[StBernard] EDITORIAL: New Orleans Betrayed

[Westley Annis]

By: The Washington Post 
Published: Sunday, January 29, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801
080.html 


Sunday, January 29, 2006; B06


IN FRONT OF the cameras last September, President Bush promised to rebuild
New Orleans. In private, White House officials told Louisiana's notoriously
argumentative politicians -- Democrats and Republicans, state and local --
to get their act together and come up with a reasonable plan, one that would
neither cost too much nor result in people rebuilding in flood-prone
districts. To many people's immense surprise, they did. In consultation with
the Urban Land Institute, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D) proposed a
logical reconstruction of his city, with buildings on higher ground to be
rebuilt first. Rep. Richard H. Baker (R-La.) proposed legislation to set up
a Louisiana Development Corp., with sufficient capital to buy back damaged
property, allow owners to move to higher, drier ground as the mayor's plan
dictated and let the state redevelop lower, wetter property as appropriate.

After much agonizing, state politicians from both parties agreed to back
these ideas. Not everyone in New Orleans liked them, and the mayor himself
sometimes seemed reluctant to defend them, but federal government support
would have helped convince people there was no other option. Until last
week, the administration was assuring Louisianans, behind the scenes, that
they were on the right track.

Now -- suddenly -- the administration has switched directions. Early last
week White House officials told Mr. Baker and other Louisiana politicians
not only that they refused to support the development corporation he
proposed but that they'd asked congressional leaders to cancel planned
hearings on the Baker bill. At his news conference last week, Mr. Bush
claimed, strangely, that "the plan for Louisiana hasn't come forward yet."
Was he misinformed or deliberately misleading?

Donald E. Powell, the administration's point man on the Gulf Coast, has
announced that all reconstruction ! money will instead be funneled to the
Gulf through the traditional met hod of block grants, $11.5 billion of which
Congress allocated last month. Already, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R)
has said he intends to use his $5.3 billion of grant money to compensate the
35,000 Mississippi homeowners who, technically located outside the flood
plain, were not required to have flood insurance but got flooded anyway.
Although this program was criticized last month by some White House
officials on the grounds that it creates a "moral hazard" -- encouraging
people who live near coasts not to buy insurance and discouraging them from
rebuilding in safer places -- this is the model that Mr. Powell, in another
about-face, now says he supports for Louisiana, too.

But it can't be a solution for New Orleans. Given the larger number of flood
victims and the more extensive damage, Louisiana's $6.3 billion will not go
far enough. Nor will money alone solve the problem of the hundreds of acres
of flooded neighborhoods or encourage people to rebuild in s! afer
locations.

Louisiana politicians are now starting from scratch. Some are working on an
alternative to the Baker bill, such as a mechanism to borrow money to set up
a smaller development entity. This time, the administration should work
closely with them and communicate its intentions clearly. Mr. Powell's job
is supposed to be one of "coordination," not "transmitter of mixed
messages." Without some mechanism to buy back land, the reconstruction of
New Orleans will be slower and less rational -- if there is any
reconstruction at all.


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The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation
Louisiana's Fund for Louisiana's People
www.louisianahelp.org