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Oil royalties should go
to coastal aims
Published February 27,
2007
Almost a decade ago,
Texas and other states were heralding their
windfall from historic settlements with the
tobacco industry. The billions of dollars
the states would reap would make great
strides against the scourge of smoking,
boosting anti-smoking efforts to keep
children from picking up the habit and
helping defray the states’ health burden
from smokers.
The problem, it turns out, is the states
treated the settlement as found money, as
though they woke up one morning to discover
they had been named in the will of a distant
rich uncle. And instead of using the tobacco
settlement money for anti-smoking efforts
and other such worthwhile programs, state
legislatures spent it on about everything
but that noble and justifiable purpose.
Tobacco money built roads and bridges, new
prisons, improvements to a Virginia race
track and a golf course sprinkler system in
New York, according to ABC News. Only 3
percent of the estimated $246 billion
settlement has gone to smoking prevention
and cessation efforts.
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids found Texas
is not much different. Of almost $1.4
billion in tobacco-related revenue expected
this year, including hundreds of millions in
tobacco settlement money, Texas will spend
just $5.2 million on tobacco prevention.
The lesson in all this can be applied to
another windfall that apparently awaits
Texas. A measure expanding energy drilling
in the Gulf of Mexico was signed into law by
President Bush last year, giving four
states, including ours, the potential to
reap billions of dollars in oil royalties.
Its advocates said the windfalls would be
earmarked toward reversing damage from
offshore industry, such as wetlands
restoration and coastal preservation.
Such money would be a boon for our state,
whose coastline is the most rapidly eroding
in the nation. It could help fix the damage
at Surfside Beach, free up the mouth of the
San Bernard River and countless other
worthwhile projects that are desperately
needed.
But as often is the case with great ideas
from Washington, there is a catch. The bill
included a loophole that will allow states
to use the royalties for things other than
coastal projects, including — you guessed it
— paving roads, building bridges and
countless other projects they can loosely
connect to the coast.
We hope our legislators avoid the temptation
to take advantage of the loophole. Instead,
we encourage them to place the windfall into
a trust to provide a dedicated funding
source for addressing coastal environmental
issues. The General Land Office and other
agencies have been seeking one for years,
and this windfall presents the perfect
opportunity.
Louisiana, which also will be rewarded by
the expanded drilling, didn’t let its
opportunity pass by. It passed a referendum
last year requiring all the royalties be
used on wetlands and coastal preservation.
Texas should follow suit.
Each year, officials in coastal areas are
left to beg for the limited resources to
protect the Texas coast. Most years, their
begging falls on deaf ears, with state
officials throwing up their hands because
they have so little money to disperse.
Dedicating the new oil royalties could
change all that and save one of the state’s
most valuable commodities. Legislators and
voters should push to make that happen
before the new oil money, like that from the
tobacco settlement, vanishes in the smoke
and mirrors of the state budget.
This editorial was written by Michael
Morris, assistant managing editor of The
Facts.
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