Reply #7: Blanco: No offshore signoffs unless La. gets royalty share

[funkybutt]

Money could finance hurricane protection

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-3/113877741975690.xml

Gov. Kathleen Blanco warned this week that the state would not support future offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico unless Louisiana gets a share of the federal royalties generated by oil production there.

"It is abundantly clear that allowing development to occur where inadequate provisions are made for the protection of that development is irresponsible," Blanco wrote to the Mineral Management Service. "The amount of oil and gas activity off our coast means little if we have no coastal communities to take advantage of this activity."

Under a federal law that governs offshore drilling, governors in adjacent states are required to agree that federal lease sales are consistent with their states' coastal management plans. Louisiana governors have traditionally signed off on such lease sales, and Blanco's letter will not stop a March 15 lease sale of 4,000 blocks in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas exploration.

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Louisiana supports 80 percent of the oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, she said.