[StBernard] Vitter condemns Senate inaction on recovery amendments

[Westley Annis]

WASHINGTON - Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie, issued the following statement
regarding what he calls the Senate's lack of action on two hurricane
recovery amendments for Louisiana on the Senate 9/11 Commission bill: 
"I was really disappointed the two hurricane recovery amendments I worked on
with (Sen.) Mary (Landrieu, D-New Orleans) didn't get on this bill. The
compromise language we worked out on both of them had wide support -
including Sen. (Tom) Coburn, (R-Okla.), for instance - but we ran out of
time for votes. I voted against cloture on the bill so we could get votes on
these amendments." 
"The 26 senators who voted against cloture were all Republicans. The first
hurricane recovery amendment sought to waive the 10 percent cost share
required of the state for federal public assistance funding for permanent
repair work. The standard cost share is 75 percent federal, 25 percent from
the state, but the president used his authority to make it 90/10. The state
is allowed to use community disaster block grant funds for the 10 percent
match, but that creates red tape and multiple reporting requirements and
diverts valuable recovery dollars. The agreement negotiated on this
amendment would have waived that 10 percent match requirement for the next
two years. 
"The second hurricane recovery amendment would have granted loan forgiveness
to local communities that received federal community disaster loan funding
following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 
"The agreement negotiated on this amendment required that when 
repayment on these CDL loans were due, the loan debt would be repaid by the
federal Disaster Relief Funds rather than with local funding. 
Local governments in Louisiana received nearly $577 million in CDL funds
with the city of New Orleans receiving $120 million."