

The next round of the great competitive bond issuance bidding debate overshadowed introduction of Bossier City’s 2022 budget, providing insight into the insider style of governance promoted by the City Council majority yet highlighting a path forward to save citizens money not just in that municipality but in any Louisiana local government.

Concerning a pair of introduced bonding items, in the previous meeting Republican Councilor Chris Smith had queried about competitive bidding for such professional services. Appearing to speak for the Council majority, GOP Councilor David Montgomery dismissed the idea, claiming that this was unneeded when a reliable provider was engaged.

Smith persisted at this meeting, when the items came up for final consideration. He noted the 2018 Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s report that summarized the use of competitive bidding is considered a best practice in local government debt contracting, estimated it would save local governments money if universally adopted, and recommended adoption of this practice in debt financing. Instead of offering motions for competitive bidding on these items, he announced he would vote against them because they didn’t have such a provision that he thought might result in taxpayer savings.

LA surplus best used on flood, retirement debts

Don’t let Louisiana’s artificial economy fool you, nor misdirect on where surplus funds should go.

The Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration recently announced a budget surplus for the past fiscal year that came in around $850 million, minus certain dedications. Not that elected officials had much to do with that; unprecedented levels of borrowing by the Democrat-controlled federal government followed by flushing that cash to state and local governments and directly to citizens created a huge monetary injection into the economy, with states and their local governments the beneficiary of $500 billion of that directly with more coming from government raking taxes from people spending their granted borrowed funds.

Nor did Louisiana distinguish itself among its peers. While spooling out surpluses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, many states did much better on a per capita basis, largely as a consequence of lackluster discipline among Louisiana policy-makers by the Republican-controlled Legislature too easily acquiescing to the big government vision of Edwards. Things would have been worse except for the series of strictures the Constitution lays down for use of surplus dollars.

Edwards blows taxpayer bucks on hydrogen hype

Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards has sold Louisiana a pig in a poke that could cost taxpayers dozens of millions of dollars for no valid economic or environmental reason.

Last week, Edwards crowed about a decision by industrial gas manufacturer Air Products and Chemicals to take state money in exchange for siting a “blue” hydrogen plant and carbon sequestration facility. The state bribe to set down the anticipated $4.5 billion facility comes in the form of $5 million to offset construction, $1 million annually in payroll costs up to a decade, and tens of millions more in tax rebates on capital expenditures or on total expenses. Local governments in Ascension Parish will forgo a similar amount in property taxes over a decade.

Edwards raved about the reputed environmental benefits of the project, claiming the state had to fund the effort in order to stave off climate alarmists’ belief in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. It would constitute one of the world’s largest carbon capture and sequestering operation and shuttle the clean fuel hydrogen, cracked from the area’s plentiful natural gas, to the company’s Texas location.

Lafayette needs different tack on panhandling

For now, Lafayette has secured a legal win in its effort to cut down on panhandling, but that might not last unless it shifts its strategy.

Last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court rejected an attempt to invalidate the city-parish consolidated government’s Ordinance 62-32(7). That makes illegal “Acting in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others.” In the past few months, law enforcement has used that to arrest panhandlers.

Since a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2015 in an unrelated case, local governments haven’t been able to ban panhandling, as soliciting for noncommercial purposes has become protected speech where government has a high burden of proof to restrict. As a result, they have sought means that are neutral in regards to content of the speech conveyed and with an objective important enough to override First Amendment concerns, while leaving adequate alternative channels for speech dissemination.