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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (484509)	10/31/2003 12:55:36 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

U.S. Rejected Davis on Aid to Clear Trees FEMA spent six months studying the governor's request, then turned it down hours before fires began, saying state was already getting funds. By Gregg Jones and Dan Morain, Times Staff Writers SACRAMENTO — The Bush administration took six months to evaluate Gov. Gray Davis' emergency request last spring for $430 million to clear dead trees from fire-prone areas of Southern California. The request was finally denied Oct. 24, only hours before wildfires roared out of control in what has become the largest fire disaster in California history. Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs), a leader in the effort to get federal assistance for fire prevention, questioned Thursday why the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not rule sooner. "FEMA's decision was wrong," Bono said. "The timing couldn't have been worse.... We knew this disaster was going to happen with certainty. It was only a matter of when, and we were trying to beat the clock with removing the dead trees." If Davis had received the denial earlier, Bono said, he would have had time to wage an appeal. FEMA spokesman Chad Kolton said the agency denied Davis' request for an emergency declaration because California was already receiving more than $40 million from the departments of Agriculture and Interior to deal with a bark beetle infestation that has damaged thousands of acres of forest in the San Bernardino Mountains. "Federal agencies were already engaged in a very substantive way," Kolton said. "Federal assistance was already being provided." Davis' request, made in a letter to President Bush dated April 16, took months to process, Kolton said, because "we obviously wanted to consider this issue very carefully." Members of the California congressional delegation were informed of FEMA's decision in an e-mail last Friday, after some of the fires were already burning. Kolton said Davis' Sacramento office was also notified of the decision verbally and in a faxed letter. In that letter FEMA offered no explanation for why it had taken six months to rule. "FEMA recognizes the difficulty that the state of California and affected local governments are facing," wrote Michael D. Brown, undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response. "After a careful review of the information contained in your request, the authorities granted to [Department of Agriculture] and [Department of Interior], and the resources they have already committed to the state, it has been determined that the federal assistance through FEMA is not warranted." Bono said she had no warning that FEMA was poised to reject the state's request. She said the Southern California fires — which so far have killed 20 people and destroyed 2,612 homes in San Diego, Ventura, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties — underscore the need for changes in forestry management policies to more easily allow dead trees to be thinned from fire-prone forests. She said that even if the emergency declaration had been made and money approved, "there was no infrastructure in place to remove the trees quickly." Jim Specht, a spokesman for Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), said FEMA's reluctance to approve the request may have stemmed in part from the fact that the agency was being asked to declare an emergency essentially to remove dead trees — something that hadn't been the basis for any previous emergency declaration. Lewis, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he lobbied Davis to seek the federal emergency declaration and $430 million. "It's almost classic government," Lewis said in an interview outside the House chamber. "When you get below the third level in a bureaucracy, they don't believe it's going to happen until they see a fire rolling.... It's not a Democratic or Republican problem. It's a government problem." Davis press secretary Steven Maviglio said the state's request was unusual in that it sought aid to prevent a fire disaster rather than respond after one occurred. "FEMA is more of a reactive body than proactive body," Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Riverside) said. "We need to start putting resources into preventing these things before they happen." Bono added: "Part of FEMA's charter is to mitigate for disaster and in this case they thought it wasn't the case, it wasn't part of their job — and look where we are because of that." FEMA has the power to declare an emergency — clearing the way for federal relief — if a situation is deemed to be "an immediate threat to lives and property," Kolton said. That was what Davis and other California elected officials maintained existed because of the large number of dead and dying trees caused by the beetle infestation. "The point is we were searching for help from every possible angle we could get it, and FEMA was one," Bono said. "The declaration, if FEMA would have given it, would have loosened up other money and made it easier for us to appropriate money, I believe. It would have been a starting point, sort of a triggering point for other money that would have been helpful." Bono and Lewis followed up on Davis' April 16 request during a meeting with FEMA head Brown in July. Davis administration officials became aware of the denial Friday, when Jeff Griffin, a top FEMA official in Oakland, called George Vinson, the Davis administration official who oversees homeland security. In his letter to the president, Davis called on Bush to proclaim an emergency in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties because of "the severe fire threat caused by dead and dying trees resulting from several years of drought and a major bark beetle infestation." The request followed Davis' declaration in March of a state of emergency in the areas where the fire threat had soared because of the dead trees. Davis estimated that the cost of removing dead trees would be $125 million. He also said the U.S. Forest Service needed $300 million to deal with the bark beetle problem on federal lands in the area. "Most observers of the situation would agree that we are confronting an almost unprecedented scenario that demands immediate and concerted action from federal, state and local government agencies," Davis wrote. Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this report from Washington.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (484509)	10/31/2003 1:57:16 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Well after throwing around those who work for him literally it was determined that davis was too unstable to be given a chain saw. especially with the new release of the new an improved Texas Chain Saw slice and dice.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (484509)	10/31/2003 2:26:06 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

3 Good Months, or Evidence of Real Economic Recovery? By FLOYD NORRIS his is the autumn of our content. Profits are soaring, the economy is expanding at its fastest rate in nearly two decades and there are signs that businesses are finally beginning to hire. All that is in sharp contrast to the outlook just last winter. In February, share prices were falling, the economy was stumbling along at a growth rate of 1.4 percent and the talk among many seers was of the failure of cuts in taxes and interest rates to rescue the economy. Some feared the possibility of Japan-style deflation. Deflation is largely forgotten now, but the Federal Reserve is not ready to worry about inflation. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up 31 percent from the March low, and now the economy is reported to have grown at a 7.2 percent annual pace in the third quarter. Broadly, we now have the story of the economy for the last two years. Monetary and fiscal policies were extraordinarily stimulative, and consumers responded by buying. Home sales boomed. But businesses, depressed by the bursting of the bubble and stuck with excessive inventories and far too much capacity, hunkered down. Early this year, the deflation talk helped to increase caution, and there was worry about what would happen as a result of war in Iraq. Would oil prices soar? Would there be new terrorist attacks in the United States? Consumer spending slowed and layoffs accelerated. The Iraq war has brought attacks on Americans, but in Baghdad rather than Boston. Oil prices, which neared $40 a barrel in late February shortly before the war began, are now back below $30. And this year's tax-cut checks — sent to millions of parents during the summer — were spent in the back-to-school shopping season. The gross domestic product report showed that over the last six months, final sales to domestic purchasers rose at a 5.9 percent annual rate, well above the pace of late 1999, when growth was peaking. Businesses were broadly unprepared for the recovery. The government guesses that inventories fell during the quarter, but there is a good chance that it is underestimating the decline. If so, the third-quarter growth rate will be revised down, but the needed inventory restocking will lift fourth-quarter growth. Then what? Economic bears point to new layoff announcements at Sony and Electronic Data Systems and predict consumer spending will slow without new tax rebates, leaving retailers with a disappointing Christmas. The alternative forecast is for a self-sustaining recovery that is already under way. "You've got supercharged monetary stimulus and a tax cut," said Robert J. Barbera, the chief economist of ITG/Hoenig. "Look at history. When you get a lot of stimulus and a 7 percent quarter, it does not go away quickly." If he's right, there will be reason for celebration in the White House. It could even turn out that the difference between the two Presidents Bush was a matter of timing as much as anything else. The 1990-91 recession ended in February 1991. Almost two years later, in January 1993, came the report of the first quarter to show growth above 5 percent. The 2001 recession ended in November 2001, and once again a report of a good quarter arrived nearly two years later. Unfortunately for George H. W. Bush, he had lost his race for re-election before the economic news turned positive. Now, strong growth has appeared a year before the 2004 election. George W. Bush had good reason to call yesterday's growth report "encouraging."