RS 223 - Funding
A. For the 2020-2021 Fiscal Year, any entity that operates a facility on the Calcasieu Ship Channel and receives vessels pursuant to this Part, except those entities leasing from the Port of Lake Charles' City Docks Facility, Bulk Terminal 1, or Bulk Terminal 4, shall contribute to the Calcasieu River Fund. The amount contributed by each entity shall be calculated based on an estimation of the number of ships expected at the entity's facility for the year 2020 at a flat rate of one thousand five hundred dollars per vessel plus eighty-four dollars and fifty cents per mile for each mile the facility is located from mile marker zero, as shown on sheet twenty-seven of the Corps' hydrologic maps of the ship channel. The total amount of private investments provided pursuant to this Subsection shall not exceed three million dollars.
B. For the 2020-2021 Fiscal Year, the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District shall contribute three million dollars to the fund.
C. For the 2020-2021 Fiscal Year, the legislature may appropriate and may contribute three million dollars to the fund.
D.(1) Funding for each subsequent year shall be provided as follows:
(a) Industry shall contribute two million five hundred thousand dollars as provided in the cooperative endeavor agreement. Industry shall determine the number of working vessels anticipated to arrive at its facility for the following year and submit that number to the Port of Lake Charles by November first of each year. Within forty-five days, the Port of Lake Charles shall invoice each entity for their individual contribution considering the following:
(i) A minimum per vessel transit charge of one thousand five hundred dollars.
(ii) A variable mileage charge based on distance from the facility to mile marker zero as approved by the board.
(iii) An adjustment using a true-up mechanism by the board using an actual vessel transit count compared to the anticipated vessel transit count from the previous year.
(b) If the variable mileage charge per vessel transit has been adjusted to zero and the per vessel transit charge of one thousand five hundred dollars would exceed two million five hundred thousand dollars, the per vessel transit charge shall be lowered to an amount that equates to two million five hundred thousand dollars.
(2) The port shall contribute two million five hundred thousand dollars to the fund.
(3) The legislature may appropriate and may contribute five million dollars as provided in the cooperative endeavor agreement entered into between the port, the state of the Louisiana, and the entities operating on the ship channel as represented by Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association.
E. In any month in which the net of committed expenditures in the fund exceeds twenty million dollars, the board shall adopt a resolution to suspend all payments to the fund from the contributing entities. Reinstatement of all payments shall occur by resolution at such time as the balance in the fund falls below twenty million dollars.
F. The board shall promulgate rules and regulations as are necessary to implement the provisions of this Section.
Acts 2020, No. 332, §1, eff. June 12, 2020.