Page 14 - South Mississippi Living - January, 2025

COAST NOTE
ON THE
DOCKET
story by Lynn Lofton photo courtesy of Mississippi State Capitol
s the Mississippi State Legislature’s 2025 session gets underway, South Mississippi residents will be observing. While all state laws affect the whole state, there are some issues that will be of special interest
to Coast residents. State Senators Scott DeLano and Mike Thompson discussed three specific issues with South Mississippi Living.
Seafood labeling to enable consumers to know if seafood is local or imported has been a news item lately. “When seafood is labeled as Gulf seafood, it might be the Gulf of Tonkin,” DeLano said. “Some restaurants go to great lengths to show they’re serving local wild-caught shrimp and we need to differentiate between them.”
Thompson, who chairs the Ports and Marine Resources Committee, says whatever the bill’s final version is, it will come to his committee. “We must be very careful and deliberate.
We don’t want to end up hurting commercial fishermen. The USDA regulates labeling to certify the place of origin of food but exempts seafood.”
DeLano, who served in the House before his election to the Senate, says after considering statutory and non-statutory requirements, he thinks a hybrid bill will pass to allow state agencies to test to see if seafood is properly labeled. “We want to promote the local seafood industry.”
Another hot topic will be the rising cost of homeowners’ insurance, which Coast residents have been dealing with since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Many homeowners must have a
wind storm policy and a regular policy. “The Coast delegation has worked on this for years, and now that we’ve seen so many tornadoes in other parts of the state and their costs are going up and companies are leaving, they’re faced with some of the concerns we’ve had,” DeLano said. “I said ‘welcome to the party, guys,’”
Both senators want to write legislation that benefits the whole state. Thompson adds that insurance companies consider the state such a small market. Rather than write coverage for the whole state, they leave.
Also of interest will be any changes introduced to the existing tidelands bill which provides the state with revenue generated by commercially used tidelands water bottoms. Notably, a large part of the revenue comes from casinos. “It’s long been a battle with the secretary of state to remove locally-owned small harbors and marinas from that official’s purview,” DeLano said. “We want to
entrust counties and municipalities with that oversight.” Thompson will introduce a bill to remove inconsistencies
which have led to some court cases. “We need to clarify that and codify the regulations for site suitability,” he said.
Representing an area from Gulfport to Waveland, Thompson says he is always working on coastal restoration to make fishing more robust. “We have a tremendous opportunity now with the Army Corps of Engineers, who’re studying how the Mississippi River interacts with the state; an opportunity for our voices to be heard.”
14 | January 2025
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