Louisiana had instituted a bounty program on nutria, $4 for every tail turned in, funding came from the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act
. Here's a good synopsis from the LA DOWF
www.nutria.com/site6.phpThis is a pretty interesting read as well in regards to wetlands protection and levy reconstruction. Hmmm......
US earlier rebuffed Louisiana on aid
Plan to help fund coastline project was cut from bill
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | September 1, 2005
WASHINGTON -- As recently as this summer, Louisiana pleaded for federal help to protect the state's rapidly eroding coastline -- a key natural defense against floods and major storms like Hurricane Katrina -- but the state was rebuffed by an administration and a Congress bent on budget-cutting and reluctant to pay for expensive preventative measures, according to congressional staff and budget-watchers.
Cajun State lawmakers, worried that a single powerful hurricane would do even more damage to its coast, wanted a provision in the massive federal energy bill that would give Louisiana a share of profits from offshore oil drilling. The plan would pour an estimated $1 billion a year into the state's coffers, money it would use to build up its natural barriers against flood waters from a hurricane -- a project lawmakers estimate would cost up to $14 billion over 10 years.
But the idea was slashed from the energy bill, which had been criticized for being packed with local pork projects like a $1.1 billion nuclear reactor for Idaho and a multimillion-dollar coal plant for Alaska. Previous attempts to get federal funds for the Louisiana coastal project had been rejected over the course of decades.
Now, lawmakers and disaster planning specialists say, Congress will pay dearly to rebuild the region after Katrina, an effort that could cost at least $25 billion.
''We have long warned that we've got a choice of 'pay now or pay later,' " Representative Bobby Jindal, Republican of Louisiana, said in a phone interview after taking an aerial tour of his devastated congressional district. Jindal said he has long implored his congressional colleagues to help shore up the Louisiana coastline -- where land about the size of a football field had been sinking into the Gulf of Mexico at an alarming rate, even before Katrina.
''I said, 'If we don't invest in this now, we'll be paying a lot higher cost' " in disaster relief, said Jindal, who noted that he did not know the condition of his own home in the New Orleans metropolitan area. ''We certainly didn't want to be proven right."
Currently, Louisiana is involved in two long-term environmental projects to address flooding: an Army Corps of Engineers plan to build up the complex system of levees, canals, and pumps that keep the New Orleans area dry, and the rehabilitation of the state's Gulf Coast shoreline, an important natural buffer against massive storm damage.
Members of the state's congressional delegation managed to obtain some federal dollars for the projects, with $540 million in the energy bill, to be spent long term, and a pending $1.9 billion from the energy and water appropriations bill. But Jindal said the money is not enough to completely solve either the wetlands or levee problems, and added that the Army Corps of Engineers still does not have enough money to finish the work it started years ago.
Under federal law, some states get to keep half of the royalties from onshore drilling done within their borders; a quirk in the law allows Texas to get royalties for drilling up to 10 miles off its coast, Jindal said, but Louisiana cannot get royalties from offshore drilling even a few miles from its coast. Instead, the federal government keeps the royalties, he said.
Next week, Congress is expected to assemble an aid package to help rebuild the region. While no figure has been set, the package will probably be generous, said Jenny Manley, spokeswoman for Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi and chairman of the Appropriations Committee that will decide the amount.
House leaders said they are also ready to help. ''We will not rest until everyone that has been affected by this disaster has been given proper assistance," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois and House majority whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, both Republicans, said in a joint statement.
Budget watchdog groups and veteran Capitol Hill staff members said it is typical for Congress to reject expensive projects that avoid catastrophe but do not offer an immediate benefit, only to pay out billions in taxpayer money on a disaster that could have been prevented. This time, huge federal tax cuts and the spiraling costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan have limited the amount of money Congress can spend on domestic projects, they said.
''The very nature and structure of Congress is that we never fund things in a preventative manner," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget analysis group.
But ''right now, you'd be a lunatic to be pinching pennies when people are swimming in their own sewage. We're going to pay what we've got to pay to save lives," he said.
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