(The Center Square) — Louisiana voters will cast ballots in November to determine whether the state will participate in a possible royalty system for offshore renewable energy production, but federal action is required before the money starts to flow. 

Over the past several years, bills have been submitted to allow the alternative energy revenues, such as wind leases, to be sent to the Gulf states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas to fund coastal restoration and resilience projects.

All of these bills would reform the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act by increasing the revenue-sharing distribution from offshore oil and gas activities from 37.5% to 50% and eliminating the existing state revenue-sharing cap of $375 million for Gulf Coast states.

It's of dire importance to Louisiana as the funds from the BP oil spill settlement, which is the primary source for coastal restoration projects, will run out in 2031. The projects are designed to repair and rebuild the state's wetlands which shield inland areas from hurricane storm surges and provide important nurseries for marine life. 

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., filed a bill last year called the Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies & Ecosystems Act with U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. Congressman Steve Scalise, R-La., has a bill called the Budgeting for Renewable Electrical Energy Zone Earnings that he has filed twice in the last two years. U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Texas, has also filed her version of the measure. 

The National Ocean Industries Association is the trade organization for the offshore industry and supports this type of legislation. President Erik Milito told the Center Square that if the bill becomes law, Louisiana could see $1.96 billion over the next 10 years if the RISEE Act or other similar legislation becomes law.

“Well, it should, over time, you're gonna see more revenue flowing to the government from offshore wind power, and if states are able to share in that then it becomes fairly obvious to the local taxpayers and the local constituency that this much money is now coming into our state because of offshore wind,” Milito said. “You haven't needed that in the Northeast Atlantic, Pacific. Those state governments have taken independent action to promote offshore wind because they're more progressive when it comes to wanting to have you know, climate goals in place. When it comes to the oil and gas sector, you know, the Gulf Coast has been it really for the past several decades.

“And Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama have all been supportive because of the employment base and the investment base that you have along the coastline with hundreds if not thousands of companies contributing to the local economies.”

The bills have bipartisan support, as several environmental groups such as the Citizens Climate Lobby, the Coastal Conservation Association, the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Defense Fund among others have weighed in support for the legislation. 

Voters will decide on Nov. 5 whether to add two amendments to the state constitution governing offshore energy royalty distribution. The two bills authored Rep. Joseph Orgeron, R-Cut Off, were signed into law by Gov. Jeff Landry on June 19. Right now, any offshore wind or other renewable revenues would be split between the state's General Fund (75%) and the remainder with the state's mineral fund

House Bill 300 would place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to redirect federal revenues from “generated from Outer Continental Shelf alternative or renewable energy production sources, including wind energy, solar energy, tidal energy, wave energy, geothermal energy, and other alternative or renewable energy production or sources.”

The companion bill, House Bill 305, that would codify the shift of federal royalties to the coastal protection fund from the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act program if the measure is passed by voters.

(The Center Square) – Congresswoman Virginia Foxx of North Carolina considered the panel question and delivered, as often she does, a bottom-line answer for Title IX at passage 52 years ago and today.

The Republican noted the president was a fellow member of her party, Richard Nixon, and Congress was majority Democrats. Yet the civil rights law got bipartisan approval.

“That was a time,” she said, “when Democrats knew what the difference was between a man and a woman. I mean, times have changed.”

Even more than 37 words in the original to the Education Department's 1,561 pages in 2024.

Thursday's Capitol Hill audience for the panel discussion led by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., had chuckles, though not for the wrong reasons. They were joined by Betsy DeVos, former Secretary of Education in the Trump administration; Riley Gaines, 12-time All-American swimmer at Kentucky; and Heather Higgins, chairwoman of the Independent Women's Forum.

Rep. Mary Miller, R-Illinois, emceed and introduced. Miller serves as vice chairwoman alongside chairwoman Foxx on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. Sunday was the 52nd anniversary of Nixon signing Title IX into law. The rewrite is scheduled to take effect Aug. 1, though it is halted in 10 states already by injunctions.

“He told us from his first day in office they were going to rewrite Title IX,” Johnson said of President Joe Biden. “They were going to dramatically revise it. That was an ominous warning, and they made good on it.”

An April fact sheet released by the U.S. Department of Education gave clarification to the proposed changes. Included, “The proposed rule would establish that policies violate Title IX when they categorically ban transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity just because of who they are.”

Gaines and Higgins said gender ideology is about more than sports. There are sororities on campuses, detransitioners with irreparable harm, and men going to prison choosing incarceration with women.

“If you're a guy, why wouldn't you choose to go be in a women's prison instead of a men's prison?” Higgins asked rhetorically.

Higgins said, “While the administration disingenuously claims that the new rule doesn't apply to sports, they've established the default position that school activities limited to biological women or biological men are presumptively discriminatory.

“The administration has repeatedly insisted, in court filings and in public pronouncements, that Title IX requires schools to allow trans-identified males to play women's sports. They can't have it both ways. Either they use Title IX to force schools to allow men on women's sports teams, or if they are not, then schools should stop the madness right now.”

Gaines has been a leader to save women's sports, traveling the country and appearing in a number of state legislatures. She's testified in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, too. More than that, she said, she's realized how much her time as an athlete from age 4 to 22 prepared her for what is happening now much more so than it did as a swimmer.

“They are stripping all sex-based protections for women and girls – robbing women of equal opportunity, privacy, and fairness,” she said. “Equating ‘sex' with ‘gender identity' effectively abolishes the original intent of Title IX. This doesn't enforce Title IX, it violates it.”

On June 13, a Louisiana judge stopped implementation of the Title IX rewrite in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho. On June 17, a Kentucky judge halted the rewrite in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.

Also on June 13, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce passed a Congressional Review Act to nullify the new rule. It would, if passed, formally dispense “with the administration's Title IX rule so that educational institutions can continue protecting the safety of women and girls and their access to educational opportunities.”

Johnson said it will get a floor vote next week.

“While the Biden administration has pushed progressive gender ideology to include biological men in women's sports under Title IX, conservatives in the House are fighting to protect women's right to compete,” Johnson said. “We will not stand by and tolerate the erosion of safe, fair, and equal competition in women's sports.”

(The Center Square) — An annual report by a nonprofit organization gave Louisiana poor grades for child welfare.

The nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kids Count Data Book ranked Louisiana 42nd in education, 48th in overall child well-being and family and community, and 49th in economic well-being and health categories.

The study compares pre-pandemic years to the most current, 2022, so education numbers across all of the U.S. have shown some erosion. However, Louisiana remained well below the national average for both before and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eighth graders in Louisiana are getting worse in math, with the number of students not proficient in the subject jumping from 77% to 81% from 2019-2022. The U.S. average increased even more in that timespan, from 67% to 74%.

Fourth graders in Louisiana have become more proficient at reading since 2019, with the number of students not proficient in reading dropping 2% from 74%. The U.S. average increased as well, from 66% to 68%. 

The high school graduation rates, comparing school year 2018-2019 to 2020-2021 showed improvement. The report says the number of students not graduating on time dropped 2% to 18%, still 4% above the national average which stayed the same over that timespan. 

Despite still being 49th, Louisiana's economic well-being for children has improved in poverty rates, dropping 2%. The measure of parents who lack secure employment dropped 3%. 

Louisiana is also ranked poorly in family and community, 48th, but improved in every other category. Children in single parent families dropped 1% from 47% to 46%. Teen births per 1,000 dropped from 28 to 24. The U.S. average dropped from 17 to 14. 

The report also says the state did poorly in children's health with a ranking of 49th. Child and teen deaths increased a whopping 11 per 1,000, from 36 to 47. The national average increased from 25 to 30.