Actually I have everything I need to exist except regular mail service and scheduled garbage pickup. Things are otherwise bleak and bare.
Those things are not the issue. The important thing from both a local and national and, yes, a national security issue, is the integrity of NO as a port capable of handling the midwest's grain exports and as an oil and gas center. It will require the relatively paltry sum of $14 bn to restore wetlands, our first line of defense against catastrophic hurricanes.
The issue is a federal one, not one which the devastated state of Louisiana can even dream of accomplishing. It is also a federal issue as a matter of law since the federal government legally controls interstate rivers and interstate commerce, not to mention the building and financing of flood control projects.
The Coastal 2050 project which Bush has essentially nixed is a multi-year project which will take a lot of work to accomplish. It involves allowing the silt carried by the Mississippi River to be spread so that wetlands can return. It also involves closing the MR-GO channel, which allows storm surges to empty into NO. This is very brief explanation, you can research the details online.
Mike Tidwell and the 60 Minutes guy have it exactly right: it is stupid to spend all the billions upon billions of dollars, much more than the $14bn required to fund Coastal 2050, to restore levees and pay for hurricane damage if the loss of wetlands will eventually make all the restored levees irrelevant or prohibitively expensive to maintain. In a very strange way, a commitment to simply repair levees and do nothing else is as much a death sentence for NO as letting them stand in their current condition.
The investment can be seen as an insurance premium, the cost of preventing massive damage from occurring again, which cost will exceed the $14bn by several orders of magnitude.
Coastal restoration makes sense in many, many ways. And Bush has completely dropped the ball on the issue.
There is an odd combination of big oil companies, environmentalists, fishermen and the chemical industry which are solidly united in support of the Coast 2050 proposal. Perhaps he will listen to his friends from the oil companies who support it. In the meantime, I will support any politician who has the vision to see how Coastal 2050 is a cheap and effective way to protect us and the national interest.
Anyone who thinks the national interest is not involved should only imagine the inability of the midwest farmers to export grain through the only port capable of doing so. Or think about the shut down of a vast portion of the Gulf of Mexico's oil and gas production.
This is not only about NO, folks.
Ideological blinders have no place in this very important debate. Only the most prgamatic and cheapest solution to a problem that has implications for all of us should be considered, left or right wings be damned.
Clinton and Geo. H.W. Bush were in town yesterday. Clinton's appearance suggests that he absolutely understands the issue. Perhaps he can get 41 to knock some sense into 43.
Clinton ought to be put in charge of Gulf of Mexico issues. I know that has a snowball's chance in hell of happening, but for all his faults, Clinton understands the issues very well, obviously much better than W, and might be able to accomplish something positive.
From my own personal perspective, this issue trumps all others. I will support candidates who are aware of the problem, its national and local implications, and who will do the right thing, regardless of party label.
Perversely, the current administration's post-Katrina actions threaten to make Louisiana and the Gulf Coast solidly Democratic. The GOP is in the process of blowing a huge political opportunity. |
