[StBernard] Snippet of Press Conference with Pres. Bush

[Westley Annis]

Full transcript is available here:
<"http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-
10-2006/0004317915&EDATE=">

Q    Mr. President, I publish in the southern and eastern suburbs of Baton
Rouge, Louisiana.

    THE PRESIDENT:  There you go.

    Q    I know you've heard a lot of complaints from Louisiana, and seen a
lot of hands out.  I would like to thank you for your personal interest, and
also for all the money.  (Laughter.)
    My Congressman, Richard Baker, came up with the idea of employing a
federal entity to buy out property in New Orleans, and sell it back into
commerce selectively.  It seemed to have a political consensus in Louisiana
from both parties, it got to your office and was rejected.

    THE PRESIDENT:  Correct.

    Q    Can you talk a little bit about the problems that you see with
Richard's plan?  And also you're still about to send billions more down to
us.
How would you like to see that money handled, since you've been to us 10
times?

    THE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you.  First of all, I want to thank the
people
of Baton Rouge, for being so generous to the evacuees.  I want to thank my
fellow Texans for being generous to evacuees, and I'm sure people throughout
-
- I'll bet you most of you are involved with communities that said, welcome.
And that was a fantastic gesture of kindness by the American people, by the
way.
    I felt like there was a better approach to the housing issue.  He's
talking about a good fellow, a really good guy, named Richard Baker, came up
with a plan that basically had the government buying the property, getting
developers to develop the property, and to the extent that money was not
recovered, the government would basically be the banker.
    Working with the folks -- let me step back.  Right off the bat, I knew
it
was important for Louisiana to develop its own plan, not have the federal
government say, this is the -- impose a plan, but to have the folks in
Louisiana come up and develop a plan.  We obviously have interfaced with
them,
because as you recognize, in kind of a cavalier way, thanks for all the
money.
(Laughter.)  Well, not "cavalier."  You made sure you mentioned it, let me
put
it to you that way.  (Laughter.)
    And Louisiana had the Baker plan, but also was developing another plan,
as
well, and one that we agreed to.  Governor Blanco has put together a
citizens
group of distinguished people, good, honorable people, who are working
closely
with the group that Mayor Nagin put together, to develop a plan that will
take
CDBG money, and money I've requested in the supplemental, to basically have
money that goes directly to the home owner.  I like that idea better than
the
government moving in and becoming the bank, as opposed to the government
providing money for individual home owners to make decisions.
    And the rules and the zoning laws attributable to that money are now
being
developed.  But it's a very good concept, in my judgment.  It's very
important
for Congress to make sure that the $4.2 billion, I think it was, request in
the supplemental go to Louisiana, as I said down in New Orleans the other
day.
    Step one in the recovery in New Orleans has got to be to make sure that
the levees are strong enough -- equal to or better than pre-Katrina -- in
order for there to be confidence -- confidence for the market, confidence
for
the home owner to be able to rebuild in certain parts of New Orleans.
    Secondly, it's important that as the levees are rebuilt and people gain
confidence, that there be a rational development plan in place.  I think a
lot
of taxpayers really don't want to pay money for people to rebuild in an area
that's likely to be flooded again.  And the people of New Orleans understand
that, and the people of Louisiana understand that.  That issue is being
addressed.
    Thirdly, it's very important that the federal government  rebuild the
infrastructure that we're obligated to rebuild in a timely fashion.
Incredibly enough, the Slidell bridge, as I understand it, because of proper
incentives was built in record time, under budget.  That may be a
contradiction in terms when you hear a federal official saying "under
budget,
on time," but nevertheless, I believe that's what the Governor told me.
    And so there is a comprehensive strategy in place that I'm comfortable
with.  Details need to be worked out, more details about dealing with the
flood plain issue, and how high the houses have to be rebuilt if people
choose
to rebuild there.  I like the idea of funding people, of letting them make
the
decision.
    By the way, Mississippi -- and I don't know if we've got any folks from
Mississippi here -- but if you've ever been to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi
since the storm, you'll know what I'm saying, it looked like a bomb blast.
It
just leveled, absolutely wiped out a lot of -- a lot of homes and property
and
some lives along there.  And they developed a plan, too -- their own plan.
    Louisiana is different from Mississippi.  They came up with a
Mississippi
plan that has been funded.  And they are now in the process of saying to
homeowners, we're helping you rebuild your lives.  I went to a home where
the
guy building -- rebuilding it on the beach.  I forgot how high he's got it
up,
but it's high enough to meet new standards, new building standards.
    Debris removal in both locations is -- you just can't imagine how much
debris was there.  As you know, I'm not too poetic to begin with, so I'll
probably not be able to describe it properly.  Let me just say, it's a lot.
(Laughter.)  I mean, a whole lot.  And Mississippi has moved a lot of it off
private and public land -- I'm probably telling you more than you want to
know.
    I'll just give you an interesting public policy dilemma.  When we first
got down there, the government will remove debris off public property, but
not
private -- will pay to remove debris off public property, but not private
property.  The simplest way to explain why not is you start moving debris
off
private property, and the guy shows up and says, where's my million-dollar
necklace?  And so therefore, there needs to be kind of a held harmless
statute, or held harmless agreement with local authorities.  And so we've
devised a perfectly legal way of saying that if you declare a health and
safety hazard for particular blocks, then government money will pay to clean
up the land.  A lot of Mississippi has been cleaned up because a lot of the
local folks decided to take that tack.
    Now, the problem in Louisiana, as far as debris clean up, is that --
like
in the lower Ninth, a lot of people haven't come back to their homes yet to
see the devastation.  They've been displaced around the country.  And until
people are able to come home, and until people are clear about what the
rules
will be and the funding mechanism will be, it's going to be -- the debris
removal will be slow.  We've done a pretty effective job of cleaning debris
off the public right of ways, public lands, but not off the private lands.
And so that's yet another deterrent to economic development.
    So all this is coming together.  My point -- the funding is coming
together; the levees are coming together; the rules about reconstruction are
coming -- or rebuilding are coming together; and the debris removal, albeit
slow at this point in time, waiting for people to inspect their houses, will
probably accelerate when people realize there's a way forward -- long answer
to a complicated problem.
    We've got $100 billion that has been allocated for the region, which is
going to create some interesting opportunities and further problems.  One is
going to be labor.  People are going to be rebuilding down there a long
time.
If you're interested in making a living, go down there and there will be a
job.  And we want the first people hired, of course, to be Mississippi
people
and Louisiana people.  It's a great opportunity, by the way, for small
business development.  I'm a believer -- as you can tell, I'm an optimistic
person.  I believe that out of this terrible harm and grief is going to come
a
vibrant part, a vibrant economy.
    You know, sales taxes receipts are I think almost equal to what they
were
last year in Mississippi.  It's amazing, isn't it?  There's great resiliency
to the American people.
    Anyway, thanks for asking.  Yes, sir.