Katrina Coverage

The AP rounds up Louisiana's plan to get billions of dollars from the feds in "$40B La. Protection Plan Sparks Debate":

A $40 billion plan to hurricane-proof the Louisiana coast has ignited a battle over how best to prevent a repeat of this year's double flooding of New Orleans.

Endorsed by the state's congressional delegation, the proposal would create a nine-member independent commission that would give Louisiana a large say in how the federal money is spent.

That's the "Pelican Commission".

The huge sums involved and the measure's plan to waive federal environmental laws underscore the dramatic steps that Louisiana lawmakers say is needed to help the state recover from one of the country's worst natural disasters.

The commission with at least five members from Louisiana would have final say over Army Corps of Engineers projects to protect New Orleans from the most potent type of hurricanes, known as Category 5, and to restore the coastline, control flooding and improve navigation.

Normal congressional processes for authorizing projects and spending money would be bypassed entirely under the proposal. Environmental laws would be waived once the commission signs off on the work plan, which the corps would have to develop in just six months.

Such an unprecedented transfer of power and money from Washington to a state usually would stand little chance of winning federal approval. Louisiana lawmakers, though, are hoping the catastrophic drubbing from hurricanes Katrina and Rita will force Congress and the White House to take a serious look at the proposal. It has been introduced as part of a broader reconstruction bill.

Translation: Our president is trying to spend his way back to some degree of popularity, so maybe we can get him to further open the wallet.

"The whole purpose is to give this a sense of urgency," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La. "We need to break out of the bureaucratic mentality where everything is studied to death."

OTOH:

"They're asking for a $40 billion blank check," said Steve Ellis, a vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It is a huge amount of money that would be essentially front-ended as appropriations, and then driven independent of Washington oversight."

Because of the following, I considered putting this under 'humor' as well:

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the proposal was "just a suggestion" and that she never intended to waive environmental laws. What is needed, she said, is a way to streamline the process so hurricane protection work can be done quickly.

"It is not our intention to loot the treasury," she said. "It is our intention to get support and help from the federal government."

You can download a copy of the legislation from Cute Little Baby Fat's site. Another download is an overview of only a couple pages and is basically all you need to know. Just look at all the dollar signs to be allocated to just about every conceivable group. They basically want to buy everyone's support.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 2nd, 2005 at 11:25 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.