I voted for and supported Governor Kathleen Blanco. And her worst fault in the hours and days following Katrina is that she relied on and trusted the White House to do what was right. As a result, she got her ass kicked.
Prior to Katrina, she was in many ways a DINO. Now that she's seen what the national Republican Party and Bush really are, she's grown balls.
Blanco's playing HARDBALL!
Yesterday Blanco called a special legislative session in the New Orleans Convention Center, a scene, as the Times Picayune called it of misery for thousands of people stranded during the botched evacuation of Katrina, ...a symbolic departure from tradition. The Legislature has not met outside Baton Rouge in 125 years. She then led the state's lawmakers on a tour of the most flood-ravaged regions of the area.
In her address, Blanco criticized Bush for slapping down Republican Congressman Richard Baker's plan for the federal government to buy damaged and destroyed homes.
"As you know, the White House tried to blow this solution out of the saddle," Blanco said. "This is second-class treatment. Our people who lost everything are not second-class citizens. They deserve an equitable solution."
She gave Bush an ultimatum: give Louisiana a larger share of oil and gas royalties from offshore drilling or face a roadblock to exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
"If no effort is made to guarantee our fair share of royalties, I have warned the federal government that we will be forced to block the August sale of offshore oil and gas leases," Blanco said. "It's time to play hardball, as I believe that's the only game Washington understands."
You go girl!
The feds take in $5 billion a year off our coast... and give a fraction back to the state.
Compare this to New Mexico and Colorado which keep 50% of revenue from mininging and drilling on federal land in their states. That was $928 million for 2004 alone.
Louisiana gets to keep revenue for drilling up to 3 miles off the coast, but Texas keeps their revenue up to 3 leagues... a difference of billions of dollars of income. Why? B/c Texas was a country when it came into the Union. Makes no sense but that's the law.
Scott Angelle, Director of Natural Resources for Louisiana, laid all this out to Congress http://dnr.louisiana.gov/....
Give us what the Feds give Texas or Colorada and let us protect our own coast and let us rebuild our own cities. Give us fairness. We're not asking for a handout. ONLY what other states get.
Can Kathleen do it? The Times Picayune says the governor has limited administrative ability to stop the leases, but because such an action has never been taken it is unclear how much weight her threat carries.
But the point is, she's making a threat. And I hope she goes through with it.
She drew a standing ovation for her line, "We had all better put Louisiana politics aside and worry about Washington politics or our people and our state will lose."
Blanco criticized the White House for giving Mississippi a much larger share, proportionately, of federal assistance and spoke of how Bush scarcely mentioned Louisiana's plight in his State of the Union address last week.
She blasted the federal government for our horrible levee system... a system the US Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for: "It is inexcusable that our people -- hardworking and patriotic American taxpayers -- were asked to entrust their lives and property to a worn and broken system."
Blanco's main fault was not telling the world hours after Katrina that Bush was screwing Louisiana. Now she finally is!
Here's the Times Picayune story: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1139296575325360.xml