Last week, the Mississippi Development Authority did something unprecedented with the recommendations surrounding remaining BP oil spill settlement funds: Executive Director Bill Cork reviewed the Gulf Coast Restoration Fund Advisory Board’s carefully ranked list of 16 projects, kept three smaller ones, and respectfully proposed a different, more unified path for the rest.
$69 million that coastal leaders spent six months debating in open meetings didn’t vanish; it simply was suggested to be redirected toward a bigger, region-wide impact. The legislature still has the final word when the session begins in early January.
A few coastal voices cried foul. Most of us heard something else: the sound of a longtime friend of the Coast finally putting into writing what a growing number of private- and public-sector leaders – and what I have been writing about in this space for the better part of a year – have been saying out loud: we have to stop competing with each other and start competing with the world.
This isn’t the first warning shot. Last session, lawmakers paused all new GCRF spending amid budget battles, leaving more than $30 million unappropriated for the second straight year. Long Beach Mayor Tim Pierce put it plainly at a Gulf Coast Business Council meeting afterward: “We’re not acting as one coast. Every town fights for its piece.” That’s the pattern Bill Cork’s letter is trying to help us break.
Here’s what actually happened, in plain English. The advisory board vetted almost 90 applications and delivered a $62 million priority list to the MDA. Cork submitted the board’s rankings alongside his own scoring to the Legislature and recommended keeping three projects, dramatically expanding a regional revolving loan fund, and shifting the balance toward projects that are unmistakably transformative rather than purely local. Nothing has been vetoed. Everything remains on the table for lawmakers to decide.
Cork’s message was clear: good projects are no longer good enough. We need great ones who move the entire region forward.
Cork isn’t some outsider from Jackson. He ran coastal economic development before he ran MDA. He signs the big Port of Gulfport contracts. He helped restart the tech incubator at NASA’s Stennis Space Center and still teaches at the University of Southern Mississippi. When he says, “We need one real plan, not 16 ribbon-cuttings,” he’s speaking as one of us.
And he’s not alone. Gov. Tate Reeves echoed the same message during an interview on SuperTalk Mississippi on Monday, calling the Coast an “economic development goldmine” that must adopt the same kind of unified regional approach the Golden Triangle and North Mississippi have used to attract billions in private investment.
The scoreboard is brutal if we’re honest. The Golden Triangle built an $11 billion advanced-manufacturing cluster because they wrote one plan and spoke with one voice. North Mississippi built supplier ecosystems around Toyota, PACCAR, and Steel Dynamics because regionalism was mandatory, not optional.
The Area Development Partnership in the Hattiesburg area is advancing the Eagle One Mega Site – a 2,222-acre premier industrial development in Forrest and Lamar counties – through collaborative investments exceeding $18 million, including state and federal grants, to position it for transformative large-scale employers that promise generational economic growth and thousands of jobs in the Pine Belt.
All across Mississippi, leaders are breaking the status quo and trying to think regionally, leveraging resources and putting aside historical divisions. The Northwest Regional Alliance, a new multicounty economic development partnership encompassing Tate, Panola, Lafayette, and Yalobusha counties, was authorized by a House bill in March. And earlier this week, the Carroll County Board of Supervisors formalized a partnership with the Greenwood-Leflore Economic Development Foundation, officially incorporating Carroll into the organization’s mission to amplify regional economic growth in the Mississippi Delta, echoing the “strength in numbers” ethos.
Meanwhile, Coastal Mississippi still too often operates as three counties – sometimes six, sometimes 12 – chasing the same dollars with separate wish lists.
This is why we’re stuck in neutral. The Gulf Coast Restoration Fund Advisory Board does solid work, but it’s reactive with piecemeal approvals without a north star. That leaves us with strong local wins like the Pearl River County Industrial Park or Port of Gulfport expansions, yet we keep missing the synergies needed to land blue-economy hubs or major manufacturing onshoring. The Gulf Coast Business Council is the closest thing we have to a regional voice, and efforts like the Gulf Blue Initiative show real promise, but we still lack a binding, multi-stakeholder blueprint that ties it all together and forces us to act as one region.
Right now, more than 92,000 direct and indirect coastal jobs depend on gaming, government, and shipbuilding. Those industries are mature, heavily regulated, and – in the age of AI – increasingly capped. The back-office, call-center, and administrative jobs we once counted on for growth are being automated or offshored faster than we can create them. The only jobs that can’t be replaced by software are the ones where we build things – megasites, advanced manufacturing campuses, resilient port and energy infrastructure, blue-tech research-and-production clusters. Those projects don’t fit inside one city limit or one county line. They demand scale, unified site control, and one voice at the table.
If we don’t use the remaining BP settlement money to prepare and market those kinds of sites with one unified plan, those roughly 92,000 jobs are the ceiling – not the foundation – of our economy.
The BP money was never the prize. It was seed capital with a deadline. When the last check arrives in 2033, roughly three-quarters of a billion dollars will have come to the six southern counties. Spread it thin so everyone gets a turn, and we will have missed the last real chance to build the industries our grandchildren will work in.
Here’s the good news, though: the frustration some just felt is the opening we’ve needed. It’s time for GCRF 2.0 – a deliberate upgrade that keeps every dollar on the Coast while finally giving us the tools to act like one region.
Imagine legislation in 2026 that:
- Creates a statutory Coastal Mississippi Economic Development Alliance, seeded with GCRF dollars and governed jointly by the three counties, the ports, the region’s airports, the military installations, the colleges, and the private sector.
- Requires a rolling 10-year regional economic blueprint – updated every five years with public input – that every GCRF project must demonstrably advance.
- Strengthens the GCRF Advisory Board’s metrics so that transformative leverage and job creation always win, while still leaving room for quality-of-life projects that clearly drive tourism or talent retention.
- Expands the revolving loan fund so coastal entrepreneurs in blue tech, advanced manufacturing, and resilient infrastructure can grow here instead of leaving.
We did this once before. The week after Hurricane Katrina, we locked the doors, left the egos outside, and produced the most celebrated post-disaster recovery in American history.
Bill Cork didn’t draw a line in the sand. He reminded us of who we are when we decide to be great. Let’s take that reminder, pass GCRF 2.0 in 2026, and make sure our kids have a reason to come home – and have something worth building when they get here.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of SuperTalk Mississippi Media.