Carville

[ProSense]

Carville

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For too long, the federal government and industry alike has simultaneously abused and neglected, patronized and plundered, and now polluted the people of Louisiana. And our plight is now a national emergency.

For decades, massive engineering projects across the country have made us more vulnerable. We lose a football field of land every 38 minutes. Since World War II, we've lost wetlands the size of the state of Delaware. I bet Joe Biden would be screaming on national television too if it was happening on his turf. Or if the Hamptons lost 16,000 acres a year, you bet there'd be a Million Hedge Fund Managers march on Washington to demand action.

We feel ourselves ever more vulnerable due to the nonstop degradation of our wetlands, which serve as our first line of defense against hurricanes and powerful storm surge. Their loss has everything to do with activities across the rest of the country, starting with the deprivation of natural sediment that the Mississippi River should carry to its mouth and dump at the Gulf of Mexico to nourish our barrier islands.

Then the oil companies dredged canals in the marshlands in an attempt to grow an industry that now provides the country with more than 30 percent of its domestic oil and natural gas. Salt-water intrusion killed the marsh. These marshlands provide jobs for tens of thousands of fisherman in an industry that provides over 30 percent of this country's domestic seafood supply.

Add that to the fact that we have not seen a single penny of royalties for oil produced more than six miles off our coast. We assume all of the risk, produce seafood and oil and gas, with none of the reward. Yes, $165 billion of royalties have gone to the federal treasury that could go to help repair this pressing issue.

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We're not whiners. We produce oil and gas and produce seafood and allow goods to flow freely to the heartland. We assume the risks with little reward.

This from an advocate of more drilling and no moratorium.

[IndianaGreen]

1. Carville is verbalizing what people in the Gulf feel

and I am glad that he is being given a platform on national TV to say the things that environmentalists have been saying for decades about the wetlands, and the stupid Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and its environmentally damaging pork projects.

[ProSense]

2. Wait until he sees what the infamous berms do

Shaw Group wins contract to build barrier island temporary berms

Scientist Warns Sand Berms Won't Last

Dredging is about to begin in the Gulf of Mexico that will create 40 miles of offshore sand berms. The goal: keep oil from reaching the Louisiana coast.

The state's governor, Bobby Jindal, and local officials have pleaded to get the construction started and blamed federal officials for dragging their feet.

But some scientists who've spent decades studying the fragile Mississippi River delta aren't sold on the berm idea, and they worry those berms could make things even worse.

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[Mimosa]

3. ^ ITA Indiana Green ^

People who are coming to coastal wetlands issues 'new' because of this spill unfortunately don't know what they're talking about.

ACOE has been negligent on coastal responsibilities for 25 years. That they admitted in 2 after the results of 2 independent studies they commissioned after Katrina.

I was a member of Save our Wetlands way back. :)

I'd like to point out that people who live in Louisiana are more viscerally involved. It's not about politics for them. They know the wetlands in a way people from elsewhere (even in universities) do not.

[Phx_Dem]

4. Sorry, but you are a whiner. And I'm sick of listening to you and

your fellow Lousisanans bitch about the oil spill while, at the same time, advocating more deep-water drilling before any solution to deep-water leaks have been established.

Go fuck yourself, James.

P.S. Go put on a suit and help clean up the mess instead of spending all your time in front of a camera.

[Jennicut]

5. They assume the risks of producing oil and gas but love the money it brings them.

Why does anyone care what Carville says anyway? I thought he was DLC crap. Oh wait, it is a criticism of Obama. Never mind.

[Political Tiger]

6. Sounds like he's traded his PUMA's for teabags.

James Carville = the new Dick Morris.

[karynnj]

7. Does anyone remember the huge coverage Carville gave Kerry in 2004

when he had a major environmental event in the LA wetlands to speak of the need to stop the degradation of the marshes and barrier islands? Now Carville had a daily show on CNN. He absolutely ignored that event - and almost anything Kerry did or said. He did bash Bush a lot, but he mostly complained that Kerry was not Clinton. On this issue, he would have been right Kerry was the strongest environmentalist in the Senate and was in fact the best environmentalist to ever be the Democratic nominee.

You would have thought that seeing that Carville has had such a long term interest in preserving the LA wet lands that he would have been quite enthusiastic when a Presidential nominee focused on that very issue.

[BeyondGeography]

8. Who is he kidding? Louisiana is drenched in oil money

oil and gas contribute about $65 billion a year to the Louisiana economy, according to the state’s oil and gas association...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/us/13florida.html?ref=us