Louisiana
Louisiana voters want federal money from offshore wind to go toward coastal restoration
Louisiana voters approved an amendment asking them if revenues from offshore alternative energy should go towards coastal restoration and protection.
Federal money from offshore oil and gas production already goes into Louisiana’s Coastal Restoration and Protection Fund. “We’ve received hundreds of millions of dollars over the years because of that. What this amendment would do is basically the same,” Barry Erwin, president and CEO of Council for a Better Louisiana, told Louisiana Considered.
Despite these oil and gas revenues flowing into the fund, the state doesn’t have enough money to fund its Coastal Master Plan. Amendment 1 sets up the state to receive slightly more.
The yes vote on the amendment means federal money from the emerging offshore alternative energy industry, which is primarily wind, will go into that same fund for the coast. A no vote would have put the money into the state’s general fund, which is spent how the legislature chooses.
There are no completed wind projects off of Louisiana’s Gulf coast yet. Two were granted leases by the state last December and are underway. The Danish firm Vestas – which operates under the name Cajun Wind in Louisiana – was granted nearly 60,000 acres off of Cameron Parish. Diamond Wind, which is owned by the Japanese company Mitsubishi, was granted a little over 6,000 acres of the coast of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.
The federal government doesn’t share offshore alternative energy revenues with states, but some in Louisiana’s congressional delegation have been pushing for it. Sen. Bill Cassidy co-sponsored the Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies & Ecosystems (RISEE) Act and Rep. Steve Scalise sponsored the Budgeting for Renewable Electrical Energy Zone Earnings Act (BREEZE Act), both of which would bring revenues from offshore wind to states.
But Erwin said even if revenues start coming in, it won’t be very much money. Estimates put the amount at about 10 percent of what Louisiana gets from oil and gas, which is about $160 million a year. “We’re gonna be losing a lot of the coastal money that we’re getting right now when the BP oil payments are kind of finalized in a few years,” he said. “So I think the proponents feel like every dollar that we can still muster towards coastal protection.”
Louisiana
3 injured as EF-1 tornado touches down in Basile, Louisiana
BASILE, La. – An EF-1 tornado injured three people when it struck near Basile, Louisiana, Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
The NWS noted the twister had estimated peak wind speeds of 95 mph, with a path that was 1 mile long and 150 yards wide.
The tornado touched down along U.S. Highway 190 west of the town of just over 1,200 people.
Basile Mayor Mark Denette said three people were sent to the hospital for assessment and treatment.
He added that the tornado caused extensive damage to a local grocery store called Rhea’s Specialty Meats and expressed his condolences to the store owner, Jude Burton.
“Prayers for Jude, his family, and his staff as his place of business is a very important part of Basile,” he said in a Facebook post.
Other storm damage included downed trees and damage to an RV, Denette said.
A tornado was also spotted near the town of Maurice, which lies southeast of Basile, the NWS said.
Louisiana
Louisiana asks appeals court to keep Title IX rule protecting LGBTQ+ students on hold
On Monday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard oral arguments in the case stemming from Louisiana’s lawsuit.
“Given the fact that the United States Supreme Court has already denied stays on these injunctions, I’m optimistic that this court will also uphold the injunction,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told reporters after the Monday evening hearing.
At issue is the new U.S. Department of Education rule that says discrimination against students based on sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited under Title IX, a 1972 federal law that bans sex-based discrimination in schools and colleges that receive federal funding. Other provisions of the rule add protections for pregnant students and expand the definition of sexual harassment at schools and colleges.
The rule, which was set to take effect Aug. 1, does not address transgender students’ participation in school sports, a highly contentious issue that will be the subject of a separate directive.
The new federal regulations could invalidate Louisiana laws that forbid transgender people from using school bathrooms that match their gender identity and protect teachers who refuse to refer to students by their preferred names and pronouns. If the rules took effect and Louisiana was found in violation of them, the state would face the prospect of losing billions of dollars in federal funding for schools, Murrill said Monday.
Murrill’s office filed a federal lawsuit to block the new Title IX rule immediately after it was issued in April. The lawsuit, which three other states joined, said that Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration had overstepped its authority and upended Title IX, which they argued was intended to protect only biological girls and women.
“This law was driven originally by a desire to stop discrimination against women in the education environment,” Murrill said Monday. “It is now being turned on its head.”
In a court filing, the state’s attorneys said the new Title IX interpretation would “transform” schools and harm students.
“Boys and girls will be forced to share bathrooms, locker rooms, and lodging on overnight field trips with members of the opposite sex, including adults,” the Sept. 19 filing said. “Students and teachers will be forced to use whatever pronouns a student demands based on his or her self-professed ‘gender identity.’”
Lawyers for the federal government argue that the new Title IX rule is based on a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Bostock v. Clayton County, that said a federal ban on sex-based discrimination in the workplace also prohibits discrimination against gay and transgender people. The same logic applies to discrimination in schools, the Biden administration says.
“It is impossible to explain what it is you’re doing when you are intentionally discriminating against someone based on their gender identity without consideration of that person’s sex,” said Jack Starcher, an attorney representing the federal government, at Monday’s hearing. “Discrimination based on gender identity is discrimination based on sex.”
The Biden administration asked the court to limit the pause on the law to just those parts dealing with gender identity, allowing other provisions — such as those dealing with lactation spaces for pregnant students — to take effect while the legal challenges proceed. But Louisiana’s lawyers argue the rule’s expanded definition of sex-based discrimination touches every aspect of the law.
“Their new definitions are pervasive throughout the rule,” Murrill said after the hearing, adding that it would be confusing for schools to determine which parts of the new rule were in effect and which were paused.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is considered one of the country’s most conservative appellate courts. Judge Jerry Smith, one of the three presiding judges at Monday’s hearing, appeared skeptical of the Biden administration’s rule.
Smith, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, gave a hypothetical scenario in which a biological female student objected to playing volleyball during physical education class alongside a transgender girl. Under the new rule, Smith suggested, the student would lose access to her P.E. class if she refused to participate.
That “young woman would be denied the benefits of educational services by saying, ‘I don’t want this great big burly guy coming in here and competing against me,’” he said, referring to the transgender student as a “guy.”
The appeals court is expected to rule in the coming weeks. Murrill said she expects that one of the cases challenging the new Title IX will eventually head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Louisiana
Democrats hope to flip a reliably Republican Louisiana congressional seat with new boundaries
BATON ROUGE, La. — In a critical election year, Democrats are looking to flip a once reliably Republican Louisiana congressional seat, where political boundaries were recently redrawn to form the state’s second mostly Black congressional district.
With five people on the ballot for Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District, Democrats have thrown their support behind longtime politician Cleo Fields, 61. The state senator has been involved in state politics for three decades and served two terms in Congress after being elected in 1992.
Across the aisle, Republicans are looking to preserve the seat, especially in an election year where the GOP is trying to hold on to their majority in the U.S. House. The only Republican on the ballot is former state lawmaker Elbert Guillory, 80.
For nearly 50 years, only one Democrat has won the seat in Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District. But the district’s boundaries have recently been recrafted.
In January state lawmakers passed Louisiana’s new congressional map with a second majority-Black district, marking a win for Democrats and civil rights groups after a legal battle and political tug-of-war that spanned nearly two years.
The new 6th District boundaries stretch across the state in a narrow and diagonal path, from the state capital, Baton Rouge, to Shreveport in the northwest corner. Black residents account for 54% of its voters, up from 24% previously. Both Fields and Guillory are Black.
A lower court ruled that the new map was an illegal racial gerrymander, but in May the Supreme Court ordered Louisiana to use it in this year’s congressional elections — boosting Democrats’ chances of gaining control of the closely divided House.
Currently, out of Louisiana’s six congressional seats, there is one Democrat, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, the state’s sole Black member of Congress.
Noticeably absent from the race is incumbent U.S. Rep. Garret Graves. The white Republican announced that he would not seek reelection, saying that it did not make sense to run under the new map.
All of Louisiana’s six congressional seats are up for election. The five other races feature incumbents, including two of the country’s most powerful Republicans – U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Also seeking reelection are Carter and Republicans Clay Higgins and Julia Letlow. All the incumbents are facing lesser-known challengers on the ballot.
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