Lieutenant Governors Hear Appeal For Oil Revenue

A fight to get a share of federal oil revenue for Louisiana is coming down to the wire, and supporters are making the last-minute push to anyone who will listen.

Advocates made their appeal Thursday to a group of more than 20 of the country’s lieutenant governors.

Flying high above New Orleans, Delaware’s lieutenant governor saw the destruction in person for the first time.

“All you have to do is get in a helicopter like we did. Now that’s a lot to say, because most people don’t have an opportunity to do that, but you just see all the water around here,” Lt. Gov. John Carney said.

Carney also saw firsthand what Louisiana leaders have been talking about for a year: Trees, marsh and natural resources to keep water from destroying houses and buildings have all been depleted.

“It’s easy to see where you’ve got a problem in the making if you don’t have those buffers,” Carney said.

No one had the attention of coastal restoration advocates more than Oklahoma Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin. She’s headed to Washington next year, and if the current lame-duck Congress doesn’t pass one of several bills up for debate, she’s likely to hear about it again when she’s on Capitol Hill.

“I am very willing to listen to it. It’s actually the first time I’ve heard a lot of detail and actually seen it firsthand — the devastation that was done and actually what the current needs are,” Fallin said.

The Women of the Storm and the Coast Guardians went along on the tour, as part of another effort to educate and change minds of the country’s leaders so that current needs aren’t needs that come up again in the future.