Of course no one in Florida has a problem with using gas from the rigs off the coast of Louisiana. The state whose wetlands are the fish nursery for the entire gulf.

The Federal government has been taking Louisiana's oil for decades without recompense objective to other US locations.

Finally, we are getting treated like other oil producing states. Those monies you speak of come from the companies and not from the Federal government to us.

I am an environmentalist and have served on the board of local groups in the past. These monies will go to Wetlands Restoration to slow down hurricanes and to weaken them before they hit Louisiana cities. Those monies will give us a better hurricane protection and reaction infrastructure such as seawalls with new technology and better levees, and civil defense.

Louisiana loses much of its land due to earlier damage to its Wetlands by an uninterested and earlier unaware oil industry. Now they pay us for their indiscretion, we don't have to beg the Federals and other states that haven't walked in our shoes for their votes to send the money back to where it came.

Perhaps with money coming in, we can bring business to Louisiana and improve education and healthcare.

This country has used Louisiana as its Mardi Gras and Boubon Street whore, then leaving when you're through with us. Two-thirds of this nation sends its toxic run-off to us before it even hits our border. We're your toilet, too. No more. We don't need to beg and cry. Business and literati will be in a long line to come here so when the oil is gone, we will be able to still have something to offer ourselves and the rest of this nation and the world.

Do not speak of what you do not know on this issue. You assume much, and with blinders on your eyes, seeing "Your" way ahead without seeing the periphery.

I am a far left faction life-long Democrat from a blue-collar union family, the first to hold a degree, and I am ecstatic that this do-nothing Republican Congress went out with some good done.

Let the radical Floridians choke on a glut of oil wells as they look at their oil dotted scenary. They all seem to be righteous Republican christians so let them choke on the machinations of their own party. An ocassional oil spill would help to remind them of their allegiance to their party.