White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan hosted his first formal press briefing in a month today. I’ll give you one guess what the press corps wanted to discuss.
There was, however, one exchange that stood out.
Q: Scott, there’s already a line of discussion going on about the funding of projects prior to this, whether projects in New Orleans, in particular, were under funded because of the Iraq war or for other reasons. Is there a — do you find any of this criticism legitimate? Do you think there is any second-guessing to be done now about priorities, given that the New Orleans situation was sort of obvious to a lot of the experts?
McClellan: As I indicated, this is not a time for politics. This is a time for the nation to come together and help those in the Gulf Coast region. And that’s where our focus is. This is not a time for finger-pointing or playing politics.
There’s some merit to the argument — a family stranded on top of a building right now probably isn’t thinking about the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget — but I’m afraid McClellan is missing the point. This isn’t about politics; it’s about some semblance of accountability.
When a catastrophe hits, it’s not unreasonable to ask a few fundamental questions, such as, were we prepared? Did our leaders prioritize well? Were the leaders’ decisions effective? Was the crisis itself preventable? One man’s “finger-pointing” is another man’s drive to understand how and why events have unfolded as they have.
The Q-and-A at the White House today didn’t get any better.
Q: I’m talking about policy. I’m talking about the SELA project, for instance, is one some people cite where they felt they needed $60 million in the current ’06 fiscal year, they were given $10 million, those types of projects. And a lot of —
McClellan: I’m sorry, which project —
Q: SELA — Southeast Louisiana flood control —
McClellan: Flood control has been a priority of this administration from day one.
Well, actually it’s pretty obvious now that this was not the case at all.
Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans. That’s because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city’s 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it’s level with the massive lake.
New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security — coming at the same time as federal tax cuts — was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: “No one can say they didn’t see it coming. … Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation.”
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
Indeed, as Nico at Think Progress noted, in 2004, the Army Corps of Engineers requested $11 million for the Lake Pontchartrain and Vincinity Hurricane Protection project (the levee system that broke); Bush’s budget gave it $3 million. In 2005, the Army Corps said it needed $22.5 million; Bush’s budget gave it $3.9 million. In 2006, Bush wanted to give it even less.
Now, if McClellan wants to defend these budget decisions, he should do so — but “flood control has been a priority of this administration from day one” doesn’t make much sense in light of what we now know.