BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – One Louisiana senator is working to bring in more revenue from offshore energy production to the state. After legislation caught a snag in Congress last year, there’s hope it’ll get support across the aisle.

Sen. Bill Cassidy is refiling his Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies and Ecosystems or RISEE Act. The bill is focused on amending the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act to bring in more revenue to Louisiana.

Right now, four Gulf states share 37.5% of the royalties from energy production off their coasts. 50% of the revenue from gas and oil production goes to the U.S. Treasury and 12.5% goes to the National Oceans and Coastal Security Fund. There is a cap of $375 million total the states can split, the rest is reverted to the U.S. Treasury. Cassidy’s bill aims to remove that cap to allow states to take in more revenue.

“It’s going to be a priority in this Congress. Louisiana has learned to use money from offshore energy production to rebuild our coastlines to protect our communities,” Sen. Cassidy said. “We hope to get this done so Louisiana can be a model to other coastal states.”

In Fiscal Year 22, Louisiana took in nearly $110 million in the GOMESA deal. Also under Cassidy’s bill, he wants to add wind production to the revenue stream which would greatly increase those dollars.

The money brought in from the GOMESA deal under the Louisiana constitution must be used for coastal restoration and protections. The additional money would be beneficial to pay for some of the Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority coastal master plan items. State leaders and local municipalities across south Louisiana are in favor of the move to bring in that extra revenue and advance more protection projects.

This bill was brought in the last Congress and passed the Senate, but was caught up in the House and failed to be added to the end-of-the-year omnibus legislation.

“Unfortunately, bad politics got in the way and prevented it from being signed into law last Congress,” Sen. Cassidy said.

He hopes it will have bipartisan support again this year and is already working on the “pay for” plan that would put in place how the revenue will be offset for the Treasury.