That title is only a partial exaggeration.

Let's take a quick trip back to 1949, when a greedy, short-sighted, racist political boss named Judge Leander Perez decided to play some high stakes political poker with President Harry Truman. The story is one of those pivotal "what if" moments in Louisiana history. Here's the Times Picayune's version of events:

Leander Perez is best known in Louisiana history as the bullying segregationist and powerful boss of Plaquemines Parish, who built a political and financial empire.

But when current Louisiana politicians talk about Perez, it is his stubborn refusal more than 50 years ago to cut a deal with the Truman administration over sharing offshore oil and gas royalties that dominates the conversation.

Two generations of Louisiana lawmakers have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to claim a share of the billions of dollars in revenue that Perez passed up.
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None of this maneuvering would be necessary had Perez not scuttled an offer in 1949 by President Truman to settle a long-running dispute over control of the resource-rich waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Truman offered the state 100 percent of the royalties paid by oil and gas companies up to 3 miles from shore and 37.5 percent for anything farther out.

Perez, whose power stretched far beyond Plaquemines Parish, insisted Louisiana hold out for 100 percent of it all, the 3-mile limit and beyond.

Truman withdrew the offer, and the state has since received only a narrow slice [$39 million/year] of the estimated $155 billion in royalties paid to the federal treasury.

The stubborness of Judge Perez cost Louisiana about $50 billion dollars. Of course, one shudders to think how such a sum would've been "invested" over the decades by state leaders. However, today there is no debate. Everyone in Louisiana supports current legislative attempts to replicate the terms of Truman's generous oil/gas revenue deal. If my state gets increased royalty payments, it will pass a State Constitutional amendment dedicating those funds toward rebuilding and protecting coastal Louisiana. You can bet the farm on that eventuality-- an amendment will pass by 4 to 1 or better in a special election that's already been scheduled.

The House and the Senate have passed two different energy bills, and both of them would increase oil revenue payments to Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states. In September a House/Senate Negotiating committee will try to hammer out an acceptable compromise version of these bills which can pass the entire Congress.

Basically, the Senate bill awards Louisiana the 37.5% royalty share that Truman offered us in 1949, BUT, only on new royalties derived from expanded drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. (That would amount to $650 million/yr starting in 2017). The House Bill is much more generous to Louisiana because it includes all current royalties, but it also greatly expands the potential for drilling and offshore exploration on the east and west coasts, provisions which some Senators have vowed to filibuster. Also, the White House has signalled opposition to the House bill on fiscal grounds, saying the revenue sharing is far too generous to Gulf Coast states like Louisiana. So, in effect, the House bill is a "dead ender". At best, it's merely a good starting point for negotiations since it would be a huge underdog to get past both the Senate and the White House. If it did die due to filibuster or veto, then the Louisiana delegation would have to start all over again next year (perhaps with a significantly different Congress).

Why is this so important? Two words: wetlands loss. Louisiana is desperately trying to secure large, guaranteed yearly revenues because it is faced with one of the largest environmental crises in U.S. history: the Pelican state is steadily eroding into the Gulf (a process which was only worsened by the brutal storm surges from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita). This coastal crisis was caused, in large part, by the same oil industry which Louisiana has diligently supported with relatively little royalty compensation. A recent article in Fortune explains the sacrifices and risks South Louisiana has endured in order to fuel the nation:

The petrochemical industry pumps out its harvest of petroleum and chemicals from Louisiana through approximately 35,000 miles of pipeline. Much of this fabulous network is offshore, but some 14,800 miles of it slice through the coastal wetlands. So do 3,000 miles of navigation channels.

Many of these cuts into the swamp bring salt water inland, killing the grass and trees that prevent the wetlands from eroding. Boat wakes lap at the edges of the channels, nibbling away at their edges. In only a few years a healthy bog can float away into the Gulf of Mexico.

"The land doesn't submerge like Atlantis," says Denise Reed, a geomorphologist at the University of New Orleans. "It changes into water." As much as 24 square miles of land vanish every year.

As a result, the wetlands form an ever-smaller protective buffer, both for the city of New Orleans and the immensely valuable complex of refineries, ports, wells, and platforms around it.
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On one level, the tepid response to what may be the nation's biggest environmental problem is inexplicable. Originally the petroleum industry located its refineries and plants in Louisiana to take advantage of the nearby oil and gas platforms, but it expanded their scope because the state, for better and worse, is one of the few that welcomes petrochemicals.

"If the coastal environment became unsustainable, I don't know what other state would accept these facilities," says David Pursell, an analyst at Pickering Energy Partners, an investment-research group in Houston. "In Massachusetts, people are fighting wind farms."

Since 1978 the United States has not erected a single new oil refinery; all growth in capacity has come from adding on to existing plants, including those in Louisiana. The political impossibility of recreating the state's huge petrochemical complex elsewhere is rarely noted in the glib dicta, heard occasionally from economists, that the coast should not be rebuilt.

Americans in the other 49 states, in Pursell's view, should be "crossing their fingers" that Louisiana "will continue to be able to host these places."

And that will depend on whether the Louisiana coastline exists tomorrow in something like its present configuration.

Protecting our oil infrastructure is by no means the only good reason for coastal restoration, but it's one of the best bi-partisan reasons to do so. And that is why, during this period of negotiations, Senator Landrieu has been doing some strange things of late. Landrieu views this compromise bill as the best near-term opportunity to secure reliable funding to save the southern portion of her state from-- quite literally-- disappearing. She's pulling out all the stops to make sure it passes.

I believe she's correct to do so.