With BP, TransOcean and Anadarko settling claims from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill earlier this year, you now have the opportunity to weigh in on how that money should be spent.
“Now we know the amounts of money that all of these three parties will be paying into the RESTORE Trust Fund: approximately $5.3-billion,” Chris Barnes with the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities told the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Wednesday that the first draft plan is available for public comment..
“It’ll be at coastal.la.gov, under ‘What’s New’. And comments will be accepted through January 14th.”
Beyond just the specific projects being proposed, Barnes said they particularly want public input on how to get the biggest bang for these BP bucks.
“While it looks like a large amount of money that the state will ultimately receive under the RESTORE Act, we do not have the money today. And in fact we will not have all of the money until the year 2031,” she reminded them, adding there are options to waiting for the funds to trickle in.
“CPRA is considering alternative funding streams that could be reimbursed with the Restore Funds as those funds become available over time, as well as accelerated financing options, such as the potential idea of bonding the Fund, so that we can use the funds today to do more good, rather than waiting for these small payouts over the 15-year period.”
Among the proposals in the plan: offering some state settlement money as a match for parish settlement dollars for larger local projects.
“We certainly welcome public comment on any aspect of the plan, including the Parish Matching Program, and they can be submitted via email to coastal@la.gov. And we would love to hear if they think there are ways that we can make the program even better than what is laid out in the plan.”