Katrina-Bush and the political questions begin

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," says DiIulio. "What you've got is everything?-and I mean everything?-being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."...

"I heard many, many staff discussions but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions," he writes. "There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis, and they were even more overworked than the stereotypical nonstop, twenty-hour-a-day White House staff. Every modern presidency moves on the fly, but on social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking: discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera. Even quite junior staff would sometimes hear quite senior staff pooh-pooh any need to dig deeper for pertinent information on a given issue."

Corps projects plentiful in Louisiana
But many unrelated to flood prevention

By Michael Grunwald
The Washington Post
Updated: 11:31 p.m. ET Sept. 7, 2005

Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.

Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.

The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in use by barges traveling between the Port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study. And barges have continued to avoid the canal since the study was finished, even though they are visiting the port in increased numbers.

Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke Aug. 30. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," Dashiell said.

?'Equivalent of looting'
Yesterday, congressional defenders of the Corps said they hoped the fallout from Hurricane Katrina would pave the way for billions of dollars of additional spending on water projects. Steve Ellis, a Corps critic with Taxpayers for Common Sense, called their push "the legislative equivalent of looting."

Louisiana's politicians have requested much more money for New Orleans hurricane protection than the Bush administration has proposed or Congress has provided. In the last budget bill, Louisiana's delegation requested $27.1 million for shoring up levees around Lake Pontchartrain, the full amount the Corps had declared as its "project capability." Bush suggested $3.9 million, and Congress agreed to spend $5.7 million.

Administration officials also dramatically scaled back a long-term project to restore Louisiana's disappearing coastal marshes, which once provided a measure of natural hurricane protection for New Orleans. They ordered the Corps to stop work on a $14 billion plan, and devise a $2 billion plan instead.

But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were only designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects. Strock has also said that the marsh-restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands.

"The project manager for the Great Pyramids probably put in a request for 100 million shekels and only got 50 million," said John Paul Woodley Jr., the Bush administration official overseeing the Corps. "Flood protection is always a work in progress; on any given day, if you ask whether any community has all the protection it needs, the answer is almost always: Maybe, but maybe not."

The Corps had been studying the possibility of upgrading the New Orleans levees for a higher level of protection before Katrina hit, but Woodley said that study would not have been finished for years. Still, liberal bloggers, Democratic politicians and some GOP defenders of the Corps have linked the catastrophe to the underfunding of the agency.

"We've been hollering about funding for years, but everyone would say: There goes Louisiana again, asking for more money," said former Democratic senator John Breaux. "We've had some powerful people in powerful places, but we never got what we needed."

That may be true. But those powerful people -- including former senators Breaux, Johnston and Russell Long, as well as former House committee chairmen Robert Livingston and W.J. "Billy" Tauzin -- did get quite a bit of what they wanted. And the current delegation -- led by Landrieu and GOP Sen. David Vitter -- has continued that tradition.

The Senate's latest budget bill for the Corps included 107 Louisiana projects worth $596 million, including $15 million for the Industrial Canal lock, for which the Bush administration had proposed no funding. Landrieu said the bill would "accelerate our flood control, navigation and coastal protection programs." Vitter said he was "grateful that my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee were persuaded of the importance of these projects."

Louisiana not only leads the nation in overall Corps funding, it places second in new construction -- just behind Florida, home of an $8 billion project to restore the Everglades. Several controversial projects were improvements for the Port of New Orleans, an economic linchpin at the mouth of the Mississippi. There were also several efforts to deepen channel for oil and gas tankers, a priority for petroleum companies that drill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"We thought all the projects were important -- not just levees," Breaux said. "Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but navigation projects were critical to our economic survival."

Overall, Army Corps funding has remained relatively constant for decades, despite the "Program Growth Initiative" launched by agency generals in 1999 without telling their civilian bosses in the Clinton administration. The Bush administration has proposed cuts in the Corps budget, and has tried to shift the agency's emphasis from new construction to overdue maintenance. But most of those proposals have died quietly on Capitol Hill, and the administration has not fought too hard to revive them.

In fact, more than any other federal agency, the Corps is controlled by Congress; its $4.7 billion civil works budget consists almost entirely of "earmarks" inserted by individual legislators. The Corps must determine that the economic benefits of its projects exceed the costs, but marginal projects such as the Port of Iberia deepening -- which squeaked by with a 1.03 benefit-cost ratio -- are as eligible for funding as the New Orleans levees.

"It has been explicit national policy not to set priorities, but instead to build any flood control or barge project if the Corps decides the benefits exceed the costs by one cent," said Tim Searchinger, a senior attorney at Environmental Defense. "Saving New Orleans gets no more emphasis than draining wetlands to grow corn and soybeans."

Assigning blame
Charles Krauthammer (archive)

September 9, 2005

WASHINGTON -- In less enlightened times, there was no catastrophe independent of human agency. When the plague or some other natural disaster struck, witches were burned, Jews were massacred and all felt better (except the witches and Jews).

A few centuries later, our progressive thinkers have progressed not an inch. No fall of a sparrow on this planet is not attributed to sin and human perfidy. The three current favorites are: (1) global warming, (2) the war in Iraq and (3) tax cuts. Katrina hits and the unholy trinity is immediately invoked to damn sinner-in-chief George W. Bush.

This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I'll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship between global warming and the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Period. The problem with the evacuation of New Orleans is not that National Guardsmen in Iraq could not get to New Orleans, but that National Guardsmen in Louisiana did not get to New Orleans. As for the Bush tax cuts, administration budget requests for New Orleans flood control during the five Bush years exceed that of the five preceding Clinton years. The notion that the allegedly missing revenues would have been spent wisely by Congress, targeted precisely to the levees of New Orleans, and reconstruction would have been completed in time, is a threefold fallacy. The argument ends when you realize that, as The Washington Post notes, ``the levees that failed were already completed projects."

Let's be clear. The author of this calamity was, first and foremost, Nature (or if you prefer, Nature's God). The suffering was augmented, aided and abetted in descending order of culpability by the following:

1. The mayor of New Orleans. He knows the city. He knows the danger. He knows that during Hurricane Georges in 1998, the use of the Superdome was a disaster and fully two-thirds of the residents never got out of the city. Nothing was done. He declared a mandatory evacuation only 24 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit. He did not even declare a voluntary evacuation until the day before that, at 5 p.m. At that time, he explained that he needed to study his legal authority to call a mandatory evacuation and was hesitating to do so lest the city be sued by hotels and other businesses.

2. The Louisiana governor. It's her job to call up the National Guard and get it to where it has to go. Where the Guard was in the first few days is a mystery. Indeed, she issued an authorization for the National Guard to commandeer school buses to evacuate people on Wednesday afternoon -- more than two days after the hurricane hit and after much of the fleet had already drowned in its parking lots.

3. The head of FEMA. Late, slow and in way over his head. On Thursday he says on national television that he didn't even know there were people in the Convention Center, when anybody watching television could see them there destitute and desperate. Maybe in his vast bureaucracy he can assign three 20-year-olds to watch cable news and give him updates every hour on what in hell is going on.

4. The president. Late, slow and simply out of tune with the urgency and magnitude of the disaster. The second he heard that the levees had been breached in New Orleans, he should have canceled his schedule and addressed the country on national television to mobilize it both emotionally and physically to assist in the disaster. His flyover on the way to Washington was the worst possible symbolism. And his Friday visit was so tone-deaf and politically disastrous that he had to fly back three days later.

5. Congress. Now as always playing holier-than-thou. Perhaps it might ask itself who created the Department of Homeland Security in the first place. The congressional response to all crises is the same -- rearrange the bureaucratic boxes, but be sure to add one extra layer. The last four years of DHS have been spent principally on bureaucratic reorganization (and real estate) instead of, say, a workable plan for as predictable a disaster as a Gulf Coast hurricane.

6. The American people. They have made it impossible for any politician to make any responsible energy policy over the last 30 years -- but that is a column for another day. Now is not the time for constructive suggestions. Now is the time for blame, recriminations and sheer astonishment. Mayor Nagin has announced that, as bodies are still being found and as a public health catastrophe descends upon the city, he is sending 60 percent of his cops on city funds for a little R&R, mostly to Vegas hotels. Asked if it was appropriate to party in these circumstances, he responded: ``New Orleans is a party town. Get over it.''

This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I'll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship between global warming and the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Period.

Mr. K needs to do some fact-checking.

Quote:

This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I'll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship between global warming and the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Period.

Warm water feeds hurricanes and makes them stronger. Period.

The pair are among the 25 EMS workers and firefighters from the ruined city flown to Las Vegas with their spouses or partners for a free five-day getaway paid for largely by Allegiant Airlines, which chartered their flight from Baton Rouge, and Station Casinos Inc., which donated the rooms at the Boulder Station Hotel-Casino about 5 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip.

Surrounded by devastation back home, the stress has become too much for some on the front lines. At least two New Orleans police officers have committed suicide. Hundreds of others are unaccounted for, with some simply abandoning their posts.

FreeDuck wrote:

Mr. K needs to do some fact-checking.

Quote:

This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I'll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship between global warming and the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Period.

Warm water feeds hurricanes and makes them stronger. Period.

Ducky, you got that right. Even the fish know it. They got reservations for the cooler waters of the San Francisco Bay.

BBB

Go FreeDuck go FreeDuck...

Blessed be the factfinders.

Notice that EMS workers and firefighters are not "60 percent of the cops".

They are 0% of the cops. What was your point?

FreeDuck wrote:

Notice that EMS workers and firefighters are not "60 percent of the cops".

They are 0% of the cops. What was your point?

Mayor Nagin has announced that, as bodies are still being found and as a public health catastrophe descends upon the city, he is sending 60 percent of his cops on city funds for a little R&R, mostly to Vegas hotels.

Former FEMA chief Allbaugh in the middle

By Jonathan E. Kaplan


Joseph Allbaugh, a lobbyist who was President Bush's emergency-management chief and campaign manager, represents several clients who could reap financial rewards as the federal government spends billions of dollars to clean up New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

After departing as the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2003, Allbaugh and his wife, Diane, founded the Allbaugh Group. Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, hired the firm earlier this year, as did the Shaw Environmental Group, according to Senate lobbying disclosure records.

Both companies are working in the Gulf Coast region.

Allbaugh's wife represents Trade-Winds Environmental Restoration Inc., of Long Island, N.Y., and MLU Services, a company based in Athens, Ga., that specializes in removing debris after disasters.

Allbaugh flew to the Gulf Coast last week. His spokeswoman, Patti Giglio, said he went to coordinate private-sector relief, but did not give specifics.

"He is putting his shoulder to the wheel to mobilize the private sector, getting stuff in, getting what needs to be done done," she said, adding that he is not there to help his clients secure government contracts. "The first thing he says when he sits down with a client is, ?'Don't hire me if you're looking for a government contract.'"

Nevertheless, at least one of the Allbaugh Group's clients, MLU Services, is vying for a subcontract from the major corporations already leading reconstruction efforts.

KBR is working for the Navy and Homeland Security Department on cleanup in the Gulf. The Bush administration was criticized for suspending standard procurement rules to give no-bid contracts to companies including KBR's parent, Halliburton, in Iraq. Halliburton was previously run by Vice President Cheney.

Pentagon officials urged the U.S. Army last year to withhold millions in payments to Halliburton after finding that the company did not account for more than $1.8 billion that it had billed the government for work in Iraq and Kuwait. The company has also been accused of bribery and kickbacks.

"They're going to get hit with everything, especially from Democrats," said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, when asked whether the Bush administration faces similar criticism for relying on Halliburton and other major corporations to rebuild the Gulf Coast region.

"I think there are some laws that have to be changed, especially [when contracting] in emergency situations and the like. We'll take a thorough look at this, but we've got to allow the people on the ground to get the situation stabilized," Davis said. "We'll see if they learned anything here."

A client of Allbaugh's said the former Bush official had nothing to do with his company's business in the Gulf. "We have been a client of Allbaugh's wife," said Michael O'Reilly, president and founder of Trade-Winds, adding that the Allbaugh Group had done little work for the firm and that his company is working for pre-existing clients in the Gulf Coast.

"We have loads of private-sector clients pre-signed," he said. "We're there in a pretty large way in several areas of Louisiana."

MLU Services, which has removed debris in the wake of hurricanes in Florida and at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, is seeking work in Louisiana, said Bob Hale, a senior official at the company. MLU made national news this week when it donated seven truckloads of clean water, worth $50,000, to the residents of Biloxi, Miss.

"We're not doing any work and not gotten any work yet," Hale said, adding that MLU has an executive in the devastated region. "We're trying to secure work, and you have to be on the ground where the contractors are and the bids are let out."

After leaving FEMA, Allbaugh set up two additional outfits with the help of Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.), who until 2002 had been a successful lobbyist in Washington. New Bridge Strategies helps companies secure contracts in Iraq and Blackwell Fairbanks represents Lockheed Martin, according to Senate disclosure records.

Ashbritt Environmental, a Florida-based corporation, and Phillips & Jordan were selected by the Army Corps of Engineers before Katrina hit to lead the cleanup effort. The Corps retains Ashbritt in the event of large catastrophes such as Katrina.

Ashbritt has close ties to top D.C. lobbyists, including Barbour's former lobbying firm, Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, which helped Allbaugh set up New Bridge Strategies, according to the Barbour, Griffith's website.

Barbour helped Ashbritt seek reimbursement for work it had done in the aftermath of hurricanes in Florida, said former Rep. Johnny Hayes (D), who represented Cajun country in Louisiana before becoming a lobbyist at Adams & Reese. Hayes represents Ashbritt in Washington.

Ticomaya wrote:

They are 0% of the cops. What was your point?

Perhaps you re-read your own quote and what FreeDuck responded to that?

Walter, I know you've probably never done it before, ...

Ticomaya wrote:

FreeDuck wrote:

Notice that EMS workers and firefighters are not "60 percent of the cops".

They are 0% of the cops. What was your point?

That Mr. K needs a fact checker, same as before.

From your posted article:

Quote:

Mayor Nagin has announced that, as bodies are still being found and as a public health catastrophe descends upon the city, he is sending 60 percent of his cops on city funds for a little R&R, mostly to Vegas hotels.

There's an awful lot of falsehoods flying around, and they seem to all be coming from the same direction.