White House backpedals on flood control

[saintjohn]

Made you look. Here's an AP article that seems to blame the Bush administration for the flooding in New Orleans. Scroll down for the money quote:

By ANDREW TAYLOR
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House scrambled Thursday to defend itself against criticism that it has consistently proposed cutting the budget for Army Corps of Engineers water and flood control projects — including several that could have mitigated the disaster in New Orleans.

Just in February, President Bush proposed cutting the Corps' budget by 7 percent. The year before, Bush proposed a 13 percent cut.

Both cuts are part of an annual ritual in Washington in which the president shortchanges lawmakers' pet projects, knowing Congress will restore the money later on.

On Thursday, however, the Bush White House made available top Corps officials to assure reporters that cuts to the agency's budget did not cause the disaster. Even though the administration has chronically cut back on the Corps of Engineers' own requests for funding — including two key New Orleans-area projects — White House officials trumpeted the administration's support for the Corps.

"Flood control has been a priority of this administration from Day One," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who was booted as civilian head of the Corps in 2002 after criticizing the White House budget office, said Hurricane Katrina was so powerful that flooding was inevitable. But it might not have been as bad.

"I'm not saying that this would not have occurred in New Orleans in this situation," Parker told The Associated Press. "I am saying that there would have been less flooding if all the projects had been funded."

A senior Corps commander discounted the notion the disaster could have been averted by full funding of projects such as new and beefed up levees to protect against hurricane surges from Lake Pontchartrain and improving pumping and drainage capacity in New Orleans.

"These (projects) were not funded at the full ability of the Corps of Engineers to execute the project," said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers. "But the important question is, 'Would that have made a difference?' And my assessment is, no, it would not."

Read the whole thing here:

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/nation...list=hurricane

According to sources quoted in the article, the Clinton and Carter administrations bear some of the responsibility for this mess, too.

[JMT]

hmmm, St. John is taking people to school right and left.

[swirlundergrounder]

But Strock did acknowledge that more funding for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project would allow the Corps to more quickly pump out the floodwaters inundating New Orleans.

"Had we had the SELA project finished ... we could more efficiently move the water out of the system because it's a big drainage project," Strock said.

Also last night in an interview with Ted Koppel on ABC news, FEMA director Mike Brown came under fire for not adequtely preparing N.O for anything more than a category 3 hurricane in an assesment drill that they did there last year. This assesment by FEMA played a factor that contributed to the diversion of funds of the flood control project to fund construction projects in Iraq for the Army Corp of Engineers....

[swirlundergrounder]

So now I hear that the Bush Adminsitration cut funding for the Army corp of engineers in LA to stregnthen the levees 3 years in a row!!! What started 3 years ago that the adminstration had to cut funding for this project???