Congress to Vote on $10B Katrina Package

SFGate reported The Bush administration intends to seek more than $10 billion to cover immediate relief needs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, congressional officials said Thursday, and lawmakers made plans to approve the request by the weekend. Several officials said $10 billion would cover immediate costs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the government's front-line responder in cases of natural disasters. Several hundred million dollars would also be provided to fund the Pentagon's disaster relief efforts, congressional aides said. FEMA is spending more than $500 million a day as it struggles to respond to devastating flooding in New Orleans and severe destruction that spans the length of the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida. That requires an immediate infusion of cash, said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., with at least two subsequent bills to follow.

I agree to this bill, which covers getting people out, but I would oppose any bill to spend federal funds on rebuilding.

He said a second bill would be needed in two or three weeks at current spending rates, with another bill to follow that one after better damage estimates are in hand....Asked in an interview with the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago paper, whether it makes sense to spend billions rebuilding a city that lies below sea level, a reference to New Orleans, Hastert replied, "I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me." He added it was a question "that certainly we should ask. And, you know, it looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed."

Hastert is right. No rebuilding should be done unless everything is built on columns at least 25 feet tall, and capable of being underwater for a long time. A city that is 10 to 15 feet below sea level, and subject to flooding should any levee break, is absolute foolishness.

Hastert expressed sympathy for victims of the hurricane and said "we are going to rebuild this city. We can help replace, we can relieve disaster."

Brad Plumer blogged Dennis Hastert of all people asks the offensive-but-important question: Should New Orleans even be rebuilt? No, really. Looking at this New York Times article drives home the point that this man vs. nature fight going on in the Mississippi Delta will ultimately be won by nature. The patchwork of dams and levees erected alongside the river over the years have prevented much-needed sediment and other minerals from being deposited on much of the land, including the area on which New Orleans sits. As a result, the riverbed and lake keeps rising, while the city keeps sinking further and further down into the ground. And diverting the river has allowed salt water from the Gulf of Mexico to erode the wetlands of southern Louisiana, crumbling the state away into the sea.

How much longer is this sustainable? Maybe Hastert's right; maybe it would make more sense to take this opportunity to just pack up and move the whole city somewhere else; because it's ultimately unsustainable, and nature is going to work faster to attack the city than the labyrinth of city boards and councils will work to defend it.

Barbara O'Brien blogged House Speaker Dennis Hastert is getting flack for something he said this morning