House Bill Outlines How Escambia, Other Counties Can Spend BP Bucks

March 23, 2017

The House is expected to vote Thursday to approve proposals that would set a framework for how counties most impacted by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill can use settlement money.

The proposals would, in part, create a trust fund from which the BP settlement money would be available to the non-profit organization Triumph Gulf Coast. The House and Senate are advancing measures that would allocate $300 million of the $400 million received last year to the Gulf Coast counties — Bay, Escambia, Franklin, Gulf, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Wakulla and Walton — hit most severely by the disaster.

The proposals would also send to those counties three-fourths of the remainder of the $2 billion the state is expected to receive for economic damages associated with the disaster, which dumped millions of gallons of oil less than 100 miles off the Florida coast.

However, the House proposals go further than a Senate measure (SB 364) by imposing additional guidelines on how the money can be used to market Northwest Florida and to support broad economic-development projects.

Triumph Gulf Coast would have to ensure that each county receives at least 6 percent of the money and would have to post online details of any project or program two weeks before cash awards are made.

The House took up its bills Wednesday and procedurally prepared them for votes.

by The News Service of Florida

Comments

One Response to “House Bill Outlines How Escambia, Other Counties Can Spend BP Bucks”

  1. Bob C. on March 23rd, 2017 1:20 pm

    If the BP/Deepwater Horizon monies would be used to fix the infrastructure and underground erosion causing roads to sink that would be a great help to encourage tourists to come here and help us who live here avoid damage to our vehicles.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News