American Energy, Imperiled Coast: Oil and Gas Development in Louisiana's Wetlands

6. THE COASTAL RESTORATION CAMPAIGN: From the Breaux Act to Coast 2050

163 6 THE COASTAL RESTORATION CAMPAIGN From the Breaux Act to Coast 2050 T he 1990s ushered in a new chapter in Louisiana’s energy and environmental history. As the state clawed its way out of an oil-led recession, the economic outlook for the region greatly improved with the new deepwater discoveries offshore. Coastal erosion, however, continued and questions arose about the ability of the frail wetlands to continue supporting the local economic activities, ecological interests, and energy development. A groundswell of support for protecting and restoring valuable wetland areas in Louisiana led to the historic formation of a state-federal partnership to address this environmental calamity. Coastal erosion and its threats to the productive estuaries , economy, and coastal communities drove these policy decisions and new legislative actions that laid the foundation for a coastal restoration campaign. Two landmark pieces of legislation set new precedents in the fight to stem the tide against coastal land loss. Political leaders and environmental advocates in Louisiana finally realized that solving the problem required a coordinated effort by the state and federal government. The cost of a restoration program was simply too great for Louisiana to go it alone. To gain federal support, the state needed to make coastal restoration a top priority. With the appropriate state bureaucratic and funding mechanisms in place, the federal government ultimately passed the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act (CWPPRA), often called “the Breaux Act,” the first national mandate to restore coastal wetlands. This government program provided the model for designing, funding, and building experimental restoration projects in Louisiana. Unfortunately, wetlands continued to disappear at an alarming rate. This realization influenced coastal leaders to develop a bolder, comprehensive plan. In the late 1990s, this diverse group of people and organizations came together to develop a plan that represented a shared vision of a sustainable coastal ecosystem , economy, and culture. The Coast 2050 plan proposed ecosystem restoration strategies that, if implemented, would result in the largest, most expensive AMERICAN ENERGY, IMPERILED COAST 164 coastal wetland restoration effort ever attempted in this country. The plan spoke directly to the financial implications of continued land loss on the oil and gas sector. The oil and gas industry, however, remained largely silent on the issue until a series of hurricanes ravaged the coast in the early twenty-first century. Louisiana took the necessary first steps to build this large-scale restoration initiative . Convincing the rest of the nation to join in the fight, however, would be a continuous, uphill battle. (See Figure 31.) Louisiana Gets Its House in Order with Act 6 By the end of the 1980s, pressure had mounted on Louisiana’s elected officials to develop a coastal restoration action plan. New coastal use regulations and improved technology and operations reduced land loss from new development activities , such as dredging in the wetlands. However, the state still lacked legislative support to build and fund a coastal restoration program. Without a secured funding mechanism, the state’s restoration efforts could not move forward, nor could Louisiana take advantage of impending federal wetland restoration costshare programs. Political leaders finally responded to advocates who effectively argued that the time had come to get serious about the coastal erosion crisis. With the passage of historic legislation and a constitutional amendment in 1989 that provided a permanent funding source through oil and gas revenues, the state laid the foundation for a major coastal restoration campaign—nearly two decades after the first signs of a shrinking coastline appeared. In the summer of 1989, state leaders led by powerful coastal politicians and persuasive coastal leaders, with a strong push from the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, moved the state legislature to action. During a six-day special legislative session, lawmakers made the difficult but necessary policy decisions about protecting the coast that had eluded the political process for years. In the Second Extraordinary Legislative Session, the Louisiana legislature passed the state’s Coastal Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Act. This monumental legislation, known as Act 6, provided the legislative framework to build a proactive coastal restoration program in the state. Act 6 established a number of new governmental entities and policy measures . It formed the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities and the Office of Coastal Restoration and Management, within the Department of Natural Resources . The act also created the state’s Wetlands Conservation and Restoration 165 THE COASTAL...