The federal government should establish a trust fund to pay for coastal restoration projects in states along the northern Gulf Coast, to be initially financed by penalties paid for violating federal laws, including 80 percent of any fines levied as a result of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, concludes a report released Tuesday by America's Energy Coast and its parent America's Wetland Foundation.

The fund would finance projects in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida that were found to comply with approved state and federal restoration plans.

The report also calls on the federal government to aggressively finance both coastal restoration and hurricane protection projects that have already been authorized by Congress quickly enough that they can be built on rapidly eroding landscapes before they are lost.

The projects are necessary to protect coastal and Gulf natural resources, including Louisiana's wetlands, but also to shelter nearby oil and gas infrastructure and the coastal communities, the report said. As such, the projects are in the interest of the nation's economy, it concluded.

Additional money should be made available to both Gulf Coast states and to other states where oil production is or will be occurring offshore by speeding the sharing of revenue from new oil and gas finds in federal Outer Continental Shelf waters that federal law now says will go to states in 2017.

The report's recommendations were endorsed at a Washington, D.C. news conference by members of Congress from several of the states, several oil companies and a handful of environmental groups.

They mirror recommendations made in recent months by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.

"As I have said many times, these are not just Louisiana's wetlands," Landrieu said. "They are America's wetlands, and this is America's working coast. The oil and gas, fishing, shipping, ecotourism, and hospitality industries all share it, and have thrived together for decades."

"The Gulf Coast region is home to a diverse combination of ecological and economic activity," said U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas. "This report highlights the fact that it is in the best interest of the entire nation that we strive to reach a balance that allows the ecosystems to be sustained, while also fostering the economic advantages the region offers."

The release of the report comes as the administration of President Barack Obama is considering how to speed up the development of coastal restoration projects in Louisiana and Mississippi, and in an overlapping process, determine how to restore the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of the BP spill.

It calls on industry to increase its investment in research and product development aimed at containing oil spills and controlling accidents in Gulf waters, and recommends increases in the staffing and technological expertise of the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

But the report also focuses on longer-term threats to coastal communities, including sea level rise and more intense hurricanes that may result from global warming.

The report also calls on the federal government to both enforce the "no net loss of wetlands" executive order issued by former President George H.W. Bush, and adopt a new "no net loss of culture" policy that would protect areas such as Louisiana's Cajun communities from disappearing.

"Resiliency planning must take into account the added costs to reside securely in historic and cultural communities that are vulnerable to: disasters, lack of insurability, strict building codes, added taxes, insecure economies and workforce challenges," the report said.

"Yes we have divergent views," said Chevron spokeswoman Sandi Fury of the authors of the report. "But there is one common value and passion that we all share and it's to act now to save our coast and its communities, who are now considered more than vulnerable and should be considered threatened."

As with earlier America's Wetland reports, this one points to the leveeing of the Mississippi River as a key contributor to coastal erosion, by blocking natural spring floods that added sediment and nutrients to the wetlands.

Those wetlands are "a prolific ecosystem that serves as the nursery ground for the Gulf of Mexico and its loss - the greatest rate of land loss on the planet - is a national tragedy that requires a national solution and commitment," the report said.

But it also proposes that both the electric utility industry's Electric Power Research Institute and the Department of Energy's National Energy Techology Laboratory develop new technologies in Gulf Coast states to capture and sequester man-made carbon releases, cited as a cause of global warming. It also calls for the creation of a market for the sale of carbon dioxide credits, with incentives aimed at attracting investments in carbon sequestration and carbon reuse along the coast, including protocols for using wetlands as sequestration areas.

The report also urges Congress to require money from the multibillion-dollar Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund be used by the Army Corps of Engineers each year for its intended purposes, including to underwrite the cost of using material dredged from harbors to build new wetlands. Much of that money is now held unspent as a way of balancing the federal budget, critics say.


To view the original article, click here.