Lawmakers work on a plan to bring BP money to Gulf Coast
$150-million. That’s how much BP money the state legislature will allocate in the 2016 legislative session, coming up in just a few weeks. While coast lawmakers say that money should rightfully come back here, other legislators throughout the state also want a piece of the pie. With the coastal delegation only making up about 30% of the entire legislature, South Mississippi is in for a fight.
"When you look at it, we just don’t have the numbers to say this is what we want therefore we’re going to get it. We’ve got to work to make everybody understand that this is not about who got the votes and who doesn’t. But it’s about what’s right, and what’s wrong, and what is fair," says State Senator Sean Tindell.
Part of their challenge lies in the fact that the BP money was put into the state’s general fund, an area that’s usually not reserved for any specific area of the state.
Representative Scott Delano says that’s a problem, because BP money should be seen differently. “This money did not get to churn over in our local economy, and I believe that’s why we should have most of that money put back here to allow that to churn through our economy."
So what’s the strategy? Coast lawmakers say they must band together and have a unified voice as they do everything they can to convince legislators from other parts of the state, along with Mississippi’s top lawmakers, that BP money needs to make its way back home to the Gulf Coast.
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