[craig_eddy]

the dedication of a share of Gulf Coast oil revenues

This one puzzles me. Whose revenues are these that they want to "dedicate?" Does the federal government charge the oil company some sort of "mineral rights" fee for the crude they pump out of the Gulf?

[CajunConservative]

This is what they are talking about.

http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/SNT/noframe/gc138.htm

Fig. 16. An oil field in the Louisiana coastal wetlands. The extensive network of artificial canals provides access to oil and gas wells. The canals are bordered by elevated deposits of dredged materials that block the natural flow of water to the remaining wetlands.

Vast networks of man-made canals have been dug to allow the movement of people and products needed for offshore drilling in Louisiana. As the canals widen with erosion, Gulf salt water flows into the brackish marshes, upsetting the ecosystem's balance and threatening the health of the oyster and shrimp industries that help drive the local economy.

[Ben Ficklin]

A portion of the royalties in federal waters of the outer continental shelf are granted back to all the states via a series of funding acts going back to '65.

Now retired Congressman Billy Tauzin of LA co-authored CARA, the Conservation and Reinvestmant Act, in 2000 which would have rolled all the previous acts into CARA and created a new funding act to fund coastal migation/restoration.

It was unique in that it tied a state'e portion of the Coastal mitigation money to its proximity to oil production on the continental shelf. It also created a funding formula that was resistant to politcal porking.

CARA failed and and most of those funds are going into Everglades restoration as well as the Chesapeake Bay and Columbia River Basin.