ArklatexPolitics.com

Posted 14 hours 1 minute 33 seconds ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- U.S. Sen. David Vitter is pushing an
amendment that he says would get the funds from a coastal
restoration program moving faster to states trying to fix damage
from oil drilling.
Vitter wants funds from the Coastal Impact Assistance Program to
get spent faster. He thinks the process has become too cumbersome.
According to Vitter, the program, known as CIAP (pronounced
See-Ap), was designed to have $1 billion spent by the end of 2010,
but only about 15 percent of that amount has been awarded.
He says a lengthy review process has resulted in long delays.
So, Vitter wants that review process to be streamlined. CIAP was
established by the 2005 Energy Policy Act and the money goes to
states where oil is drilled off their shores. The money is meant to
mitigate drilling damage.

Posted 14 hours 4 minutes 56 seconds ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) -- A state lawmaker from Shreveport begins
walking to Baton Rouge on Saturday, a 226-mile journey he's doing
for the third year in a row.
Rep. Patrick Williams says he walks to promote public awareness
of the problems tied to childhood obesity and autism.
Williams, a Democrat, leaves from the LSU-Shreveport campus and
plans to arrive at the state Capitol on or before the March 29
start of the legislative session.
Last year, he finished the journey in less than two weeks,
walking up to 15 hours a day.
Daily updates about the walk will be posted on the Web site for
the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, at
www.lightenuplouisiana.org.

Posted 2 days 14 hours 25 minutes ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- The Melville ferry that transports
drivers from St. Landry to Pointe Coupee parishes is slated for
closure.
Gov. Bobby Jindal's budget proposal for the fiscal year that
begins July 1 would shutter the ferry to save $213,000 in the
Department of Transportation and Development.
DOTD Secretary Sherri LeBas says the Melville ferry is used less
and is more expensive per vehicle than other state ferries. She
told the House Appropriations Committee that while drivers are
charged $1 each way for the ferry trip, the state puts up $99 per
vehicle.
A state lawmaker who represents the area, Rep. Bernard LeBas,
says drivers will have to travel an extra 60 miles to cross the
Atchafalaya River without the ferry, a cost he says many people
can't afford.

Posted 2 days 14 hours 27 minutes ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- The state Board of Elementary and
Secondary Education has proposed a nearly $3.4 billion funding
formula for public school districts that's $72 million more than
the funding proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal in his budget for next
year.
Jindal proposed standstill funding for the district formula.
In a 6-5 vote Wednesday, BESE instead backed a formula that
contains a boost of 2.75 percent for each public school student.
That's the type of annual increase the school districts had
received for years before the state's budget tightened.
The move shifts the issue to state lawmakers. If they want to
fund BESE's request, they'll have to cut other agencies already
poised to take budget cuts -- or they'll have to find a new source
of cash.

Posted 3 days 8 hours 51 minutes ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Lawmakers are pushing the state veterans
department to step up its delivery of veterans medals and to stop
waiting for Gov. Bobby Jindal to deliver them personally.
Members of a joint House and Senate committee said Tuesday that
thousands of medal requests have been made with the Department of
Veterans Affairs and that they've received calls from veterans who
have waited months for their medals.
Jindal has traveled the state to give the medals to veterans,
and Veterans Affairs Secretary Lane Carson says having the governor
deliver the medals gives a dignity to the veterans.
Sen. Robert Adley, a Republican whose bill created the state
medal program, says some veterans are too elderly to wait for
Jindal. Asked if he would be willing to mail medals to veterans,
Carson would only say that he'd look into it.

Posted 3 days 14 hours 25 minutes ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- State lawmakers are pressing higher
education leaders for details of the strategies they're using now
to cope with budget cuts expected in 16 months.
Louisiana's college campuses aren't proposed to take cuts in the
budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. But that plan relies
on $290 million in federal stimulus money.
Those dollars disappear a year later, in the 2011-12 fiscal
year, and members of the Senate Finance Committee said Monday they
want to see plans for how campuses will cope with that loss.
Republican Sen. Mike Walsworth says he's heard Commissioner of
Higher Education Sally Clausen talk for a year about planning for
that "cliff." But Walsworth says he hasn't seen a plan.
Clausen says schools are shrinking costs now, by eliminating
programs, cutting staff and changing degree requirements.

Posted 3 days 14 hours 28 minutes ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- The Democratic leader of the state House
says a Republican senator's bill that would nullify any federal
health care overhaul passed by Congress is ridiculous and
premature.
Rep. Karen St. Germain, head of the House Democratic Caucus,
says it's too soon for state lawmakers to issue a "blanket no" to
federal legislation that hasn't even been completed.
St. Germain's comments were in response to a bill filed by
Republican Sen. A.G. Crowe that asserts states' rights to refuse
the federal mandates proposed in the congressional Democrats'
health care legislation.
Crowe's bill mirrors similar legislation proposed in more than
30 other states.
State lawmakers will consider the proposal in the regular
session that begins March 29.

Posted 3 days 14 hours 29 minutes ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

NEW IBERIA, La. (AP) -- An attorney from New Iberia has formally
launched his campaign to return a south Louisiana congressional
district to Republican hands.
Jeff Landry announced his candidacy in a news release Tuesday.
The seat is currently held by Charlie Melancon, a Democrat who is
leaving the post to challenge David Vitter for the Senate this
year.
In his campaign announcement, Landry blasts the president and
the Democratic-led Congress for inflating the national deficit. He
touts himself as a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, and an
outdoorsman who will work to protect Louisiana's coast.

Posted 3 days 14 hours 30 minutes ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- The campaign of Democratic Senate
candidate Charlie Melancon has filed an ethics complaint against
Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter.
Jeff Giertz, a spokesman for Melancon's campaign, says the
complaint was filed Tuesday with the Senate Select Committee on
Ethics. The complaint alleges Vitter violated federal law and
Senate ethics rules by sending out a fundraising letter on his
official Senate letterhead.
Melancon, a congressman from Napoleonville, is the only
announced Democrat challenging Vitter in the Senate race. The
primary election is Aug. 28, and the general election is set for
Nov. 2.
Melancon's campaign provided a copy of Vitter's fundraising
letter, which was sent in February.

Posted 3 days 14 hours 32 minutes ago
Posted In: Home, Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The mayor of New Orleans doesn't have direct
control over city schools, but that's not stopping Mayor-elect
Mitch Landrieu from getting involved in the issue of how to improve
education in the city.
Landrieu named a transition team Tuesday that will help guide
him on a wide variety of education issues. One such issue he
expects to deal with is the future governance of New Orleans
schools. Most of the city's schools were taken over by the state
after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.
Landrieu said the 21-member task force of community leaders,
school officials and education experts will, among other things,
help him develop a position on when and how schools might someday
be returned to local control in New Orleans.