The special legislative session at the state capitol might end today. The full Senate will vote this afternoon on legislation that would create a 45-million dollar fund to lure more insurance companies to Louisiana after several providers left the state or failed after multiple hurricanes in 2020 and 2021. The House has already approved the bill.

Kaplan oilman and Army veteran Jeff Istre announces he’s running for Governor and will be a candidate “of the people.” Kevin Gallagher reports…:
Cut 2 (31) “…I’m Kevin Gallagher.”

The cornerstone project of the state’s Coastal Master Plan has received two-point-two billion dollars in funding. Most of the money comes from the BP Oil Spill settlement. Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority executive director Bren Haase says the project will reconnect the Mississippi River with the Barartaria Basin creating as much as 21 square miles of wetlands over the next five decades…
cut 6 (08) “….a good portion of it”
Haase says work on the project should ramp up mid-year and take five years to complete.

The state Department of Natural Resources reports that 22 orphaned well sites have been restored as a result of 25-million dollars in funding from the federal infrastructure law. DNR spokesperson Patrick Courreges says they hope to maintain a strong pace of restoring these well sites through next fall…
cut 13 (14) “…back either”
There are roughly 45-hundred orphaned well sites in Louisiana.