HOUSTON -- The Obama administration officially launched its long-term push to restore the Gulf of Mexico today, promising to go beyond addressing damage done by last year's devastating BP oil spill by limiting the erosion of wetlands and halting pollution responsible for a massive "dead zone" for marine life.

Up first, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said here, is a $50 million effort with the Department of Agriculture to reduce nutrient runoff responsible for the oxygen-deprived dead zone. Jackson also announced the establishment of a permanent office in Mississippi for the Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Restoration Task Force.

The $50 million is a tiny fraction of what experts believe will be required for Gulf Coast restoration. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R) administration, for example, has put a $100 billion price tag on long-term restoration. But Jackson said the $50 million comes on top of the billions of dollars pledged for restoration by the company whose leaking oil well was behind last year's massive spill.

The USDA-EPA program is also just one step in a longer effort among federal, state and local governments to reverse the long decline in the health of the Gulf of Mexico region overall, Jackson said.

"This is the first time ever that the five Gulf states and the federal government have signed on and agreed to a unified approach," Jackson said as she presented the final draft of a report of a restoration task force report. "This is a blueprint for action."

This morning's announcement and pledges to restore the health of the economically important hub came at the opening of the four-day State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit, which is hosted by the Harte Research Institute of Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.

The administration's 128-page report outlines "major actions" the task force aims to complete over several decades. Wildlife-habitat restoration will be given "equal priority" to flood control, navigation and other areas, the report says. The task force will also press state governments and communities to begin planning for sea-level rise that scientists warn will come as a result of warming global ocean temperatures.

Among the top goals, the task force wants to expand the number and size of public and private conservation areas along the Gulf Coast. Experts say tidal-marsh habitat restoration will be especially critical to protecting residential areas and energy infrastructure from hurricanes.

The task force report also calls for efforts to "decrease and manage excess nutrient levels" that flow from upstream river basins into the Gulf, especially via the Mississippi River Basin. Task force members also want to see more done to restore oyster and coral reefs in the Gulf and to better manage the flow of sediment into the Gulf.

Addressing long-term damage

The administration also pledged to continue monitoring impacts of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig accident that sparked the largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters.

The post-spill response resulted in "the largest natural resource damage assessment in history" and is still ongoing, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco. She said the ultimate goal is "to return the Gulf of pre-spill conditions," an effort that will require NOAA partnering with dozens of research centers to monitor the progress of several key species over several years.

Lubchenco said NOAA is still worried about the impacts of prolonged hydrocarbon exposure on Gulf vegetation and corals and on turtles, marine mammals and sea birds. She expressed particular concern that warning signs like increased strandings of dolphins and an increased presence of a harmful form of bacteria that damages fish stocks could portend that "such negative effects may cascade through the system."

Issued in its final form today, the task force report is the result of about 40 public meetings held in the region and numerous private meetings with task force leaders, regional scientists and policymakers. More than 7,000 comments were delivered in person and online, and officials said that around 70 percent of the input they received into the report came directly from Gulf of Mexico communities, including industries hit hard by last year's oil spill.

"The president made clear that he wanted this plan to come from the Gulf Coast and not from Washington, and it's important that that's what happened," said Nancy Sutley, who leads the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Though the BP spill was tragic, Sutley said, "we all know it was not the beginning of the Gulf's problems."

To help address long-term declines in the Gulf's ecological health, Sutley pointed to the National Ocean Policy recently announced and a new online data portal, www.ocean.data.gov, which is scheduled to be released tomorrow. The site cobbles together restoration plans and tools into what Sutley calls a "one stop hub."

On top of the task force, Lubchenco said that a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) being prepared by NOAA, which aims to analyze the likely environmental effects of several restoration projects, will be finalized and made public in the summer of 2012. She invited participants to provide their input into the continuing drafting of the PEIS, which should serve as a "framework for our path forward."

"The earlier restoration begins the better, as long as its strategically done," Lubchenco said.

Money

One critical and as-yet-unanswered question remains: Where will the administration get the money?

As the administration argues that investments in Gulf restoration will provide substantial long-term economic returns, congressional leaders have expressed reluctance to spend tax dollars on the effort.

One potential source of cash is legislation that would send 80 percent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill penalties to the five Gulf states.

Under current law, total fines could range from $5.4 billion to $21.1 billion, based on the amount of oil spilled and depending on the degree of culpability. The final dollar amount will be determined through negotiations between the Department of Justice and responsible companies.

From there, the portion devoted to environmental restoration will only be further whittled down. Under House and Senate proposals, between 30 and 60 percent of the penalty money would go toward environmental restoration. The rest could be used by Gulf states to fund "economic" restoration projects, which might include convention centers and highway projects.

Deep fiscal concerns on Capitol Hill threaten to derail even this funding source. The Congressional Budget Office has assigned the Senate version of the spill penalty-sharing bill, known by its acronym as the "RESTORE Act," a $1.2 billion price tag that must be offset with cuts or tax increases elsewhere. One proposal said to be under discussion is to renew and potentially increase per-barrel taxes on Gulf oil drilling.

If the bills fail, current law would send the penalty money flowing into the federal Treasury.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will consider the RESTORE Act in a hearing this week (E&E Daily, Dec. 5). Negotiations continue in the Senate, where the bill has already passed committee and awaits floor action.

"There's been a lot of work, I think, among the co-sponsors on the Senate side," said Malia Hale, director of restoration and water resource campaigns at the National Wildlife Federation. "Obviously, the big issue over there is to find an offset and get to 60 votes."