[StBernard] Senator Boasso Sponsors Resolution Urging Federal Government to Fulfill Promises to Louisiana

[Westley Annis]

May 31, 2007 


Senator Boasso Sponsors Resolution Urging Federal Government to Fulfill
Promises to Louisiana 


Challenges Congressman Jindal to Take Action at Federal Level 

BATON ROUGE, LA: State Senator Walter Boasso, Democratic candidate for
Governor, sponsored a resolution yesterday in the Louisiana State Senate
that "Memorializes Congress and the President of the United States to keep
the commitment to Louisiana to fully fund recovery from hurricanes Katrina
and Rita." S.R. No. 53, which came after recent disagreements between the
state and the federal government over the Road Home Program's funding,
passed unanimously in the Senate. A copy of the resolution is attached to
this release. 

Senator Boasso challenged Congressman Bobby Jindal, who votes with President
Bush 97% of the time, to use his close ties with the Administration to help
Louisiana families recover from the hurricanes. Senator Boasso made the
following statement: 

"For nearly two years the people of Louisiana has been fed one excuse after
another for the slow pace of recovery and the bottleneck of funding needed
to rebuild and move back into their homes. The latest round of bickering
over the intention of Road Home money is just another in a long line of
bureaucratic headaches. 

There is no excuse for the delays associated with the implementation of the
Road Home Program. The excruciatingly slow pace of the Road Home Program has
simply added to the suffering of too many of our people. 

However, the latest declaration by Chairman Don Powell that the state of
Louisiana should have been discriminating against Road Home applicants who
suffered wind damage to their homes is equally offensive. Under what
pretense does Mr. Powell expect state officials to declare to Louisiana
residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged by the high winds of
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that they should be left to fend for themselves
while their neighbors who suffered flood damage will be compensated? 

The federal government cannot keep changing the rules in the middle of the
game while the people of Louisiana continue to suffer. The stakes are too
high and too many families have made life changing decisions based on the
rules that were presented to them at the beginning of this process. 

The blame games must end. Solutions must be sought and the funding needed to
complete this program must be appropriated by Congress. President Bush stood
in Jackson Square and declared that our federal government would be here as
long as it was necessary to help rebuild the City of New Orleans and the
entire Gulf Coast. It's time for the President and his Administration to
keep their word and find the money necessary to finish the job. 

I invite Congressman Bobby Jindal to use his close ties with President Bush
to insist the Bush Administration not short change thousands of Louisiana
families at this critical juncture. I urge Congressman Jindal to stay in
Washington for as long as it takes to convince the President that Louisiana
deserves what it was promised. Bush and Don Powell may want to find a
distinction between wind and water damage, but to the thousands of Louisiana
citizens who lost their homes it is a distinction in paperwork only." 

Click Here to view Senate Resolution 53
<http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp&did=436472>