Washington – President Bush intends to seek $40 billion to cover the next phase of relief and recovery operations from Hurricane Katrina, a congressional official said today as leading lawmakers and the White House pledged to investigate an initial federal response widely condemned as woefully inadequate.
One week after the storm spread death and destruction across a swath of the Gulf Coast, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the total tab for the federal government may top $150 billion.
Stung by the criticism, Bush invited congressional leaders to the White House for an afternoon meeting, their first since the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast and left much of New Orleans underwater.
“Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people,” the president told reporters earlier in the day after meeting with his Cabinet to review storm recovery efforts.
At the Capitol, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she intended to hold an initial hearing of the Governmental Affairs Committee next week into the aftermath of the storm. “It will focus on the way ahead,” she said. An investigation into the faults of the recovery effort will be deferred until “after the situation is stabilized and people are no longer in danger.” Bush and the Republican majority in Congress sought to underscore their commitment to help the damaged region while the Senate’s top Democrat predicted much more money would be needed.
“I believe that the recovery and relief operations will cost up to and could exceed $150 billion. FEMA alone will likely require $100 billion in additional funding,” he said in a statement issued after he talked with relief officials and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.
An aide to Reid, Rebecca Kirszner, added, “Our priorities right now are targeted assistance for health care, housing and education.” The storm and ensuing flood has left an unknown number of people dead, uncounted thousands of homes and businesses damaged or destroyed and turned hundreds of thousands of Americans into evacuees. Many are poor and normally receive welfare. Others are sick and are now cut off from their health care and prescription medication. Still others are school-age and will suddenly find themselves enrolled in schools not built to accommodate them.
The congressional official who relayed word of Bush’s decision did so on condition of anonymity because it was not clear when the formal announcement would be made.
Congress approved a $10.5 billion first installment in relief funding last week. A second congressional official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Federal Emergency Management Administration, was spending about $750 million a day and would soon need additional funds.
Lawmakers formally returned from a five-week summer break during the day, and by words and actions, demonstrated that the hurricane and its aftermath would command much of their time and attention in the weeks ahead.
Gasoline prices had already been rising when the storm disrupted oil drilling and distribution in the Gulf of Mexico. Prices have spiked in the days since, and the Senate Energy Committee, moving with unusual speed, held a hearing into the cost of gasoline.
Across the Capitol, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas., said the GOP leadership hoped to have legislation on the floor this week.
He said it would include measures dealing with Pell grants for students, reducing red tape for the newly unemployed and making it easier for FEMA to transfer money to private organizations.
“It is fair to say that the overall response to this emergency could have and should have been better,” DeLay told reporters.
“…In the coming weeks and months Congress will do whatever is necessary to help make up for the costly shortcomings in the preparations for and the management of the first stages of this catastrophe.” Collins expressed similar thoughts in the Senate. “Governments at all levels failed,” the Maine Republican said. “It is difficult to understand the lack of preparedness and the ineffective initial response to a disaster that had been predicted for years, and for which specific, dire warnings had been given for days.” Uncharacteristically, Bush conceded last week that his administration’s initial response to the disaster had been unacceptable. Now, after two trips to the region and a series of other steps designed to show him personally involved in the relief effort, he told reporters he was dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney to the Gulf Coast on Thursday.
