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I'm afraid it's not stupidity, but malfeasance, likely fueled by some kind of corruption.
(It's not impossible, of course, that Louisiana's population universally hates the coastal cleanup effort and demands to stop it, no matter what it costs,and the administration just followsthe will of the people. Somehow I never heard of such unusual sentiment though.)
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_in_Their_Own_Land
The gist of it is that people think short term. They can care about the environment/greater good but if you promise them jobs/prosperity in the short term they'll usually vote for that, despite their livelihood/environment being destroyed by the industry that promised them the jobs. Then when things don't work out they blame minorities, women, etc for "cutting in line" with the help of people like Obama and democrats.
It's really not that complicated which, imo, is kind of sad.
They learn in school that "others" are to blame. (British, for starting the American revolution, Japanese for WW2). Analytic thinking is hard, especially when it doesn't fit the current narative.
As someone who grew up in Louisiana: it's all three. It's always all three.
This is at the same time the state is protecting hundreds of millions of dollars in budget deficits.
If the state doesn't have the money, cancellation sounds less expensive than completion, in the short term. Of course, the costs for not doing the coastal repairs will continue to acrue, but if there's no money, there's no money?
I feel like this story has played out so many times before with the end result being the federal government ends up paying for it but only after it becomes much more expensive than if we had paid for it much earlier? I feel like this is a defect in how we run our government.
This is a lack of controlling laws that ensure safety and compliance mechanisms for companies polluting the environment.
And why is there a lack of those kind of laws? That's something you have to remind the senators and governors of.