Matching funds: The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority governing board announced $6 million in coastal projects paid for through oil and gas royalties from the Gulf. The 11 projects, which are in Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa and Vermilion parishes, will contrib ute more than $10 million in matching funds. Read more from The Center Square.  Risk factors examined: After a report from the National Transportation Safety Board released last week identified eight bridges in Louisiana that are vulnerable to vessel strikes, Louisiana officials say the state has already examined risk factors for the bridges named in the report. The Horace Wilkinson Bridge on Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge and the Sunshine Bridge in Ascension Parish were the two Capital Region bridges named in the report. Read more from Louisiana Illuminator.  Waiting for clarity: A pile of 16,000 metric tons of steel pipes slated for a massive energy project in Louisiana is sitting in a German warehouse after the U.S. proposed putting million-dollar levies on Chinese ships docking in U.S. ports. For that particular route across the Atlantic, 80% of the ship owner’s vessels were built in China, meaning a shipment would be subject to a surcharge of between $1 million and $3 million. Depending on how the measure is applied, that could amount to double or triple the current cost of shipping the steel pipes from Germany. Read more from Bloomberg. A subscription may be required.    ...read more read less