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With regards to the Third Coast, President Obama is burning through good will at record setting pace. The day the Deepwater Horizon explosion first occurred their was the requisite expression of remorse for lives lost and a vow to investigate the cause - then nothing. For days the people of the Gulf region waited for the White House to address the issue again. Three days passed, then four, then five, then a full week. In fact it was nine days after the rig exploded and sank before the President mentioned it again, ten before he actually sent someone down to take a look. And throughout that time Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nungesser were patient and supportive.
The state of Louisiana had a plan to save their marshlands, the source of both ecology and industry for the region. A man-made berm to protect both the fragile barrier islands and the even more delicate marshlands behind them could be constructed in a little over a week. The President refused to allow the state of Louisiana to begin construction stating ecological concerns. Jindal and Nugesser would have to seek an "emergency" permit for such a project, a process that takes two weeks just to process before the Army Corps of Engineers can begin to evaluate it.
Now nearly a month and a half since the explosion BP and the government have yet to make a dent in the oil leak and have done even less to protect the shore. The "emergency" permit is still jumping through bureaucratic hoops and now oil is saturating those precious marshlands. All this has prompted Jindal to tell the White House and BP to either stop the oil spill or get out of his way. Billy Nungesser offers this candid narrative of what dealing with the Obama administration has been like.
The state of Louisiana had a plan to save their marshlands, the source of both ecology and industry for the region. A man-made berm to protect both the fragile barrier islands and the even more delicate marshlands behind them could be constructed in a little over a week. The President refused to allow the state of Louisiana to begin construction stating ecological concerns. Jindal and Nugesser would have to seek an "emergency" permit for such a project, a process that takes two weeks just to process before the Army Corps of Engineers can begin to evaluate it.
Now nearly a month and a half since the explosion BP and the government have yet to make a dent in the oil leak and have done even less to protect the shore. The "emergency" permit is still jumping through bureaucratic hoops and now oil is saturating those precious marshlands. All this has prompted Jindal to tell the White House and BP to either stop the oil spill or get out of his way. Billy Nungesser offers this candid narrative of what dealing with the Obama administration has been like.
