Should Oil And Gas Be On The Hook For Coastal Restoration? – Wingin’ It Wednesday

This week on "Wingin' It Wednesday", panelist Mike Stagg, former Congressman Jeff Landry (in for Carol Ross), and Warren Caudle joined "Nathan and Bernie in the Morning" to discuss a questionable prisoner exchange as well as a bill holding the Oil and Gas Industry accountable for damage done to the Louisiana coast.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. President Obama says five Taliban militants used in a prisoner swap will be closely monitored, but could still revert to terrorism.  Those prisoners were handed over to the government of Qatar [[ CUTT-er ]] in exchange for the release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.  He spent five years as a captive of Taliban warlords before the Obama administration cut a deal to set him free. Your Thoughts?

Warren Caudle started us off:

This is absolutely disgusting. The group I’m most disgusted with is the United States Army. When this guy left, it was put out back then that he voluntarily left. The Army has known it since 2010 at least.
General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a ridiculous claim, saying, “the military never leaves ours behind.” The military always leaves their deserters behind. We don’t leave our wounded behind, and we don’t leave our dead behind, but a deserter that leaves to join the enemy, we always leave them behind.

Mike Stagg posited:

I remember when we used to celebrate when we got captives released, I wonder what’s different now. I’m sure we’re going to hear that this is a grave threat to the Republic now that President Obama has made a prisoner swap. These kinds of prisoner swaps are common.
An American was rescued from captivity. This whole thing is… the President will be damned if he do and damned if he didn’t.

Jeff Landry said:

Elections have consequences, and when we elect someone as Commander in Chief that has no military experience, no business experience, no real world experience, we get these kinds of trades.
This speaks to the amount of pressure that these generals in the field are under by the administration to keep a cap on everything. It speaks to the testament to the pressure that the White House and politicians are putting our soldiers under. We need to take the handcuffs off, get politics out of the war, and let our generals do their job.

 

2. The state legislature approves a bill that would stop a lawsuit filed by a New Orleans area levee board from holding oil companies accountable for environmental damages done to Louisiana's coast. Should the Governor sign the bill?

Mike started us off:

Suddenly, as the result of a legal memorandum, it dawned on the Governor and his staff, that the way this bill was written, it will actually jeopardize the state’s $10-12 billion that they expected to get out of the BP fine settlement. So he cannot sign the bill now. This was his top priority of the legislative session and now he can’t sign it. They wanted to kill the levee board lawsuit, but they’ve killed all the money they’re ever going to get. What’s happened here, is that rather than let this thing be fought over the merits, the Oil and Gas Association has decided they’d use their legal power to kill the lawsuit, and this is just desserts.

Jeff posited:

The biggest threat the B.P. Court Case is Buddy Caldwell. Let’s talk about what this whole bill was about, it’s about contingency fee contracts, which are designed to ensure that energy parties have access to the courts against big pocketed opponents. The state is not an energy party. It can afford to process it’s own claims.
To allow the conduct of the Attorney General to turn over the public policy of the state and a huge pile of cash to hired guns is ridiculous.

Warren concluded:

I really don’t keep up with what Governor Jindal does and I don’t think he keeps up with it either. The lawsuit... in the end if you need money to restore the coast, raise taxes, because if you get the money from the Oil and Gas companies, they’re going to raise prices. When they raise the price it comes out of everybody’s pocket.
If we raise taxes, you get the money you need and bypass the attorneys. Those kinda suits I totally disagree with.

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Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about today’s Wingin’ It Wednesday topics. Who got it right, who got it wrong, and who was way off? Let us know in the comment section.