FEMA to reimburse Aquarium for replacing fish lost in Katrina

STAFF FILE PHOTO BY MICHAEL DEMOCKER James Arnold, curator of life support, checks on a hogfish (top) and squirrelfish he caught from the reef off Big Pine Key in Florida in 1996. FEMA will reimburse the aquarium for the cost of restocking.

By Mark Schleifstein
Staff writer
Posted by The Times Picayune
November 21, 2007

A senior FEMA official has reversed the denial of a request by the Aquarium of the Americas to be reimbursed $99,766 for replacing fish killed in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina.


Federal Emergency Management Agency regional officials had denied the request after estimating the cost of getting replacements for the 3,000 dead fish from commercial sources would be $616,849. FEMA officials determined the fish were "one of a kind" items similar to lost works of art and declared them ineligible for reimbursement.

The aquarium appealed the initial denial, reducing its request for reimbursement to the actual costs involved in its own expeditions to capture fish and of collecting fish donated by other aquariums.

FEMA denied the revised request for the same reasons, a decision affirmed earlier this year by FEMA Regional Administrator William Peterson.

But in a Nov. 20 letter, FEMA Assistant Administrator Carlos Castillo said the fish being replaced were "non-exotic" and should be considered contents eligible for replacement, just like furniture.

"The applicant has demonstrated that it was more cost effective to catch the replacement fish than to purchase the fish commercially," Castillo wrote, and is eligible for regular and overtime labor costs associated with the fish collections.

"We were expecting a good outcome on this because it made so much sense," said Audubon Nature Institute Chief Operating Officer Dale Stastny.

He said the money would plug part of the hole in the aquarium's budget caused by the Katrina-related losses, and the year-long period the attraction stayed closed to the public.

"Actually, right now, we're out chasing stingrays," he said.

John Hewitt, director of husbandry for Audubon, recently visited Landry's Restaurants' Downtown Aquarium in Houston to pick up some donated rays, and this week was at the Virginia Institute for Marine Sciences in Gloucester Point, Va. to collect several more, Stastny said.

FEMA spokesman Bob Josephson said it will still take a few weeks to complete the paperwork involved in transferring the money to the aquarium. FEMA must rewrite the request forms based on Castillo's ruling, then transfer the money to the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, which will then transfer it to the aquarium.

Josephson said the successful appeal shows FEMA's careful review of damage requests by local agencies is working.

"It's there to ensure that everything is looked at and we provide the maxium funding eligible," he said. "The important thing is that we got it right in the end."

Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504)¤826-3327.

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FEMA Flip-Flops, OKs $100K for La. Fish

FEMA Admits Fishing Expedition Paid Off, Relents on $100K Reimbursement to La. Aquarium

By JOHN MORENO
The Associated Press
November 21, 2007

NEW ORLEANS

Reversing a decision that some found bureaucratically absurd, the Federal Emergency Management Agency granted $99,766 Wednesday to an aquarium that saved taxpayers a bundle by catching replacements for the fish it lost to Hurricane Katrina.

FEMA had said that the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas needed to buy the fish from commercial vendors, a method the agency said would cost $616,849 but would comply with disaster aid laws.

When aquarium staff went out and caught them for $99,766, FEMA denied their petition for reimbursement, though the move had saved half a million dollars.


The aquarium appealed, and the dispute dragged on for 17 months until Carlos Castillo, FEMA's assistant director of disaster assistance, notified the aquarium in a letter Wednesday that the federal agency would pick up the tab after all for the aquarium's catch of 1,681 fish from the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys and Bahamas.

"We felt confident that our appeal would go through. But of course, it's a nice Thanksgiving," said Melissa Lee, a spokeswoman for the aquarium. "We'll be able to use this to make things better at the aquarium."

A linchpin of the city's tourism-based economy, the aquarium is seeing only 70 percent of its pre-storm visitors and has laid off 80 percent of its staff.

FEMA initially denied the aquarium's petition because it believed catching new fish improved the collection. Under federal law, facilities cannot be improved upon with federal money, only restored to their pre-disaster condition.

State officials say the majority of 35,000 Katrina rebuilding projects have been stalled in strict interpretations of the same law, generating mountains of paperwork in which FEMA takes stock of damages as minute as the number of pencils lost at a school.

Bob Josephson, FEMA's director of external affairs in Louisiana, said the reversal is proof that the process works.

"That's why we have a formalized appeal process, to ensure that the applicants are getting a first and second look and we are providing all the disaster assistance available," said Josephson, who was first alerted to the aquarium case by The Associated Press. "I think were always looking for cost-effective measures to save taxpayer's money."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures


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Future of levee project rests, literally, on clay

By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
November 20, 2007

Construction work continues on the 17th Street Canal near the levee wall that failed during Katrina and flooded parts of New Orleans. Photo by Chris Graythen, Getty Images

NEW ORLEANS — The project to rebuild this region's critical levee system is in need of some good old Louisiana clay.

But a clay shortage — and a subsequent rise in its price — may slow progress in rebuilding the levees in and around New Orleans.

The Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. agency in charge of the levee project, will need an estimated 145 million cubic yards of clay to fortify 350 miles of earthen levees around the greater New Orleans area, said Soheila Holley, a senior program manager with the corps charged with finding the clay.

In the two years since Hurricane Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers has only acquired 20 million cubic yards, she said. An additional 50 million cubic yards are being tested.

"This is one of the most complex issues of the hurricane protection system," Holley said, noting that Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes are nearly out of quality clay, which keeps water from penetrating levees.

Importing clay from neighboring states would add costly hauling fees, she said.

Levee and flood wall breaches were the main causes of the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans following Katrina. The corps has begun work on a $7.5 billion, 100-year hurricane protection system that includes more than 300 projects, such as reinforcing levees, installing new floodgates and closing harmful canals. A 100-year hurricane is a storm with a 1-in-100 chance of occurring in any given year.

Though it's still too early to tell what impact it may have overall, a lack of good clay could potentially impede the project's progress. "There's not enough land in the vicinity," she said. "We need a lot of material, it has to be good, and it has to be at a reasonable cost. Those are our current challenges."

Both the reddish-orange Pleistocene clay and gunmetal blue Holocene clay are found along the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana and both could make strong levees if mixed properly, said Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California-Berkley who has led studies of the levees.

The clay is found about 20 feet under backyards and fields near the riverbank, pushed there by the Mississippi over millenniums, Bea said.

The corps acquired as much of the clay as possible immediately after Katrina. But as the need for the clay increased, a new breed of entrepreneurs, known as "clay brokers," began acquiring properties from landowners and selling the clay to the corps, often at increased prices, Bea said.

DRC, a Mobile, Ala.-based construction management firm, has acquired around 10,000 acres in Louisiana containing 20 million cubic yards of clay since Katrina, said Chuck Prieur, a program manager with the firm. DRC has sold the clay for levee construction since winning a contract late last year, he said. There were 20 other firms vying for that contract, Prieur said.

"A lot of people are getting into the business of selling clay," he said. "It's a commodity we're looking to sell. The opportunity is there for potentially a good profit."

Clay prices soared to around $80 a cubic yard immediately after the hurricane, then settled to $20 to $30 a cubic yard this year, Prieur said. The clay sold for around $10 a cubic yard pre-Katrina, Bea said.

For now, the Corps of Engineers is trying to deal directly with landowners and avoid the brokers to keep costs down, Holley said. But as clay becomes scarcer, the agency may have to go to market for the firm earth, she said.

"We'll avoid that to the point we can avoid it," Holley said. "But there may be a point where we'll have to."


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Debate commission releases its evaluation of city's application

Posted by NOLA.com November 20, 2007

Three Democratic presidential candidates Tuesday chided the Commission on Presidential Debates for not selecting New Orleans for one of four nationally televised debates next year.

Meanwhile, amid speculation that partisan politics dealt New Orleans out of the mix, the commission's co-chairman denied that the decision was based on anything but the merits of the 16 cities that applied to host the debates.

Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., one-time chairman of the Republican National Committee, brushed aside speculation that Republicans vetoed New Orleans as a presidential debate backdrop for fear that the Bush administration's hapless response to Hurricane Katrina would reflect poorly on them.


"That's stupid," Fahrenkopf said. "This isn't a bunch of fly-by-night politicians making these decisions. We don't play games."

New Orleans, the acknowledged sentimental favorite in the competition to host one of four debates in 2008, lost out to Oxford, Miss.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Hempstead, N.Y. St. Louis was chosen to host a vice presidential debate.

The decision prompted criticism from three Democratic presidential candidates. Five Democrats and two Republicans running for president had urged the commission to schedule one of the debates in New Orleans.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said the commission "missed a golden opportunity to show New Orleans that the entire country is committed to its recovery," while Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said the event would have provided "an economic boon to the city" and reminded Americans "about the unmet promise to rebuild and restore the Gulf Coast."

Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who launched his presidential bid in New Orleans, urged the panel to reconsider.

"As a nation, all of us have a responsibility to do everything we can to help rebuild this great city, and holding national events in this city, like a presidential debate, will help New Orleans move forward," Edwards said.

Private group, private files

A day after the decision was announced, questions continued to swirl about why post-Katrina New Orleans -- which successfully played host to the 2007 Sugar Bowl, has staged numerous conventions and was chosen as the locale for the 2008 NBA All-Star Game -- didn't make the cut.

Contributing to the confusion is the secretive way the commission operates. It provides no formal explanation about why certain cities are chosen and others are not, leaving the losing bidders to speculate about how their applications were deficient.

Asked whether the commission would be willing to make public its evaluation of New Orleans' bid, Fahrenkopf declined.

"We're a private group. We're not going to produce our files," he said.

The only document made available Tuesday was released by Anne Milling, founder of the hurricane recovery group Women of the Storm, which spearheaded the debate application. It was a Sept. 24 e-mail from Janet Brown, executive director of the commission, which indicated that the panel was concerned that promises made by the city would be kept.

"Important questions have arisen concerning the bid from New Orleans," Brown wrote. The e-mail went on to say that given the "unique configuration" of the New Orleans bid, the commission wanted to know which organizations would "accept legal responsibility for performing which tasks."

Norman Francis, president of Xavier University, said Fahrenkopf gave him a specific reason for the denial Monday before the decision was announced. Francis said he was told that New Orleans' primary arena for the debate, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, lacked the necessary technological capabilities. Francis, whose school would have been one of four colleges hosting the event, dismissed the suggestion as nonsense.

Milling said she was told by the other commission co-chairman, Paul Kirk Jr., that the city had not recovered sufficiently from Hurricane Katrina to stage the event.

Kirk, former head of the Democratic National Committee, didn't return phone calls, but denied that account in an interview in The New York Times. Milling on Tuesday stood by her version of the conversation.

The paucity of details led to speculation about the reasons for the snub. Francis suggested that the city was too dramatic a setting for members of the commission who may have been nervous that scenes of destruction and despair more than two years after Hurricane Katrina would be embarrassing.

"There is no rational earthly reason that we weren't ready to host a presidential debate," Francis said. "If the word was that New Orleans wasn't ready, that's not the issue. They weren't ready for us."

No disrespect intended

Fahrenkopf said the decision not to pick New Orleans "should not be interpreted as an attack" on the city or its "ability to handle an event."

He could point to no specific criterion -- facilities, transportation, hotels, communications -- that the city would be unable to provide.

Like Fahrenkopf, Mike McCurry, another commissioner and the former spokesman for President Clinton, brushed aside suggestions that politics played a role in the decision.

McCurry, who has rebuilt houses in Gentilly and the Lower 9th Ward since the 2005 storm, said "so many of us had sympathy for New Orleans. We really wanted to make it work."

He said there was "no stronger advocate at the beginning than Frank" Fahrenkopf, who organized the 1988 Republican presidential nominating convention in the city.

"At the end of the day it's not about giving community a boost, but letting every American voter see the debate," McCurry said. "Fundamental things have to come together and they weren't coming together in New Orleans."

He added, "Everyone (on the commission) said we will actively solicit New Orleans four years from now."

-----

Bill Walsh can be reached at bill.walsh@newhouse.com or (202) 383-7817.

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Letter to WSJ: Retract False Statement Regarding Scruggs

VIA EMAIL AND FACSIMILE
E-mail: wsj.itrs@wsj.com
Editor
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281

Re: Your Editorial of November 15,2007, "Mississippi Hoods"

To the Editor:

The Wall Street Journal should immediately retract a false statement regarding my client attorney Richard F. Scruggs contained in its November 15,2007 editorial entitled "Mississippi Hoods. "

The editorial purports to recount events leading up to a lawsuit brought by E.A. Renfroe & Co., Inc. against their former employees Cori Rigsby and Kerri Rigsby. Renfroe sued the Rigsbys after they went public with evidence they believe shows that State Far (one of Renfroe's largest clients) wrongfully denied insurance coverage to victims of Huricane Katrina.



The Journal asserts that "Mr. Scruggs convinced two Renfroe employees-sisters Cori Rigsby Moran and Kerri Rigsby-to steal documents to aid his civil litigation against State Far."

This statement is false. First, it is not true that Mr. Scruggs "convinced" the Rigsbys to copy State Farm's documents. Many months before they first met Mr. Scruggs, the Rigsbys independently concluded that State Farm was treating its policyholders unfairly, and they began collecting evidence of what they observed. Indeed, Cori Rigsby has testified that she and Kerri Rigsby decided "on our own" to copy a batch of documents in June 2006. Mr. Scruggs commends the Rigsbys for their courage and determination.

Second, neither of the Rigsbys ever "stole" any documents. As they have testified repeatedly, they copied documents evidencing what they saw as State Farm's unfair practices, but they did not take original State Farm documents. The Rigsbys had the right to make such copies to provide them to law enforcement and others with an interest in investigating and correcting the fraud they believe has occurred.

The Journal's November 15, 2007 editorial concludes with the line "You can't make this stuff up." Yet, with the respect to the above statement, it appears that the Journal did just that. Accordingly, I insist that the Journal issue an immediate retraction.

Very truly yours,

John W. Keker

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New Orleans flood-control system not as advertised

The Army Corps of Engineers test canal pumps in New Orleans in August.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- A system of floodgates and pumps built since Hurricane Katrina to help alleviate flooding in several New Orleans neighborhoods may not be as much help as authorities first said.

The Army Corps of Engineers released flood risk maps on a block-by-block basis on June 20, but didn't include some technical data, preventing independent assessments of the accuracy of the maps.

The maps showed that the improvements made to the city canals' drainage systems would reduce flooding during a major storm by about 5.5 feet in Lakeview and nearby neighborhoods. The maps were based on a storm that has the likelihood of occurring at least once in 100 years.

But in a report released November 7, Corps scientists estimated that the actual benefit the system would provide would be just 6 inches. [Emphasis added.]

The discrepancy was tucked into the voluminous report's appendices, and neither the Corps nor the scientists hired to conduct the study brought the changes to the public's attention when the report was released. It wasn't until New Orleans television station WWL-TV asked an engineer involved in the assessment about the discrepancy that it became known.

"We've made some corrections," the engineer, Ed Link, told The Associated Press on Friday night.

Link said the mistakes were apparently made in the calculations for two sub-basins that include Lakeview and nearby neighborhoods. In one, a minus sign was used instead of a plus sign.
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Ivor van Heerden, a hurricane and levee expert with Louisiana State University, said the mistakes are the latest example of sloppiness and a lack of scientific peer review in Corps work.

"It's people's lives we're playing with and all we're getting is fuzzy science," van Heerden said.

Walter Baumy, a chief Corps engineer in New Orleans, said he was unfamiliar with the mistakes, but said, "I wouldn't contest what Dr. Link says."

But he added that the floodgates installed on the canals have given New Orleans "far superior" protection.

Donald Powell, federal coordinator for Gulf Coast rebuilding, said in a statement he was only informed of the errors in the maps on Friday night.

"Our team immediately contacted Dr. Link to express my strong concerns and my expectations on how the public will be better informed in the future. While the news is disappointing, it is an indication that the ongoing review process of the draft materials is working as intended."

Other Corps officials would not comment on the mistakes or did not return telephone calls.

Tami Do, 46, said she and her family rebuilt in Lakeview because they felt the Corps was doing a good job. Now, she said, her faith is shaken.

"I have confidence in what they're doing all along the levee, with the pumps. That's one of the reasons we're back here," she said. "But these kinds of things put doubt back in your mind. If they got this wrong, what else have they gotten wrong?"

Her husband, Tommy Do, wondered if the mistake would mean an increase in insurance rates, or perhaps a change in building requirements.

"Now all these people who have built these $300,000, $400,000 homes should be higher?" Tommy Do said. "That's not good. We're going to have to sue the Corps again!"


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Court refuses to bar high-profile lawyer from State Farm case

Posted on Mon, Nov. 19, 2007
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS -- A federal appeals court refused Monday to bar a prominent attorney from representing a Mississippi resident in a lawsuit against State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. over Hurricane Katrina damage.

State Farm failed to show the "extraordinary circumstances" that would call for disqualifying Richard "Dickie" Scruggs from the case, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal ruled. The case is one of hundreds Scruggs' firm has filed against the Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer for denying policyholders' claims after Katrina.

State Farm accuses Scruggs of violating ethical rules for attorneys through his work with two sisters who helped the company adjust claims on Mississippi's Gulf Coast after the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.

The company claims Scruggs improperly used internal State Farm records he obtained from the sisters, Cori and Kerri Rigsby. Scruggs has said those records support accusations that State Farm fraudulently denied policyholders' claims after Katrina.

In a September ruling, U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter, Jr., in Gulfport, Miss., questioned why State Farm waited more than a year to seek Scruggs' removal from the case on those ethical grounds. Senter didn't take a position on the ethical violations, but refused to prohibit Scruggs from representing any policyholders with suits against State Farm.

State Farm challenged Senter's ruling, but the 5th Circuit upheld the judge's decision.

"Without deciding the contested issue of ethics, we are satisfied that Judge Senter has carefully weighed the balance between the need to ensure ethical conduct on the part of lawyers and other social interests, including litigants' right to choose their counsel," the panel said in a three-page ruling.

Scruggs, whose firm is based in Oxford, Miss., said he is grateful that the court rejected State Farm's "New York-style" legal tactics.

"This is what New York law firms do to each other routinely: try to disqualify each other," he said. "It doesn't work in New York. It shouldn't work here."

Scruggs' work with the Rigsby sisters also is the subject of a criminal contempt case in Alabama.

U.S. District Judge William Acker accused Scruggs of disobeying a court order to turn over all the documents he obtained from the sisters, who worked for a company that contracted with State Farm. After U.S. Attorney Alice Martin in Birmingham, Ala., declined to prosecute Scruggs, Acker appointed special prosecutors to handle the contempt case.

Scruggs was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court in north Alabama, but all judges in that district have agreed to disqualify themselves from hearing the case. Scruggs had questioned whether they could be impartial because they work alongside Acker.

A federal appeals court in Atlanta is expected to appoint another judge in a different district to preside over the case.


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Florida: Hurricane Damage & Denial of Coverage - Citizens Property Insurance Corporation

The following is a story written by a Citizens Property Insurance Corporation customer living on the east coast of Florida. It alleges that the company canceled the family's wind-only insurance policy without giving proper notice. Four major hurricanes ravaged Florida between August and September 2004.

After Hurricane Frances we called Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to file our claim. After hours on the phone, I was advised by a customer services representative at Citizens Property Insurance Corporation that our Wind-Only policy was cancelled almost exactly one year ago due to non-payment. We received no notice, written or otherwise, of the impending cancellation of the policy and we received no notice when our policy was indeed cancelled. We were shocked because for the previous 12 months, we had taken comfort in the fact that our home and its contents were properly insured.

Like most people, our property taxes and insurance are paid from our escrow account with our mortgage company. Our mortgage company claims that it never received a bill from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation for the insurance premium so it went unpaid. Our insurance agent claims not to have received notice from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation of the impending cancellation of the policy and claims further that he did not receive notice from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation when the policy was indeed cancelled. And, as I indicated above, we, the homeowners, received nothing from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation concerning a lapse or cancellation of our policy.

The only document we received from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation was a renewal notice from approximately one year ago which was clearly marked "THIS IS NOT A BILL. THE PAYOR OF YOUR POLICY HAS BEEN INVOICED" and "DO NOT PAY." It appears that Citizens Property Insurance Corporation did not notify the homeowner, the lending institution or the insurance agent of record of the potential for cancellation due to nonpayment despite the fact that the insurance premium was sitting in our escrow account waiting to be paid.

As it stands now, we do not have a hurricane or wind insurance policy for our home but we feel in our hearts that the responsibility for our lack of insurance rests with someone other than us, the homeowners. We feel confident that there are others in a similar predicament. We would like to band together with those individuals to see if there is something that we can do to have our insurance reinstated at its last premium rate and recoup the losses we have incurred due to Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan.

If your policy was canceled by Citizens Property Insurance without your knowledge, it may be important to contact an attorney who can help protect your legal rights. Please keep in mind that there may be time limits within which you must commence suit.

Attorneys associated with InjuryBoard.com will evaluate your case free of charge. In addition, you will not pay any fees unless your attorney recovers money for you. Please click Ask An Attorney to take advantage of this valuable service.

Story from InjuryBoard.com.

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Hurricane Recovery Legislation Would Give Katrina Survivors Permanent Shelter, Peace of Mind

By Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League
November 19, 2007

FEMA trailer parks seem to be providing the backdrop for growing mental health problems among Gulf Coast residents ravaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That is where suicide attempts are 79 times the national average. More than two years after the storm devastated the region, survivors continue to reel from the pain, thanks in part to the anxiety created by a sluggish recovery process.

"The mental toll of a lack of permanent housing is indescribably great," writes Joshua Norman of McClatchy Newspapers in a story from early October. "FEMA trailer parks are therefore the epicenter of any post-Katrina mental-health crisis."

The mental wear and tear is enough to drive the sanest person mad - let alone victims traumatized by the nation's worst natural disaster in 70 years and most expensive.

So, it should come as no surprise that the incidence of mental illness among these survivors has actually increased since 2005.


Usually, most cases of mental illness caused by a traumatic event are resolved within two years of a traumatic event. Thanks to the slow state of recovery, the Katrina nightmare continues to haunt survivors years later.

Last month, Dr. Ron Kessler of Harvard Medical School testified before a key congressional panel that one year after the disaster, he observed extraordinary resilience and optimism among the nearly 1,100 Katrina survivors he surveyed. Since then, that sense of hope has turned into resignation and despondency.

According to Kessler's study, the estimated incidence of serious mental illness rose to 14 percent among residents of storm-town regions of the Gulf Coast, up from nearly 11 percent since the disaster struck. That of mood and anxiety disorders increased by a comparable rate to 33 percent and that of post-traumatic stress rose 50 percent. In New Orleans proper, rates of all types of mental disorders stayed steady.

"The numbers tell the story of the federal government's continuing failures of Hurricane Katrina survivors," states a recent Seattle Post-Intelligencer op-ed. "Could there be any clearer sign that we are failing a whole region of this country in a time of need?"

To add to Katrina victims' anxiety levels, efforts in the U.S. Senate to push through legislation designed to bring relief to Gulf Coast residents affected by Katrina appear to be facing opposition from a member of the Louisiana congressional delegation splitting hairs over public housing provisions.

Immediately after Katrina hit, the National Urban League issued a plan of action for the Gulf Coast known as "The Katrina Bill of Rights." Of these rights, the "Right to Return" stands as a cornerstone where we call upon Congress to "... guarantee to every evacuee and every resident the right to return to their home." That, "every family should have the chance to come back to their hometown or neighborhood if they so choose."

Introduced last June by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), the legislation, known as the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act, proposes important and needed steps forward as well resources to make the "Right of Return" happen for thousands of lower-income families who need safe and affordable housing - whether as renters or homeowners - to reclaim their lives. It is currently awaiting Senate Banking Committee action. A comparable bill passed the House in March by a commanding margin.

In the words of the Post-Intelligencer editorial, "it would be easy to lay all of this on the Bush administration, especially since it has been trying to rewrite the Katrina history to escape most blame." But Congress is equally responsible for ensuring that Gulf Coast residents devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are not forgotten, given the outpouring of popular support for the victims following the disaster.

The U.S. Senate must resist in-fighting and quibbling over the details of efforts to enable Gulf Coast residents to reclaim their previous lives and put the tragedy behind them. I urge our nation's senators to act swiftly on this important issue.


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NPR Missed the Political Boat on Bush's Buyout Program

by Ana Maria

Last week, I became aghast at NPR’s story “Feds Propose Massive Buyout for Mississippi Coast.” What a remarkable contrast between NPR failure to provide a full picture of life on the ground here in Bay St. Louis—the target of Bush’s buyout and the home town of Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS), and Bill Moyer's reporting on PBS titled Recovery Gone Wrong? regarding the horrendous obstacles severely hindering our vibrant recovery.

NPR’s story didn’t air any response from Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS), who has been a tireless and outspoken advocate for South Mississippi’s recovery efforts AND who lives in the very town that is the target of Bush’s proposed $40 billion buyout boondoggle. I'm sure that Taylor would have been more than willing to interview about such a critical matter in his district, his hometown at that. Besides, he interviews well and makes for great quotes. Taylor’s public response to Bush’s proposal is more than telling and proves my point.

"Five words: 'It ain't going to happen,' " says Rep. Gene Taylor (D) of Mississippi, who's in the midst of rebuilding his Bay St. Louis home. "There's no money for it, there's no will for it, and there's no public support for it. That's 0 for 3."

NPR missed the simple fact that Bush’s proposed $40 billion federal buyout program has no Congressional support. However, NPR provided plenty of time for Bush's agency to spout the White House talking points on the matter. Yet, not a smidgen to Congressman Taylor. [Note to NPR: How about a follow up interview with Taylor to provide the balance that this story failed to achieve?]

NPR’s story also missed the bigger picture, which yours truly wrote last month in the Bay St. Louis political blog A.M. in the Morning!

Can it be merely coincidental that Bush’s buyout plan is targeting the hometown of the man spearheading the effort to ensure that whenever an American family or business owner purchases insurance for both wind and flood, that they actually get paid on their wind policy for the damages wind causes? In a word, no.

With so much airtime dedicated to the Corps’ mouthpieces, NPR didn’t apparently found not time to view the excerpts of Taylor's Insurance Reform Town Hall meeting uploaded on YouTube.


Not a single member of that panel talking before a standing-room only capacity venue spoke about a need for the federal government to wall off the beach and pay to haul us off of our land and out of our homes. Not ONE. Telling, isn't it?

Rather, everyone of the panelists—which included the local chamber, regional bank chair, and vice-president of the state wind pool—spoke about the fact that we need the ability to purchase a single wind-water insurance policy so that we can rebuild our homes, our lives, and our communities. They spoke of the immense hardship that the insurance industry has placed on the families and small business owners.

Had Bush ensured that the insurance industry live up to the financial obligations to its customers and actually paid off on the wind coverage of the homeowner insurance policies, the only kind of press that Bush’s Corps would be receiving would be the kind that mock its utter stupidity.

Rather the story could center upon this question.

Why on earth would Bush’s federal agency propose buying up homes and businesses that had already been rebuilt—to better standards, of course—and do so long after everything had been returned to normalcy, long after the party decorations celebrating the remarkably vibrant recovery been put away?!

So what is preventing our remarkably vibrant recovery? PBS reported on certain quintessential elements.

“ . . .critical to short-term recovery: construction-sector capacity; availability of funds to finance recovery; and an adequate supply of housing, especially affordable housing, for those whom the storm displaced from their residences.”

No one is suggesting much less saying that we need a $40 billion government home buy out program. No one.

However, what has actually occurred is an unanticipated, unstated insurance industry bailout. Yes, an unstated insurance industry bailout. The recovery hasn’t occurred because the financing that home and business owners had expected to receive from their insurance companies didn’t come through because the insurance companies essentially swindled those policy funds from us.

Last week, NBC reported on the Bush White House spending upwards of over $200,000 for many of FEMA’s formaldehyde-filled, Barbie doll-sized trailers—housing money that the insurance industry should have paid out of the cost of living end of the homeowner insurance coverage. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in which it had analyzed FEMA costs for trailers in Mississippi only. It found $30 million in wasted funding here in Republican Governor Haley Barbour’s state.

PBS reported that Barbour, the once powerful corporate lobbyist and former RNC chair, had successfully gotten his strong connections in DC to waive many of the requirements on the federal money Congress had allocated for Mississippi’s recovery. Other states, such as our neighboring Louisiana, were not afforded this luxury.

Of course, here along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we have no sense of luxury. Heck, from homes to gas stations, essentials remain absent. Plenty of families remain unable to go home for their home remains uninhabitable or non-existent. There still remains not a single gas station along the 30 plus beach front miles on Highway 90 from Pass Christian to Biloxi, Miss.

What Barbour has done of late is propose scurrying away $600 million of the lower income housing funds to pay for the rebuilding and expansion of the state’s port in Gulfport, Miss.

Look, everyone wants that port rebuilt, and expansion sounds pretty good, as well. Just not on the backs of the lower income families in South Mississippi.

As PBS pointed out, as the once powerful corporate lobbyist and former powerful chair of the Republican National Committee, Barbour has access to plenty of capitol without touching the money Congress had intended for the housing needs for South Mississippi lower income families. Barbour can surely to goodness find the money for the expansion from elsewhere and not steal away the dreams of Mississippi families rebuilding their homes and coming back to their lives built up over years here in South Mississippi.

NPR also mentioned that the Corps talked to 20 people at its Gulfport meeting. Again NPR failed to mention that the Corps’ meeting here in Bay St. Louis drew a crowd of many hundreds furious at the idea of walling off our town and hauling off its residents—and the Corps had very poorly advertised the meeting. Imagine the turnout if it had actually wanted us to know of its secret program?

The real story is that the Corps of Engineers would not have a political leg to stand on had Bush merely used the bully pulpit to bully his corporate buddies in the insurance industry to pay up on their financial obligations regarding the wind coverage of home and commercial business owners’ insurance policies.

Bush should have leveraged the power of the bully pulpit to call press conferences which would have been viewed on every television news program, read in every newspaper, and heard on every radio program. Bush should have banged the drum that the American people expect the ‘good hands’ and ‘good neighbor’ companies to do right by the American families and businesses, families and businesses that continue to be responsible for the profits those companies fully enjoy . . . THEN we wouldn’t be having any discussion of how NPR missed the proverbial boat on the story’s real context regarding Bush’s politically-motivated, revenge-filled buyout plan.

What's the revenge part?

In September of this year, Taylor has already successfully led the effort to successfully pass overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives and with bi-partisan support (263 - 146), his landmark legislation to provide wind coverage as an option to the nation's flood insurance program. It is only a matter of time before it passes the Senate and is signed into law by the President--even if it means we wait until 2009 with a Democratic President of the United States in the White House.

Taylor's landmark Multiple Peril Legislation protects home and business owners from the ravages of Big Insurance greed. Corporate greed is like oxygen to the Bush Administration's Big campaign contributors. Taylor's legislation potentially removes billions of dollars of profit, which the greedy gutted goons in insurance corporations have been able to swindle from us carte blanch.

Targeting Taylor's hometown with a bogus $40 billion buyout program is political revenge straight out of Karl Rove's political playbook.

© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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