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

7. AMERICA’S ENERGY COAST: Redefining Restoration in the Gulf

185 7 AMERICA’S ENERGY COAST Redefining Restoration in the Gulf A t the turn of the century, the environmental conditions in coastal Louisiana continued to decline. The ten years of Coastal Wetland Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) projects had resulted in only marginal gains, and the new comprehensive plan—Coast 2050—existed only as a concept. At the same time, offshore energy production accelerated into deeper water, putting added demands on the environmental system and existing infrastructure onshore. The long-term strategy for sustaining the coast required a new approach, a different political process, and a dedicated stream of funding . In order to make significant progress toward these goals, advocates broadened the message to a wider national audience and refocused the campaign’s efforts on the economic impacts of land loss. In time, more people, organizations , and businesses recognized the interconnectivity of the marshland, coastal livelihoods, and energy supplies originating from the Gulf. Leaders of the restoration front redefined the problem as both economic and environmental, and ultimately established a link between a sustainable ecosystem and the future of America’s energy coast. Securing the flow of oil and gas resources through this eroding wetland system spoke to the national implications of continued land loss and climate risk. To connect this regional environmental problem to American energy security, the state launched a massive public relations and education campaign. This initiative , “America’s WETLAND,” identified the synergies among the many different groups invested in coastal Louisiana’s future. It pulled together leaders from government, industry, academia, and environmental organizations to help solve what many considered to be one of the great environmental challenges facing the nation. Along the way, Louisiana took the bold step to reorganize state government and created a powerful new coastal entity tasked with leading this monumental effort. This new direction had an impact on the national political landscape and ultimately forced a change in federal energy policy that favored AMERICAN ENERGY, IMPERILED COAST 186 offshore oil and gas revenue sharing with the Gulf Coast for environmental restoration. By the mid- to late-2000s, Louisiana’s coastal land loss had entered America ’s larger public and political consciousness. Natural and man-made events during that tumultuous decade rocked the coastal region and awakened many to the realities of energy demands, hurricane vulnerability, sea level rise, climate change, and coastal degradation throughout the entire Gulf. These catastrophes represented the continuing need to strike a balance between economic development and ecosystem sustainability within a fragile coastal landscape that has been slowly sinking into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly a century. Deepwater and the Road to Revenue Sharing By the end of the 1990s, energy production from offshore Gulf of Mexico accounted for more than 30 percent of U.S. domestic supplies. Much of the Gulf’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) activity had shifted to deepwater. A decade later, oil production from deepwater doubled, making up 80 percent of the total production from the Gulf. This new offshore bonanza created an economic boom for the region and huge revenues for the federal government, about $5 billion in 2001. As companies invested billions into this new frontier and the oil field service sectors ratcheted up production and created thousands of new jobs, the coastal wetland system that supported OCS development continued to erode into the Gulf. With wetland loss holding steady at twenty-four square miles per year, Louisiana’s political leaders began devising new policy tools to address the problem. Many in Louisiana believed sharing the annual revenues from offshore oil and gas royalties seemed an appropriate way to fund the $14 billion Coast 2050 plan. In the late 1990s, a handful of Louisiana’s political figures met in Washington , D.C., to build a legislative framework for an OCS revenue sharing bill. Jack Caldwell, the secretary of the Department of Natural Resources for Louisiana , and others convinced newly elected Senator Mary Landrieu to take on this daunting challenge. “We had to get a broad group of people behind us and with us,” said Sidney Coffee, former assistant secretary to Caldwell and a leading coastal advisor to the state. “And Mary Landrieu is the one who really bit on [drafting and sponsoring revenue sharing legislation].”1 Although new to Congress, Landrieu did not shy away from the controversial issues surrounding 187 AMERICA’S ENERGY COAST OCS revenue sharing. Since the 1950s, the onshore...