[StBernard] Governor Blanco's letter to Senator Vitter

[Westley Annis]

Governor Blanco's letter to Senator Vitter 

The Honorable Senator David Vitter 
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510 
Sent via Fax

Dear Senator Vitter, 

I could not agree with you more that strengthening the federal levees must
be our state's top recovery priority. As you know, I already sent you and
all the members of the Louisiana delegation a letter asking for $5 billion
for the Corps of Engineers for levees in the supplemental appropriations
bill. For your reference, I have attached that letter. 

But, I will not sit idly by as Congress attempts to provide relief to
homeowners in Mississippi without providing assistance to Louisiana's
homeowners. Relief and recovery funds ought to be distributed based on
damages, and we have 70,000 destroyed homes outside of the floodplain.
Mississippi has less than 30,000.

That is why in my appropriations request I also asked for $12.1 billion for
Community Development Block Grant (CDGB) assistance and ask that you fully
support this effort. As I said in my letter, Louisiana needs safe
communities and strong communities. We should not allow our homeowners to be
shortchanged by the Corps of Engineers efforts to fund their vital work with
monies intended to help us rebuild homes. 


Sincerely, 

Kathleen Babineaux Blanco 

Below is Governor Blanco's December 10, 2005 letter to Senator Vitter.

December 10, 2005

The Honorable Senator David Vitter 
United States Senate
576 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510 

Dear Senator Vitter: 

As the appropriations process quickly winds up for the year and Congress
moves forward to address the needs of the coastal state post-Katrina and
Rita, I have been working closely with the Louisiana Recovery Authority to
identify feasible solutions to all of the complex issues our state is
facing. Based on their research with state and local stakeholders and
conversations with you and your staff, we have put together what we believe
is a strong statement of our immediate needs and the funding needed to carry
out these needs by May 2006. I look forward to working with you in the
upcoming days to support the President's supplemental appropriations
proposal and to enhance it by providing other critical funding to Louisiana
so we can repair, rebuild and revitalize our communities.

Rebuilding safe communities by investing in a strong and comprehensive
hurricane protection and coastal restoration program is the most important
recovery initiative. For the citizens of Louisiana to feel safe in returning
to their homes, it is imperative that the levees be restored to true
category-three protection and that a commitment to protect against a
category-five hurricane is made. In light of this, I am requesting that you
work to add to President Bush's request for $1.6 billion at least another
$1.5 billion in funding to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to repair and
enhance hurricane protection, flood control, and navigation systems damaged
by the storms. The additional $1.5 billion would provide the Corps
sufficient funds to meet an identified shortfall in hurricane protection
levels of a category-three storm and to initiate other improvements that can
be immediately identified. I also ask that you further support $2 billion in
additional appropriati! ons as a down-payment to begin the construction of a
hurricane protection and coastal restoration system that will provide
protection against category-four and five storms. This down payment can be a
start, but must be supplemented by a future legislation to provide Louisiana
with a dedicated share of Outer Continental Shelf revenues that we can use
to build a comprehensive coastal protection system that will protect our
citizens, communities, and coast from the category five hurricanes. 

We must rebuild our communities safer, and also stronger. One of the best
tools for helping communities do just that after disasters like Hurricane
Andrew and 9-11 is the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). I would
like to offer my strong endorsement to the efforts of many of you who are
working to include an increase in CDBG funding in the President's
Supplemental Appropriations request for the Gulf Coast states and to ask all
of you to support my request for an allocation of $12.13 billion in CDBG
funds for Louisiana. After assessing and studying the use of CDBG funds
after past disasters as well as the needs of Louisiana that must be met
before May 2006, we believe that $12.13 billion in CDBG funds can help us
address our most critical rebuilding needs. 

With these funds and appropriate language to provide flexibility, we can
address such projects as long-term housing assistance and reconstruction,
business loans and grants, workforce training and retention assistance;
redevelopment of sewage and water infrastructure and utilities; restoration
of the higher education institutions, support for the criminal justice
system, and the provision of interoperable communications to state and local
first responders. 

Both of these requests are critical: we need hurricane protection and
coastal restoration and we need Community Development Block Grants.
Louisiana should not have to sacrifice the recovery of our communities for
their protection. We cannot choose between safe and strong communities, we
must have both. 

Additionally, the state's farms, fisheries, and forests were devastated. So
we ask that Congress appropriate $1.3 billion to help repair our sugarcane,
cotton, rice, dairy, and livestock industries and the forest lands,
watersheds, and waterways. This money would be used for Rural Community
Advancement Funds for water waste disposal grants, direct and guaranteed
loans, emergency community water assistance grants, and community facility
grants.

Finally, I am requesting that Congress provide the state a waiver of its
portion of the cost share for Katrina- and Rita-related assistance provided
through FEMA's Public Assistance, Individual Assistance, and other federal
disaster relief programs. The State was presented with an estimate of $3.7
billion as our cost share of these storms. The State is not in the financial
position to pay this bill as you well know. The cost share requirements were
waived for both New York post-9/11 and Florida and Louisiana post-Hurricane
Andrew. The damage to Louisiana was much greater than these two storms
combined and we would ask that Louisiana and the state's affected by
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita be afforded this assistance now.

Please weigh in with the Appropriations Chairmen and Ranking Members in both
the House and Senate to support these requests. Should you have any
questions, please feel free to call me.

Again, thank you for your strong leadership on these issues and your
consideration of these important requests. I look forward to working with
you and can provide any additional information you or your staff may need to
review the requests in this letter. If I can be of any assistance, please do
not hesitate to contact me. 

Sincerely,

Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
Governor



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The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF), Louisiana''s fund for
Louisiana''s people, has been established by Governor Kathleen Babineaux
Blanco in order to support long-term family restoration and recovery and
help provide assistance to our citizens in need through a network of
Louisiana charities and non-profit agencies. 

1-877-HELPLA1 (877-435-7521) www.louisianahelp.org