U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland explained to the Fayetteville Rotary Club Monday why he voted against a bill that provides $52 billion in relief related to Hurricane Katrina.

Having recently toured the hurricane-ravaged areas of New Orleans, Westmoreland doesn’t dispute that the city’s former residents needed help. But he’s not sure how many of them are ever coming back to the city, and that should play into the financial plan, he indicated.

Westmoreland also took umbrage with the 13 various line items for the $52 billion relief package.

“The second-highest line item was for ‘other,’” Westmoreland explained, expressing his wariness of the ambiguous nature of that part of the Katrina plan.

The plan also called for 300,000 trailers to be purchased for residents so they could move back home while their homes were rebuilt, Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland also said that local and state officials failed to plan appropriately for the emergency, as evidenced by the numerous school buses that sat underwater when they could’ve been used earlier to evacuate residents.

Westmoreland said he was not opposed to providing further federal relief funds, “maybe another 5 billion or 10 billion,” but he stressed there needs to be accountability in the process. Accountability was lacking, he said, when Katrina victims were given pre-loaded credit cards worth $2,000 each. That process was abused, and many non-victims applied for that aid, the Congressman said.

So far, the federal government has spent $26,000 in Katrina-related relief for each family of four persons affected by the storm, Westmoreland said. More than 50 percent of the people who lived in that area were “already on some kind of government assistance,” he added.

“The point is, I don’t know we’re spending the money the way we need to,” Westmoreland said.

The federal government should be more concerned with repairing infrastructure in the areas, Westmoreland added.

Westmoreland also spoke briefly about “earmarks” which is the process that congressmen use to attach funding to special projects by inserting them in bills that are totally unrelated.

Westmoreland said earmarks were necessary but they should have the responsible legislator’s name attached to each one, he said.

“That way, it’ll be done in the sunshine for everybody to see,” Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland said he got 123 requests for $800 million in funding assistance in the 8th District. He weeded out requests that didn’t create jobs, containing matching funds or help local governments meet federal mandates such as clean water, clean air and the like.

“If it doesn’t meet any of those criteria, I don’t submit it,” Westmoreland said.

Only seven of the 123 requests were taken to the appropriate House subcommittee, he said, and only three of those were approved for a total of $1.2 million.

Westmoreland also predicted there may soon be more changes coming to the ranks of the House Republican leadership, and he is actually looking forward to them. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, for example, has gotten “too tired,” Westmoreland said.

login to post comments