Shitcoin

Too bad FNBC went under. Seems like they would have been exactly the people to handle the trade in these "pollution credits."

Matt Rota, policy director with the Gulf Restoration Network, raised questions about whether DEQ should play a role in regulating the financial transactions on which the trading program would be based.

"And there's the big question of why," Rota said. "Why has this come up? What are the specific pollution issues that caused us to look at this?"

Because it's a fantastic businees opportunity, probably.  Not only does it allow polluters to buy their way out of their responsibility to, you know, stop dumping poison into the water, but it also sets up a nifty secondary market for the credits.  This moring I sort of asked what we might call the new currency "mined" from Louisiana pollution and got what I thought was a clever answer.

ShitCoin

— Cade Roux (@caderoux) January 24, 2018

Whoever handles these financial instruments stands to make some money.

Sarah Mack, president of Tierra Resources, which is already creating wetlands to earn credits for sequestering carbon, with the credits bought and sold on a private market, said the department also needs to carefully review the infrastructure that will be required to run that market.

In her case, the project is co-sponsored by the Entergy Corporation, Comite Resources, and The Climate Trust, which are combining to voluntarily reduce carbon emissions blamed for global warming. The companies participate in one of several national and worldwide voluntary carbon credit trading banks.

Ha ha, yeah, that works very well.  But, hey, how much more exciting would it be if the State of Louisiana were the regulatory authority?  The great thing about Louisiana is we see an ongoing disaster like the criminal despoiling of our environment and immediately start looking for ways to parlay that into financial fraud. 

I'd like to keep following this story as it develops, but really, we should just skip to the end where everybody goes to jail.