JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Nearly seven years after a massive oil spill sullied the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi lawmakers are faced with a pot of money that could become a great temptation.
Mississippi is to receive almost $2.2 billion under a multistate settlement with BP over the Deepwater Horizon spill. About $1.5 billion is for environmental restoration and economic development, and the Legislature will decide how to spend the other $750 million over 17 years.
The state budget is tight, and leaders are recommending cuts for a wide range of programs. In late March, when negotiators are finishing a budget for the year that begins July 1, they might cast a wandering eye toward the shiny pot of gold that is the oil spill settlement.
That is where they’ll hit a hard wall of reality.
Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves has more control over the state budget than any single lawmaker. He has said frequently that the settlement should be spent on or near the Gulf Coast.
“What I think what we ought to do with the money is recognize that the vast majority of the oil spill caused challenges in the south part of our state and that we ought to spend a vast majority of the dollars in south Mississippi,” Reeves said in an interview leading into the 2017 legislative session, which begins Jan. 3.
Reeves is preparing to run for governor in 2019, and the Gulf Coast is a treasure trove of votes in for Republicans. Unless Democrats defy expectations and raise enough money to compete in statewide races, the governor’s contest could be essentially decided in the GOP primary.
Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn alternates with Reeves as chairman of the Legislative Budget Committee, but has a reputation of being less heavy-handed in setting details of state spending. In a separate pre-session interview, Gunn said the oil spill settlement should be spent on projects to grow the coastal economy and, by extension, state economy.
“I mean projects that are going to generate a return, that are going to generate dollars - versus spending it on plugging budget holes, spending it on debt,” Gunn said. “We need to spend that money on projects that are going to put people to work, that are going to create business, that are going to turn those dollars over and over.”
The reference to plugging budget holes is a dig at Alabama, where lawmakers agreed in September to use the state’s $1 billion BP settlement to pay state debts, plug Medicaid budget holes and build roads in coastal counties.
Mississippi’s Republican governor, Phil Bryant, says in his budget proposal that he wants to put the remaining portion of this year’s settlement payment into a Gulf Coast Restoration Reserve Fund, which would build up the state’s cash reserves and “could be utilized for Gulf Coast-focused public projects in future years.”
Regional divisions have long shaped Mississippi politics: Delta vs. Piney Woods, Hills vs. Gulf Coast, Everyone vs. Jackson.
So, even as the state’s top officials are saying they want to spend the settlement money on coast, some legislators will argue that a portion of the cash should be spent on projects further inland - maybe even in parts of the state that are closer to Paducah, Kentucky, than to Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Economic struggles in the Delta and rural southwestern Mississippi predate the 2010 oil spill by generations. Lawmakers from those regions, or others, are likely to say that spending some of the BP settlement money on their home turf could boost the entire state.
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Emily Wagster Pettus has covered Mississippi government and politics since 1994. Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus .
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