Two Vacancies Give Bush a Chance to Solidify Court's Right
By Charles Lane and Fred Barbash
If the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor opened a gap at the ideological center of the Supreme Court, the death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist removed the anchor of its right wing.
Yet in what is suddenly a much more complex process of replacing not only O'Connor but also Rehnquist, President Bush has an opportunity to shore up the court's conservative bloc and entrench it.
Rehnquist's replacement will probably serve for many years to come; if the new justice's views remain conservative over that time, it will mean the effective perpetuation of a Rehnquist-like vote on the court long after Bush is gone.
"Even if you appoint someone who is identical to Rehnquist in every respect, you're talking about someone who is about 50 rather than 80," said Richard Lazarus, who directs the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center.
Bush must also be sensitive to the fact that replacing a chief justice is not quite the same as replacing an associate. The titular head of the federal judiciary needs to be temperamentally suited to organizing the strong-minded jurists who sit with him on the Supreme Court and on lower courts.
"The next chief justice, whether chosen from within or outside the court, has a very high mark to follow," said A.E. Dick Howard, a professor of law at the University of Virginia. "Ideology aside, it's going to be difficult to run the court any better than he did," referring to Rehnquist. "We will look back on the Rehnquist court as one of the smoothest in the court's history."
And the president must fill the void quickly to minimize the disruptions to the judicial process that can occur when the Supreme Court is short-handed.
Unlike the departure of O'Connor, who often voted with Rehnquist and other conservatives on the court but who defected on social issues, the death of Rehnquist means the loss of an unequivocally conservative vote -- and voice -- on the court.
Of the justices remaining, only two, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, can be called sure votes to overturn Roe v. Wade , should a direct challenge to that abortion rights ruling come before the court. Only Scalia, Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy are firmly opposed to affirmative action.
Almost all of those mentioned as likely successors to Rehnquist would probably vote as he has.
The one exception could be Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. His record suggests he could be slightly to Rehnquist's left on issues such as affirmative action, which he has supported in public statements, and Roe , which he cited as valid precedent while a justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
He could be to the right of Rehnquist on issues relating to anti-terrorism efforts; Rehnquist voted against the Bush administration's policy of denying court hearings to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Gonzales supported.
An analysis of recent voting patterns at the court for the last five terms (not counting the last 12 cases decided this term) by attorney Kevin Russell of the law firm Goldstein & Howe shows that Rehnquist has cast a deciding vote in only 14 percent of 361 cases decided during that period.
These included such high-profile cases as Bush v. Gore , which ended the 2000 election, and Zelman v. Simmons-Harris , in 2002, which permitted the use of publicly funded school tuition aid for private religious education. But most of them were relatively minor.
Also, Russell's study showed that there is relatively little room to Rehnquist's right on the court. He cast a deciding vote against Scalia and Thomas only five times.
If Rehnquist had been replaced by "an ideological twin" of Scalia during the court's most recent term, Russell noted, only two of his votes would have been different. But in one of those, plugging in a Scalia clone would have favored a criminal defendant's claim, and in one of them it would have favored prosecutors.
Some academic observers thought that Rehnquist's leadership skills and his human touch would be harder to replace than his ideology.
Certainly it was personal qualities that his colleagues on the court emphasized in their public statements yesterday, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a formulation echoed by other justices, praising him as "a plain speaker without airs or affectations." Ginsburg said that Rehnquist "fostered a spirit of collegiality among the nine of us perhaps unparalleled in the Court's history."
At the moment, the court is down to eight members, as O'Connor's retirement takes effect upon the confirmation of a successor.
The last time the court functioned with only eight members for an extended period was in 1987, after Justice Lewis F. Powell retired on June 26 of that year. After the defeat of Robert Bork as a replacement, followed by the withdrawal of a second nominee, Douglas Ginsburg, a successor, Anthony M. Kennedy, was not confirmed until Feb. 3, 1988.
The court had only eight members for 363 days between the resignation of Justice Abe Fortas on May 14, 1969, and the confirmation of his successor, Harry A. Blackmun, on May 12, 1970.
Each time, a short-handed court labored to avoid 4 to 4 tie votes, which automatically affirm a lower court's ruling but create no binding legal precedent.
In an oral history recorded in 1995, Blackmun recalled how he was greeted with a pile of 47 petitions for certiorari that had been held to see whether he would supply a fourth vote needed to hear the cases.
The court now has similar options to prevent tie votes and other anomalies; for example, it can postpone hearing certain close cases until it is back at full strength.
"If [the White House] wants the court not to suffer the way it has in past cases, they've got to get moving," said Dennis J. Hutchinson, a professor of law at the University of Chicago. "On the other hand, if they say, 'We're talking about a 20-, 25-year cycle,' that's more important than the court being stalled in the water for a few months."
By law, Rehnquist's position will be filled on an interim basis by Justice John Paul Stevens, 85, the senior associate justice.
It is the first time an associate justice has filled in for a chief justice who died in office since Justice Hugo Black replaced Harlan Fiske Stone for 63 days in 1946.
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Common Ground Common Sense > National & International News > Daily National and International News > National News Archive
Troubles Travel Upstream
By Caroline E. Mayer and Amy Joyce
ELWOOD, Ill. -- Frank Walsh bends over to examine his soybean crop. He shouldn't have to; in good years, the beans would be up to his chest, about 42 inches high. This year, as the result of a drought, they are just at his knees.
Drought may be the least of the Walsh family's worries these days, as farmers start to feel the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Just two weeks before harvest begins, Illinois farmers who rely on the Mississippi River to carry their soybeans and corn down river for export cannot be sure their crops can get through and whether higher transportation prices will drive down earnings. On Friday, the price for corn at the river grain elevator that the Walsh family uses was more than 20 percent lower than it was 10 days earlier.
"The river is saying, 'We don't want your corn,' " said Pat Dumoulin, who runs a 700-acre farm with her husband and two sons in Hampshire, Ill., about 50 miles north of Elwood.
The Mississippi is a river of commerce, an artery through which about 500 million tons of cargo each year, including tons of coal, timber, iron, steel and chemicals. About 60 percent of the nation's grain exports move down the river. The ports in Louisiana make up the largest port complex in the nation and are major terminals for oil and other petroleum products.
The extent of the damage upriver will depend on how soon and how completely the Mississippi and shipping facilities return to service.
On Saturday, the river was reopened to traffic, but only to ships that extend no more than 35 feet below the waterline. Typically, ships are allowed to reach 45 feet below the water's surface. Areas that were hardest hit, like the Port of New Orleans, were turned into one-way channels, where ships have to wait for another to pass before they can go. They also have to run through one at a time at a dangerous turn at Algiers Point, in the heart of New Orleans.
From 30 to 40 percent of vessels are expected to be rerouted away from the Mississippi, said Michael Titone, president of the Mississippi River Maritime Association. While some are finding their ways to ports upriver that escaped Katrina's wrath, river buoys are gone and the channels are not clear, making it even more difficult to navigate.
Seven vessels were making their way out of the Mississippi yesterday, while 15 were making their way in. Despite traffic returning to nearly normal levels yesterday, some cargo-handling facilities are still in disarray, longshoremen may need backups as more ships are routed to cleared ports, and debris still rests below the surface.
Late Saturday, Tim Osborn, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's manager of regional operations, received an urgent call at his home in Lafayette, La. The pilots of a tanker full of about 100,000 tons of crude oil, or about 600,000 barrels, were blocked from entering Shell Oil Co.'s Motiva Enterprises LLC refinery dock on the Mississippi River at the town of Convent because of obstructions that might be lurking under the water.
The pilots and the Coast Guard needed the NOAA to navigate the waters and make sure the area was clear of obstruction. Meanwhile, the crude sat at anchor.
Osborn and others have spent the past few days on watercraft, mapping what underwater perils might exist for ships like the 850-foot-long tanker. Hurricane-deposited silt could cause a tanker to run aground. A collision with a sunk barge could do even more damage.
"Hundreds and hundreds of barges disappeared," said Edward W. Peterson, executive director of the Louisiana River Pilots Association. The barges carry an average of 1,600 tons of cargo, he said. "Nobody knows where they are."
Until they do, vessels sit, keeping shipments of crude at bay. Tankers will get priority to move down the river when they are ready.
The river pilots steer the vessels through the waters and have been gathering to figure out ways to keep their river running. They are staying in temporary quarters on the water on the Boax, a crane barge docked up from the mouth of the river. Pilottown in Plaquemines Parish, where they used to live, was demolished. Ten pilots are stationed for two weeks a time on the barge. Others are flying in and out on helicopters.
In the Port of Greater Baton Rouge yesterday, a 25,000-ton cargo vessel half filled with a rubber shipment sat at the dock being unloaded. Towering 45-ton cranes lifted pallets onto forklifts that carried them into a warehouse.
Baton Rouge was Plan B. When Katrina hit, the Pac Alkaid had unloaded half of its shipment at New Orleans, and the ship and its crew had to wait out the storm.
Soon after the Mississippi waterways reopened Saturday, the ship took off for the Baton Rouge port, which survived with little damage and is expected to be the port for many ships that would have been headed to New Orleans.
"We didn't want to waste any time," said Terry Gros, manager of P&O Ports, a company that loads and unloads ships at Baton Rouge. The ship traveled 130 miles, making the trip from New Orleans in about 10 hours.
The ship that brought the rubber came from Phuket, Thailand, the scene of last year's tsunami.
Perched several stories above the rubber being unloaded, ship captain Manuel Furio pointed to a red digital recorder on a bank of controls. On it, he had recorded the wind gusts as he rode out Katrina, and he proudly showed it to a visitor: 110 knots. That's 126 mph.
The river outside was calm now.
The river "is the most important pipeline for grain exports we have in this country," said Dale Durchholz, senior market analyst for the Illinois Farm Bureau. "From a transportation standpoint, it's the most developed and also the cheapest way for us to get grain from the interior of the country to the Gulf." To carry one barge worth of grain would take 15 rail cars and about 60 trucks.
"It takes a long time for water to run down the river, but price signals to farmers conducted up the river are made almost instantly," said Dennis Vercler, spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau. That is particularly troublesome this year because the Illinois farmers who rely most heavily on the river were also the hardest hit by this summer's drought.
The Walsh family and others acknowledged that they are far from desperate, especially compared with the homeless victims of the hurricane. They remain optimistic that the Mississippi will be cleared when the harvest rolls around in two weeks and will return to near-normal levels by the time they need it, driving crop prices back up. In the meantime, they worry about the impact of the hurricane on the cost of fuel and fertilizer.
The hurricane happened "at a pretty bad time for the grain market," said Kevin McNew, president of Cash Grain Bids Inc., a commodity intelligence firm. Last year, McNew said, was a record for corn and soybeans, which drove per-bushel prices down; many farmers held on to a large portion of their crop, hoping prices would rally. As a result, many farmers and grain elevators find themselves with last year's crop still sitting in their bins. Now they need to sell to make room for this year's harvest.
"It's a logistic nightmare," said Patrick Mino, grain division manager for Access Ag Inc., which has five grain elevators in northern Illinois. Mino said he had to make room in his elevator last week by shipping out two trainloads of corn, or 840,000 bushels. "It was a fire sale," Mino said, because he would have gotten about 10 cents more a bushel, or $84,000 total, if he had been able to use barges.
Each week, about 35 million bushels of corn are exported from the United States, most from the Gulf of Mexico, said Darrel L. Good, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Grain is going to have to start moving through that export facility really soon or there will be a big problem."
Putting downward pressure on price are higher barge costs. Freight prices have climbed to a record $25 a ton from $15.20 a ton two weeks ago, according to a barge company executive who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his company's policy. About 400 barges have been damaged or stranded or remain unaccounted for, the executive said. Others are in use, waiting to be loaded or unloaded at facilities that are not open.
Farming is always a gamble, and the Walsh family knows that well. Last year, Frank, his two brothers and father harvested record crops and received an average $2.25 per bushel for the corn they sold. They still have about 30,000 bushels, or 20 percent of the crop, in storage. In July, the family sold some of it for about $2.40 a bushel but held a lot back, betting prices would rise as the drought worsened. But even before Katrina, prices had dropped to $2 a bushel. "We wish we sold in July," brother Matthew Walsh said, grimly and softly.
His demeanor quickly changed, however, when he talked about the business bet the family made on diesel fuel for this harvest. Last February, they signed a contract for diesel fuel at $1.73 per gallon. At 10 cents above diesel's selling price at the time, that was considered a bold move. But today, with diesel selling for about $2.90 per gallon, it was the right one, he said, his face breaking into a wide smile.
"We know first hand that Mother Nature is our partner and there's nothing we can do that can change what she gives us," said Walsh's father, Larry. "For the last two years, she's been an excellent partner. This year, she's dealt us a challenging hand. We have to work the best we can with it."
Mayer reported from Illinois. Joyce reported from Baton Rouge.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Caroline E. Mayer and Amy Joyce
ELWOOD, Ill. -- Frank Walsh bends over to examine his soybean crop. He shouldn't have to; in good years, the beans would be up to his chest, about 42 inches high. This year, as the result of a drought, they are just at his knees.
Drought may be the least of the Walsh family's worries these days, as farmers start to feel the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Just two weeks before harvest begins, Illinois farmers who rely on the Mississippi River to carry their soybeans and corn down river for export cannot be sure their crops can get through and whether higher transportation prices will drive down earnings. On Friday, the price for corn at the river grain elevator that the Walsh family uses was more than 20 percent lower than it was 10 days earlier.
"The river is saying, 'We don't want your corn,' " said Pat Dumoulin, who runs a 700-acre farm with her husband and two sons in Hampshire, Ill., about 50 miles north of Elwood.
The Mississippi is a river of commerce, an artery through which about 500 million tons of cargo each year, including tons of coal, timber, iron, steel and chemicals. About 60 percent of the nation's grain exports move down the river. The ports in Louisiana make up the largest port complex in the nation and are major terminals for oil and other petroleum products.
The extent of the damage upriver will depend on how soon and how completely the Mississippi and shipping facilities return to service.
On Saturday, the river was reopened to traffic, but only to ships that extend no more than 35 feet below the waterline. Typically, ships are allowed to reach 45 feet below the water's surface. Areas that were hardest hit, like the Port of New Orleans, were turned into one-way channels, where ships have to wait for another to pass before they can go. They also have to run through one at a time at a dangerous turn at Algiers Point, in the heart of New Orleans.
From 30 to 40 percent of vessels are expected to be rerouted away from the Mississippi, said Michael Titone, president of the Mississippi River Maritime Association. While some are finding their ways to ports upriver that escaped Katrina's wrath, river buoys are gone and the channels are not clear, making it even more difficult to navigate.
Seven vessels were making their way out of the Mississippi yesterday, while 15 were making their way in. Despite traffic returning to nearly normal levels yesterday, some cargo-handling facilities are still in disarray, longshoremen may need backups as more ships are routed to cleared ports, and debris still rests below the surface.
Late Saturday, Tim Osborn, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's manager of regional operations, received an urgent call at his home in Lafayette, La. The pilots of a tanker full of about 100,000 tons of crude oil, or about 600,000 barrels, were blocked from entering Shell Oil Co.'s Motiva Enterprises LLC refinery dock on the Mississippi River at the town of Convent because of obstructions that might be lurking under the water.
The pilots and the Coast Guard needed the NOAA to navigate the waters and make sure the area was clear of obstruction. Meanwhile, the crude sat at anchor.
Osborn and others have spent the past few days on watercraft, mapping what underwater perils might exist for ships like the 850-foot-long tanker. Hurricane-deposited silt could cause a tanker to run aground. A collision with a sunk barge could do even more damage.
"Hundreds and hundreds of barges disappeared," said Edward W. Peterson, executive director of the Louisiana River Pilots Association. The barges carry an average of 1,600 tons of cargo, he said. "Nobody knows where they are."
Until they do, vessels sit, keeping shipments of crude at bay. Tankers will get priority to move down the river when they are ready.
The river pilots steer the vessels through the waters and have been gathering to figure out ways to keep their river running. They are staying in temporary quarters on the water on the Boax, a crane barge docked up from the mouth of the river. Pilottown in Plaquemines Parish, where they used to live, was demolished. Ten pilots are stationed for two weeks a time on the barge. Others are flying in and out on helicopters.
In the Port of Greater Baton Rouge yesterday, a 25,000-ton cargo vessel half filled with a rubber shipment sat at the dock being unloaded. Towering 45-ton cranes lifted pallets onto forklifts that carried them into a warehouse.
Baton Rouge was Plan B. When Katrina hit, the Pac Alkaid had unloaded half of its shipment at New Orleans, and the ship and its crew had to wait out the storm.
Soon after the Mississippi waterways reopened Saturday, the ship took off for the Baton Rouge port, which survived with little damage and is expected to be the port for many ships that would have been headed to New Orleans.
"We didn't want to waste any time," said Terry Gros, manager of P&O Ports, a company that loads and unloads ships at Baton Rouge. The ship traveled 130 miles, making the trip from New Orleans in about 10 hours.
The ship that brought the rubber came from Phuket, Thailand, the scene of last year's tsunami.
Perched several stories above the rubber being unloaded, ship captain Manuel Furio pointed to a red digital recorder on a bank of controls. On it, he had recorded the wind gusts as he rode out Katrina, and he proudly showed it to a visitor: 110 knots. That's 126 mph.
The river outside was calm now.
The river "is the most important pipeline for grain exports we have in this country," said Dale Durchholz, senior market analyst for the Illinois Farm Bureau. "From a transportation standpoint, it's the most developed and also the cheapest way for us to get grain from the interior of the country to the Gulf." To carry one barge worth of grain would take 15 rail cars and about 60 trucks.
"It takes a long time for water to run down the river, but price signals to farmers conducted up the river are made almost instantly," said Dennis Vercler, spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau. That is particularly troublesome this year because the Illinois farmers who rely most heavily on the river were also the hardest hit by this summer's drought.
The Walsh family and others acknowledged that they are far from desperate, especially compared with the homeless victims of the hurricane. They remain optimistic that the Mississippi will be cleared when the harvest rolls around in two weeks and will return to near-normal levels by the time they need it, driving crop prices back up. In the meantime, they worry about the impact of the hurricane on the cost of fuel and fertilizer.
The hurricane happened "at a pretty bad time for the grain market," said Kevin McNew, president of Cash Grain Bids Inc., a commodity intelligence firm. Last year, McNew said, was a record for corn and soybeans, which drove per-bushel prices down; many farmers held on to a large portion of their crop, hoping prices would rally. As a result, many farmers and grain elevators find themselves with last year's crop still sitting in their bins. Now they need to sell to make room for this year's harvest.
"It's a logistic nightmare," said Patrick Mino, grain division manager for Access Ag Inc., which has five grain elevators in northern Illinois. Mino said he had to make room in his elevator last week by shipping out two trainloads of corn, or 840,000 bushels. "It was a fire sale," Mino said, because he would have gotten about 10 cents more a bushel, or $84,000 total, if he had been able to use barges.
Each week, about 35 million bushels of corn are exported from the United States, most from the Gulf of Mexico, said Darrel L. Good, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Grain is going to have to start moving through that export facility really soon or there will be a big problem."
Putting downward pressure on price are higher barge costs. Freight prices have climbed to a record $25 a ton from $15.20 a ton two weeks ago, according to a barge company executive who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his company's policy. About 400 barges have been damaged or stranded or remain unaccounted for, the executive said. Others are in use, waiting to be loaded or unloaded at facilities that are not open.
Farming is always a gamble, and the Walsh family knows that well. Last year, Frank, his two brothers and father harvested record crops and received an average $2.25 per bushel for the corn they sold. They still have about 30,000 bushels, or 20 percent of the crop, in storage. In July, the family sold some of it for about $2.40 a bushel but held a lot back, betting prices would rise as the drought worsened. But even before Katrina, prices had dropped to $2 a bushel. "We wish we sold in July," brother Matthew Walsh said, grimly and softly.
His demeanor quickly changed, however, when he talked about the business bet the family made on diesel fuel for this harvest. Last February, they signed a contract for diesel fuel at $1.73 per gallon. At 10 cents above diesel's selling price at the time, that was considered a bold move. But today, with diesel selling for about $2.90 per gallon, it was the right one, he said, his face breaking into a wide smile.
"We know first hand that Mother Nature is our partner and there's nothing we can do that can change what she gives us," said Walsh's father, Larry. "For the last two years, she's been an excellent partner. This year, she's dealt us a challenging hand. We have to work the best we can with it."
Mayer reported from Illinois. Joyce reported from Baton Rouge.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
http://iht.com/articles/2005/09/04/news/bush.php
Challenges to Bush leadership mount as poll numbers slide
Challenges to Bush leadership mount as poll numbers slide
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Official Death Toll Starts to Mount
--------------------
Thousands of Bodies Are Expected in a Recovery Process That May Last Months
By Scott Gold, Richard A. Serrano and Peter H. King
Times Staff Writers
September 5 2005
NEW ORLEANS; The nation's senior health official bluntly predicted Sunday that Hurricane Katrina's death toll would rise into the thousands as Louisiana medical authorities tallied the first sobering evidence — 59 dead in makeshift morgues and another 100 corpses lined on docks east of the flood-swept city.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines
Official Death Toll Starts to Mount
--------------------
Thousands of Bodies Are Expected in a Recovery Process That May Last Months
By Scott Gold, Richard A. Serrano and Peter H. King
Times Staff Writers
September 5 2005
NEW ORLEANS; The nation's senior health official bluntly predicted Sunday that Hurricane Katrina's death toll would rise into the thousands as Louisiana medical authorities tallied the first sobering evidence — 59 dead in makeshift morgues and another 100 corpses lined on docks east of the flood-swept city.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines
--------------------
Why FEMA Was Missing in Action
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Most of the agency's preparedness budget and focus are related to terrorism, not disasters.
By Peter G. Gosselin and Alan C. Miller
Times Staff Writers
September 5 2005
WASHINGTON; While the federal government has spent much of the last quarter-century trimming the safety nets it provides Americans, it has dramatically expanded its promise of protection in one area — disaster.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines
Why FEMA Was Missing in Action
--------------------
Most of the agency's preparedness budget and focus are related to terrorism, not disasters.
By Peter G. Gosselin and Alan C. Miller
Times Staff Writers
September 5 2005
WASHINGTON; While the federal government has spent much of the last quarter-century trimming the safety nets it provides Americans, it has dramatically expanded its promise of protection in one area — disaster.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines
Perry orders prep to fly refugees from Texas to other statesWith Texas shelters reaching their limit of refugees from Hurricane Katrina, Gov. Rick Perry launched plans to fly some of them to other states that have offered help.
The full article will be available on the Web for a limited time:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/12562704.htm
© 2005 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
The full article will be available on the Web for a limited time:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/12562704.htm
© 2005 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1125842...ats%5Fnews%5Fus
Hurricane Raises Potential
For a Global Energy Crisis
Lengthy Production Snags
Could Hit U.S. Economy,
Then Extend World-Wide
By RUSSELL GOLD in Austin, Texas, and THADDEUS HERRICK in Houston
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 5, 2005 1:28 a.m.
Nearly a week after Hurricane Katrina cut through a main artery of the U.S. energy industry, a large amount of crucial infrastructure remains offline, leaving the world's largest economy and the rest of the globe on the brink of a potential energy crisis.
The Gulf of Mexico coastal region ravaged by Katrina is home to one-fourth of America's oil production, multibillion-dollar floating platforms that were situated far out at sea, refinery complexes that turn crude into gasoline, and a thicket of pipelines that connect them all. A focused picture of the damage to the region's infrastructure remains elusive amid the post-storm chaos, but in broad strokes, it is becoming clear the industry faces a two-pronged problem.
Its ability to turn crude oil into gasoline is under extraordinary pressure. The storm cut off about two million barrels a day of crude-oil refining capacity, resulting in the loss of one million barrels a day of gasoline production -- or 10% of U.S. demand. Four refineries that together represent about 5% of U.S. oil-refining capacity will be out of commission for at least a month, while another 5% of refinery capacity knocked out by Katrina appears likely to restart in coming days and weeks.
• Updated photos | Graphics: Hotspots
• U.S. Moves to Ease Strain on Gasoline Market
• Congress Looks to Fill Energy Gaps
• See complete coverage.
At the same time, offshore facilities that pump crude oil and natural gas from prolific underground reservoirs and carry the fuel ashore suffered widespread damage. Production is returning slowly, and it isn't clear whether it will takes weeks or months to return to anything near normal output levels.
The federal government's decision to release crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is helping some crude-choked refineries resume normal operations. But ultimately restoring sufficient gasoline production appears to rely most heavily on repairing the refineries, not adding more crude oil to the market.
An economy-walloping energy shock in the U.S., which consumes a quarter of the world's oil and whose demand for foreign goods is underpinning world-wide growth, would be felt around the globe.
Economic forecasters surveyed by Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, a St. Louis forecasting firm, estimate that the effects of Hurricane Katrina will reduce the growth rate of gross domestic product, on average, between 0.5 and 0.7 percentage point in the third and fourth quarters of this year. (See related article.) Before the hurricane, the forecasters surveyed by the firm were anticipating that the U.S. economy, which the government estimates grew at a 3.3% annual rate in the second quarter, would expand 4.3% in the third quarter and 3.6% in the fourth.
"Higher prices for energy have already eroded real income, and will, temporarily at least, reduce aggregate demand," the firm wrote.
Price Pressure
Whether the looming energy crisis spreads and persists long enough to hammer the economy depends on a variety of factors, among them whether Europe and other countries can supply adequate imports. But with the world facing a refinery-capacity crunch, and U.S. refiners running their plants at full capacity to meet soaring demand for gasoline and diesel, even the slightest sustained outage will likely put considerable pressure on prices.
The blow to Gulf of Mexico crude-oil output also puts a big strain on the entire global market, leaving the world vulnerable to outright shortages of crude should another shock of Katrina's scale hit an oil-producing nation.
On Friday, consumers, who have seen gasoline prices skyrocket at the pump since the hurricane, got some good news. The International Energy Agency agreed to release two million barrels a day of crude oil, gasoline and other fuels on to the world market from their strategic stockpiles over the ensuing 30 days. That is equal to about 2.4% of the world's daily fuel consumption.
In response, gasoline futures fell nearly 23 cents in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange to settle at $2.18 a gallon, or 57 cents a liter, after the IEA news. Crude oil, the raw material from which fuels are refined, also fell in Nymex trading, settling at $67.57 a barrel on Friday, down $1.90.
But the IEA's bold move is a reminder that the world has now started running on its reserve fuel tanks -- oil and refined products stockpiled over the past two decades for use only in true emergencies. Western oil companies are already pumping at full capacity. Russia, the world's No. 2 producer, is producing all it can. Even Saudi Arabia, the top exporter, and its fellow members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries can do little to alleviate the emerging crisis. OPEC has spare capacity of some 1.5 million barrels a day -- which is just about equivalent to the production lost last week in the Gulf of Mexico because of Hurricane Katrina.
The huge blow to the Gulf of Mexico has led to long lines at filling stations in much of the U.S., and outright shortages in some places. Panic buying of gasoline was reported as far away as the Czech Republic. On Saturday, Czech news agency CTK said drivers lined up at filling stations around the country after prices jumped by the equivalent of 14 cents per liter overnight, Reuters reported.
The extent of the price shock will depend in part on whether Americans conserve fuel amid the supply outages. Traffic over the Labor Day holiday weekend was noticeably lighter from Georgia to Colorado, the Associated Press reported. It also said 10% of West Virginia stations ran out of at least one grade of gas.
People were discouraged from driving by uncertain availability of gasoline and by the spiking cost of fuel. Gasoline was well above $3 a gallon at many stations across the country; in mid-August, the average national retail price was about $2.50. Americans also appeared to be heeding the calls of leaders, President Bush among them, who are encouraging conservation for the next few weeks.
But in the driving-addicted nation, the gasoline crunch is rapidly becoming a political controversy. Mr. Bush and others are warning against price gouging, state attorneys general are mounting investigations and Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, is urging the Federal Trade Commission to monitor the oil industry for price manipulation.
For the industry, the immediate concern is the vast effort to get the Gulf energy system back on its feet.
A Chevron Corp. official said Chevron's largest U.S. refinery, located on an inland channel in Pascagoula, Mississippi, would be shut for a considerable amount of time and unavailable to turn crude into much-needed gasoline to ease the fuel crunch. Crews would only begin assessing the extensive damage in Pascagoula later this week.
"We don't know when we will be expecting crude shipments," said Michael Barrett, a Chevron spokesman, although the terminal is open to accept tankers carrying gasoline and other products.
Mr. Barrett wouldn't provide an estimate of how long it would take to restart. But officials with the Mexican national oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, which is a large supplier of crude to the refinery, said they were told by Chevron to cease shipments for at least a month. Chevron declined to comment on discussions with individual suppliers.
Three additional refineries -- all located southeast of New Orleans -- still don't have electricity and are believed to have sustained major damage from flooding, according to the federal Energy Department, and could also take at least a month to restart. These refineries are owned and operated by ConocoPhillips Co.; a joint venture of Exxon Mobil Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the Venezuelan state oil company; and Murphy Oil Corp. Together with Chevron's Pascagoula refinery, the four hobbled industrial complexes represent about 5% of U.S. refining capacity, a significant blow to the country's ability to produce enough gasoline and heating fuel.
Valero Energy Corp, America's largest refiner, was working to restart its St. Charles, Louisiana, plant, but spokeswoman Mary Rose Brown said, "We're still in the middle of a relief effort for our own employees." Ms. Brown said the company has heard from 260 of 570 plant workers and that 150 employees have reported to work. She said the company may be forced to bring in workers from its other refineries.
Other refineries, however, appear to be on the mend. Marathon Oil Corp. said over the weekend that its Garyville, Louisiana, refinery should be running at full capacity by today.
Offshore, assessment and repair of gulf platforms after a slow start has begun in earnest. The U.S. Coast Guard reports that 21 platforms are believed to have sunk. And on another 20, the pumps, generators and control rooms are either missing or damaged.
The key -- and so far unanswered -- question is how many of these battered platforms are giant deep-water floaters responsible for about half of gulf production. At least one giant deep-water platform, Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Mars platform, sustained significant damage. By itself, this facility produces about 10% of the daily oil and gas output from the gulf.
'State of Near Paralysis'
Many platforms that survived with just dents and dings remain idled because the status of pipelines needed to move the fuel to shore was uncertain. On Saturday, nearly 68% of combined oil and gas operations in the gulf remained offline, according to the federal Minerals Management Service.
There are growing signs the industry itself realizes it could take more than a month to return to anything even resembling normal operations. On the spot markets for Louisiana crude, trading volumes were unusually thin for barrels to be delivered next month -- a sign of the fundamental uncertainty permeating the region.
The markets are in "a state of near paralysis," says Tim Mingee, a Houston-based editor of the daily Americas Crude report, published by Argus Media Ltd. "Producers don't know what volumes they will be able to sell and on the refining side, they don't know what they will be able to buy," he says. Daily trading volume of a common variety of Louisiana crude fell 73% last week from the period immediately before Katrina's landfall.
Still, energy observers were upset by the lack of information. "It's too early to draw any accurate conclusions because of a frustrating lack of information," says Rodney Mitchell, president of Mitchell Group Inc., a Houston investment management firm focused on energy.
There was some positive news from the storm-battered Gulf energy complex: Exxon said its large Baton Rouge refinery is increasing its production level and should be able to ramp up further as oil supplies increase.
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, a key import terminal that receives one million barrels of crude a day from overseas tankers, received its first vessel on Friday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. But the facility still isn't functioning normally, as one onshore terminal is without power. Two key pipelines that deliver gasoline and other refined products from the Gulf Coast to the southeast and eastern U.S. were back to near-normal operating conditions.
By helicopter and boat, repairs crews are returning to the several thousand offshore platforms to find many operable, some missing and others badly in need of repairs. Resumption of anything even close to normal operations in the Gulf has been moving at a snail's pace.
Six days after Katrina's landfall, the industry had restarted 243,000 barrels a day of oil and 90 million cubic meters of daily gas production shut down before the storm. By comparison, six days after Hurricane Ivan last year, the industry had restarted 831,000 barrels a day of oil and 123 million cubic meters of gas.
A large reason for the slow-moving recovery is that the companies along the Louisiana coast that provide transportation and equipment for damage assessment and repair are themselves overwhelmed, say people in contact with these operators. Many employees are homeless and scattered all over the region. Some roads and waterways are still impassable.
This has generated a surprising lack of details on the status of offshore producing platforms -- and, more vitally, underwater pipelines. Last year, when Ivan, a less powerful storm, touched the eastern edge of the energy-producing region, its waves triggered underwater mudslides that wreaked havoc on pipelines. Similar damage is believed to have occurred this time. Several offshore natural-gas pipelines had standing orders for customers on several pipeline branches not to pump any gas into the system.
--Bhushan Bahree in New York, David Luhnow in Mexico City and David Wessel in Washington contributed to this article.
Hurricane Raises Potential
For a Global Energy Crisis
Lengthy Production Snags
Could Hit U.S. Economy,
Then Extend World-Wide
By RUSSELL GOLD in Austin, Texas, and THADDEUS HERRICK in Houston
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 5, 2005 1:28 a.m.
Nearly a week after Hurricane Katrina cut through a main artery of the U.S. energy industry, a large amount of crucial infrastructure remains offline, leaving the world's largest economy and the rest of the globe on the brink of a potential energy crisis.
The Gulf of Mexico coastal region ravaged by Katrina is home to one-fourth of America's oil production, multibillion-dollar floating platforms that were situated far out at sea, refinery complexes that turn crude into gasoline, and a thicket of pipelines that connect them all. A focused picture of the damage to the region's infrastructure remains elusive amid the post-storm chaos, but in broad strokes, it is becoming clear the industry faces a two-pronged problem.
Its ability to turn crude oil into gasoline is under extraordinary pressure. The storm cut off about two million barrels a day of crude-oil refining capacity, resulting in the loss of one million barrels a day of gasoline production -- or 10% of U.S. demand. Four refineries that together represent about 5% of U.S. oil-refining capacity will be out of commission for at least a month, while another 5% of refinery capacity knocked out by Katrina appears likely to restart in coming days and weeks.
• Updated photos | Graphics: Hotspots
• U.S. Moves to Ease Strain on Gasoline Market
• Congress Looks to Fill Energy Gaps
• See complete coverage.
At the same time, offshore facilities that pump crude oil and natural gas from prolific underground reservoirs and carry the fuel ashore suffered widespread damage. Production is returning slowly, and it isn't clear whether it will takes weeks or months to return to anything near normal output levels.
The federal government's decision to release crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is helping some crude-choked refineries resume normal operations. But ultimately restoring sufficient gasoline production appears to rely most heavily on repairing the refineries, not adding more crude oil to the market.
An economy-walloping energy shock in the U.S., which consumes a quarter of the world's oil and whose demand for foreign goods is underpinning world-wide growth, would be felt around the globe.
Economic forecasters surveyed by Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, a St. Louis forecasting firm, estimate that the effects of Hurricane Katrina will reduce the growth rate of gross domestic product, on average, between 0.5 and 0.7 percentage point in the third and fourth quarters of this year. (See related article.) Before the hurricane, the forecasters surveyed by the firm were anticipating that the U.S. economy, which the government estimates grew at a 3.3% annual rate in the second quarter, would expand 4.3% in the third quarter and 3.6% in the fourth.
"Higher prices for energy have already eroded real income, and will, temporarily at least, reduce aggregate demand," the firm wrote.
Price Pressure
Whether the looming energy crisis spreads and persists long enough to hammer the economy depends on a variety of factors, among them whether Europe and other countries can supply adequate imports. But with the world facing a refinery-capacity crunch, and U.S. refiners running their plants at full capacity to meet soaring demand for gasoline and diesel, even the slightest sustained outage will likely put considerable pressure on prices.
The blow to Gulf of Mexico crude-oil output also puts a big strain on the entire global market, leaving the world vulnerable to outright shortages of crude should another shock of Katrina's scale hit an oil-producing nation.
On Friday, consumers, who have seen gasoline prices skyrocket at the pump since the hurricane, got some good news. The International Energy Agency agreed to release two million barrels a day of crude oil, gasoline and other fuels on to the world market from their strategic stockpiles over the ensuing 30 days. That is equal to about 2.4% of the world's daily fuel consumption.
In response, gasoline futures fell nearly 23 cents in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange to settle at $2.18 a gallon, or 57 cents a liter, after the IEA news. Crude oil, the raw material from which fuels are refined, also fell in Nymex trading, settling at $67.57 a barrel on Friday, down $1.90.
But the IEA's bold move is a reminder that the world has now started running on its reserve fuel tanks -- oil and refined products stockpiled over the past two decades for use only in true emergencies. Western oil companies are already pumping at full capacity. Russia, the world's No. 2 producer, is producing all it can. Even Saudi Arabia, the top exporter, and its fellow members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries can do little to alleviate the emerging crisis. OPEC has spare capacity of some 1.5 million barrels a day -- which is just about equivalent to the production lost last week in the Gulf of Mexico because of Hurricane Katrina.
The huge blow to the Gulf of Mexico has led to long lines at filling stations in much of the U.S., and outright shortages in some places. Panic buying of gasoline was reported as far away as the Czech Republic. On Saturday, Czech news agency CTK said drivers lined up at filling stations around the country after prices jumped by the equivalent of 14 cents per liter overnight, Reuters reported.
The extent of the price shock will depend in part on whether Americans conserve fuel amid the supply outages. Traffic over the Labor Day holiday weekend was noticeably lighter from Georgia to Colorado, the Associated Press reported. It also said 10% of West Virginia stations ran out of at least one grade of gas.
People were discouraged from driving by uncertain availability of gasoline and by the spiking cost of fuel. Gasoline was well above $3 a gallon at many stations across the country; in mid-August, the average national retail price was about $2.50. Americans also appeared to be heeding the calls of leaders, President Bush among them, who are encouraging conservation for the next few weeks.
But in the driving-addicted nation, the gasoline crunch is rapidly becoming a political controversy. Mr. Bush and others are warning against price gouging, state attorneys general are mounting investigations and Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, is urging the Federal Trade Commission to monitor the oil industry for price manipulation.
For the industry, the immediate concern is the vast effort to get the Gulf energy system back on its feet.
A Chevron Corp. official said Chevron's largest U.S. refinery, located on an inland channel in Pascagoula, Mississippi, would be shut for a considerable amount of time and unavailable to turn crude into much-needed gasoline to ease the fuel crunch. Crews would only begin assessing the extensive damage in Pascagoula later this week.
"We don't know when we will be expecting crude shipments," said Michael Barrett, a Chevron spokesman, although the terminal is open to accept tankers carrying gasoline and other products.
Mr. Barrett wouldn't provide an estimate of how long it would take to restart. But officials with the Mexican national oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, which is a large supplier of crude to the refinery, said they were told by Chevron to cease shipments for at least a month. Chevron declined to comment on discussions with individual suppliers.
Three additional refineries -- all located southeast of New Orleans -- still don't have electricity and are believed to have sustained major damage from flooding, according to the federal Energy Department, and could also take at least a month to restart. These refineries are owned and operated by ConocoPhillips Co.; a joint venture of Exxon Mobil Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the Venezuelan state oil company; and Murphy Oil Corp. Together with Chevron's Pascagoula refinery, the four hobbled industrial complexes represent about 5% of U.S. refining capacity, a significant blow to the country's ability to produce enough gasoline and heating fuel.
Valero Energy Corp, America's largest refiner, was working to restart its St. Charles, Louisiana, plant, but spokeswoman Mary Rose Brown said, "We're still in the middle of a relief effort for our own employees." Ms. Brown said the company has heard from 260 of 570 plant workers and that 150 employees have reported to work. She said the company may be forced to bring in workers from its other refineries.
Other refineries, however, appear to be on the mend. Marathon Oil Corp. said over the weekend that its Garyville, Louisiana, refinery should be running at full capacity by today.
Offshore, assessment and repair of gulf platforms after a slow start has begun in earnest. The U.S. Coast Guard reports that 21 platforms are believed to have sunk. And on another 20, the pumps, generators and control rooms are either missing or damaged.
The key -- and so far unanswered -- question is how many of these battered platforms are giant deep-water floaters responsible for about half of gulf production. At least one giant deep-water platform, Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Mars platform, sustained significant damage. By itself, this facility produces about 10% of the daily oil and gas output from the gulf.
'State of Near Paralysis'
Many platforms that survived with just dents and dings remain idled because the status of pipelines needed to move the fuel to shore was uncertain. On Saturday, nearly 68% of combined oil and gas operations in the gulf remained offline, according to the federal Minerals Management Service.
There are growing signs the industry itself realizes it could take more than a month to return to anything even resembling normal operations. On the spot markets for Louisiana crude, trading volumes were unusually thin for barrels to be delivered next month -- a sign of the fundamental uncertainty permeating the region.
The markets are in "a state of near paralysis," says Tim Mingee, a Houston-based editor of the daily Americas Crude report, published by Argus Media Ltd. "Producers don't know what volumes they will be able to sell and on the refining side, they don't know what they will be able to buy," he says. Daily trading volume of a common variety of Louisiana crude fell 73% last week from the period immediately before Katrina's landfall.
Still, energy observers were upset by the lack of information. "It's too early to draw any accurate conclusions because of a frustrating lack of information," says Rodney Mitchell, president of Mitchell Group Inc., a Houston investment management firm focused on energy.
There was some positive news from the storm-battered Gulf energy complex: Exxon said its large Baton Rouge refinery is increasing its production level and should be able to ramp up further as oil supplies increase.
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, a key import terminal that receives one million barrels of crude a day from overseas tankers, received its first vessel on Friday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. But the facility still isn't functioning normally, as one onshore terminal is without power. Two key pipelines that deliver gasoline and other refined products from the Gulf Coast to the southeast and eastern U.S. were back to near-normal operating conditions.
By helicopter and boat, repairs crews are returning to the several thousand offshore platforms to find many operable, some missing and others badly in need of repairs. Resumption of anything even close to normal operations in the Gulf has been moving at a snail's pace.
Six days after Katrina's landfall, the industry had restarted 243,000 barrels a day of oil and 90 million cubic meters of daily gas production shut down before the storm. By comparison, six days after Hurricane Ivan last year, the industry had restarted 831,000 barrels a day of oil and 123 million cubic meters of gas.
A large reason for the slow-moving recovery is that the companies along the Louisiana coast that provide transportation and equipment for damage assessment and repair are themselves overwhelmed, say people in contact with these operators. Many employees are homeless and scattered all over the region. Some roads and waterways are still impassable.
This has generated a surprising lack of details on the status of offshore producing platforms -- and, more vitally, underwater pipelines. Last year, when Ivan, a less powerful storm, touched the eastern edge of the energy-producing region, its waves triggered underwater mudslides that wreaked havoc on pipelines. Similar damage is believed to have occurred this time. Several offshore natural-gas pipelines had standing orders for customers on several pipeline branches not to pump any gas into the system.
--Bhushan Bahree in New York, David Luhnow in Mexico City and David Wessel in Washington contributed to this article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1125578...page%5Fone%5Fus
Damage to Oil and Gas Facilities
Pushes U.S. Closer to Energy Crisis
By RUSSELL GOLD and THADDEUS HERRICK
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 2, 2005; Page A1
Hurricane Katrina's continuing disruption of a substantial portion of the Gulf Coast's vast network of refineries and pipelines is pushing the U.S. closer to a 1970s-style energy crisis, straining the oil industry's ability to deliver gasoline from Florida to Colorado, sending prices into uncharted territory and triggering panic among drivers in some areas.
Long gas lines were reported in Denver, Indianapolis, Hartford, Conn., Atlanta and Orlando, Fla., among other cities. In Charlotte, N.C., between 13% and 15% of stations had no gasoline and prices have soared as much as 70 cents a gallon in those stations that still have fuel to peddle, said Tom Crosby, a local AAA official there.
BACK TO THE '80S
See a timeline of gas prices since the 1980s.
President Bush took the unusual step yesterday of urging Americans not to buy gasoline if they don't have to. "Americans should be prudent in their use of energy," he said in brief Oval Office remarks. "Don't buy gas if you don't need it."
The president also made it easier for tankers to bring in gasoline from Europe, which has excess capacity for the fuel as motorists there increasingly buy diesel-powered cars. Wednesday, Mr. Bush temporarily lowered U.S. environmental standards that also eased the way for European gasoline.
The core of the unfolding situation is that four days after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, eight major refineries are still shut down and several could require a month or more to restart. In addition, there are early rumblings in the industry of significant, unreported damage to offshore pipelines, energy-gathering hubs and producing platforms that could take months to repair.
Neither Exxon Mobil Corp. nor Chevron Corp. released more than the briefest details about their offshore facilities. Royal Dutch Shell PLC reported damage to three key facilities: offshore producing platforms Mars and Cognac and a hub facility that gathers oil and gas from large deep-water platforms.
Shell reported yesterday that its Convent, La., refinery could initiate a restart in "about a week." Chevron said its large Pascagoula, Miss., refinery had been saved by a dike built in 1998 that "prevented catastrophic damage." Exxon said its giant Baton Rouge refinery was having pipeline and transportation issues and running at "reduced rates until normal feedstock supply and product movement is restored."
Last year, Hurricane Ivan, a less-powerful storm, hurt oil production for months, pushing up energy prices world-wide after it upended pipeline networks in the Gulf of Mexico. The price of crude rose from $44 to above $50 for two months.
• Updated photos | Graphics: Hotspots | New Orleans Map
• Prioritizing: If you had to flee your home, what would you take? Join the discussion.
• Question of the Day: How would you grade the federal government's handling of the hurricane so far?
• Katrina Wire: Latest Updates
• Katrina Reveals U.S. Energy Vulnerability
• Status of Energy Facilities | Pain at the Pump
• See complete coverage.
There was some good news. Valero Energy Corp. said power was restored to its St. Charles, La., refinery and Marathon Oil Co. said its Garyville, La., refinery could be producing gasoline by early next week. Two idled pipelines that had hampered fuel deliveries to the East Coast are now being brought back on line. Colonial Pipeline Co., knocked out of action by Katrina, said it was operating at 40% of capacity, with about 61% of capacity expected by day's end. Plantation Pipe Line Co., which is majority-owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP, said it resumed limited service Wednesday. Plantation said it had been able to restore about 150,000 barrels of capacity per day, or nearly 25% of its average daily throughput.
Whether a true energy crisis emerges -- with persistent fuel shortages, soaring gas prices and a wallop to the economy -- will depend on how quickly the onshore and offshore infrastructure gets back up and running, how deftly the industry and government handle fuel distribution in the meantime and, critically, whether large numbers of consumers panic.
A rush to fill gasoline tanks in large parts of the country would quickly drain stockpiles, leading to shortages, hoarding, long lines and even sharper price spikes. If every driver in the U.S. fleet of 220 million vehicles topped off his tank with 10 gallons, that would be an additional 2.2 billion gallons of demand for gasoline and diesel inventories that stood on Aug. 19 at 8.19 billion gallons and 3.23 billion gallons, respectively.
"In terms of the scale and impact on the American market, this is comparable to the oil embargo" of 1973 and 1974, said Jay E. Fakes, head of the federal Energy Information Administration from 1993 to 2000. The only answer, he says, is immediate conservation. His call for drivers to cut back was echoed by such oil-industry heavyweights as the American Petroleum Institute and the Petroleum Marketers Association of America.
The industry's ability to snuff out the gasoline-price spike is critical because if the crunch persists, it has the potential to significantly slow the U.S. and global economies or even trigger a recession. American consumers kept spending strongly through this summer even as crude-oil prices soared, largely because other factors -- low interest rates, rising home values and cheap imports -- offset the sting of higher prices at the pump. Their spending has been a linchpin of world-wide economic growth.
But signs of stress are emerging. Home values may be peaking. The government reported yesterday that the personal-saving rate dipped into negative territory for just the first time since the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, suggesting consumers are going into debt to support their spending habits. A sustained gasoline-price shock, many economists warn, could help tip the economy into a recession.
Gasoline stations in some parts of the country say supplies are drying up. Worst hit are the unbranded retailers -- stations that aren't affiliated with a major oil company such as Exxon or Chevron but still account for about one-third of U.S. gasoline sales. Jenny Love, a spokeswoman for Love's, an Oklahoma City-based chain of 160 interstate and highway locations, said some of the company's outlets were out of both gasoline and diesel fuel. "The unbranded retailer is at the bottom of the totem pole," she said. "There's nothing we can do about it."
Some service stations in gas-crimped areas like Atlanta were charging in excess of $5 a gallon for gas, before a gubernatorial state of emergency forced them to lower the price. The White House warned that federal officials would have "zero tolerance for price-gouging."
Cary Gavant, a 58-year-old Atlanta broker, says he conserved fuel last night by driving more slowly than usual on the 50 miles north on I-75 toward his suburban home from Atlanta and noticed that many other drivers were doing so, too. "The thought of not having gasoline was terrifying," he said.
While the triggering event for the country's energy squeeze was the destruction Katrina unleashed on the vital gasoline-producing region of Louisiana and Mississippi, the scene was set for this catastrophe by both drivers and the energy industry. U.S. drivers pump 11% of the world's crude oil into their tanks in the form of gasoline, and increasingly over the past couple of decades they have been buying gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks.
WALL STREET JOURNAL VIDEO
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson discusses why fuel rules were waived in order to increase capacity out of the Gulf Coast region. Plus, WSJ's Gerald Seib discusses the Bush administration's plan to release oil from government stockpiles. And AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson talks about how Katrina may affect the auto industry.
At the same time, the oil industry has been reluctant to invest in new refinery capacity because of historically low returns, even while refiners have pared back inventories to beef up margins. This reluctance has shrunk U.S. and international spare refining capacity, creating a world-wide gasoline-delivery system hard-pressed to cope with a major disruption such as the one wrought by Katrina.
Even though these twin trends were well-known, the scope of the disruption has caught even long-time oil-refining veterans by surprise. "In my 30 years, I do not remember a time like this," says Tom O'Malley, former chairman of Premcor Inc., a major U.S. refiner acquired this year by Valero. "It is absolutely clear that a significant amount of refining capacity that is currently down will take time to come up. And I don't think it's a matter of days. For some refineries, it could be a matter of months. There is certainly going to be a domestic product shortfall."
Still, Mr. O'Malley doesn't believe the U.S. is headed for an energy crisis. The rocketing wholesale and retail gasoline prices should fall back soon, as tankers full of gasoline from Europe begin arriving. "I think the industry, you will find, will do an amazing job of coming up with supply. It's a question of weeks, but this is no long-term problem."
Industry experts said they expect the refineries hardest hit by the hurricane to be out of service for more than a month since flooding can ruin the electric pumps that send crude oil through a refinery's complex system of pipes. "It looks quite serious," said Bob Funk, who recently retired as head of planning from Citgo Petroleum Corp., a U.S. refiner and subsidiary of Venezuela's national oil company. Mr. Funk expressed particular concern for a plant run by Exxon Mobil and Petroleos de Venezuela in Chalmette, La., which is on the Mississippi River near downtown New Orleans. Exxon Mobil said it couldn't provide any information on potential damage at the Chalmette refinery.
The extent of the probable damage to the plants struck by the storm, he says, is likely to be more than the Gulf Coast work force can repair, meaning refiners will have to bring workers in from other parts of the country. That and the extensive flooding are likely to slow refinery repair efforts. Even when the refineries are up and running it is unclear whether they will have adequate staffing, given the flood damage in surrounding communities and neighborhoods where workers live.
And while European traders reported as many as 20 bookings in the past two days for tankers to carry gasoline across the Atlantic, the shipments won't provide immediate relief. The ships are scheduled to load gasoline at European ports later this month but will take as long as three weeks before reaching East Coast ports like New York. On top of that, traders are finding it difficult to find available ships. Rates for trans-Atlantic voyage have soared in the past few days as shipbrokers try to line up tonnage.
While most attention was on the onshore infrastructure, there were ominous signs of damage to the offshore platforms and pipelines that produce one-quarter of U.S. oil. Shell reported that its West Delta 143 platform, which serves a pipeline hub, needed substantial repairs. Less than 20% of energy production within the Gulf of Mexico had been restored yesterday, according to the federal Minerals Management Service. Four days after Hurricane Ivan last year, 60% of production had been restarted, the agency said.
Ivan scrambled numerous critical underwater pipelines, essentially leaving functional producing platforms with no way to get the oil and gas to shore. Robert Bea, Shell's former chief engineer in the U.S. and a longtime student of the impact of hurricanes on the Gulf's energy infrastructure, says he has heard from a network of oilfield workers that the damage to pipelines and platforms could be "10 times what we saw in Ivan."
Even before Katrina, the refining industry faced a severe capacity crunch, a problem that promised to limit the prospects for cheaper gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for at least several years. Nor is it exclusively a U.S. problem: Growing demand for oil from China, India and other rising powers is aggravating the shortfall in refining and threatening to keep prices elevated for years.
While global demand is expected to grow by nearly two million barrels a day this year -- from 82.5 million barrels a day last year -- the world's capacity to refine and process crude oil is expected to grow by less than half that, according to the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation.
For these reasons, Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, a New York-based group, said that the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and increased gasoline imports from abroad won't fundamentally address the situation. "How could this not be a major problem for an indefinite period of time?" he said. Mr. Goldstein said he expects sustained high gasoline prices as demand exceeds supply. "It's powerful and it's ugly," he said. "But it's true."
--Chip Cummins and Steve LeVine contributed to this article.
Damage to Oil and Gas Facilities
Pushes U.S. Closer to Energy Crisis
By RUSSELL GOLD and THADDEUS HERRICK
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 2, 2005; Page A1
Hurricane Katrina's continuing disruption of a substantial portion of the Gulf Coast's vast network of refineries and pipelines is pushing the U.S. closer to a 1970s-style energy crisis, straining the oil industry's ability to deliver gasoline from Florida to Colorado, sending prices into uncharted territory and triggering panic among drivers in some areas.
Long gas lines were reported in Denver, Indianapolis, Hartford, Conn., Atlanta and Orlando, Fla., among other cities. In Charlotte, N.C., between 13% and 15% of stations had no gasoline and prices have soared as much as 70 cents a gallon in those stations that still have fuel to peddle, said Tom Crosby, a local AAA official there.
BACK TO THE '80S
See a timeline of gas prices since the 1980s.
President Bush took the unusual step yesterday of urging Americans not to buy gasoline if they don't have to. "Americans should be prudent in their use of energy," he said in brief Oval Office remarks. "Don't buy gas if you don't need it."
The president also made it easier for tankers to bring in gasoline from Europe, which has excess capacity for the fuel as motorists there increasingly buy diesel-powered cars. Wednesday, Mr. Bush temporarily lowered U.S. environmental standards that also eased the way for European gasoline.
The core of the unfolding situation is that four days after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, eight major refineries are still shut down and several could require a month or more to restart. In addition, there are early rumblings in the industry of significant, unreported damage to offshore pipelines, energy-gathering hubs and producing platforms that could take months to repair.
Neither Exxon Mobil Corp. nor Chevron Corp. released more than the briefest details about their offshore facilities. Royal Dutch Shell PLC reported damage to three key facilities: offshore producing platforms Mars and Cognac and a hub facility that gathers oil and gas from large deep-water platforms.
Shell reported yesterday that its Convent, La., refinery could initiate a restart in "about a week." Chevron said its large Pascagoula, Miss., refinery had been saved by a dike built in 1998 that "prevented catastrophic damage." Exxon said its giant Baton Rouge refinery was having pipeline and transportation issues and running at "reduced rates until normal feedstock supply and product movement is restored."
Last year, Hurricane Ivan, a less-powerful storm, hurt oil production for months, pushing up energy prices world-wide after it upended pipeline networks in the Gulf of Mexico. The price of crude rose from $44 to above $50 for two months.
• Updated photos | Graphics: Hotspots | New Orleans Map
• Prioritizing: If you had to flee your home, what would you take? Join the discussion.
• Question of the Day: How would you grade the federal government's handling of the hurricane so far?
• Katrina Wire: Latest Updates
• Katrina Reveals U.S. Energy Vulnerability
• Status of Energy Facilities | Pain at the Pump
• See complete coverage.
There was some good news. Valero Energy Corp. said power was restored to its St. Charles, La., refinery and Marathon Oil Co. said its Garyville, La., refinery could be producing gasoline by early next week. Two idled pipelines that had hampered fuel deliveries to the East Coast are now being brought back on line. Colonial Pipeline Co., knocked out of action by Katrina, said it was operating at 40% of capacity, with about 61% of capacity expected by day's end. Plantation Pipe Line Co., which is majority-owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP, said it resumed limited service Wednesday. Plantation said it had been able to restore about 150,000 barrels of capacity per day, or nearly 25% of its average daily throughput.
Whether a true energy crisis emerges -- with persistent fuel shortages, soaring gas prices and a wallop to the economy -- will depend on how quickly the onshore and offshore infrastructure gets back up and running, how deftly the industry and government handle fuel distribution in the meantime and, critically, whether large numbers of consumers panic.
A rush to fill gasoline tanks in large parts of the country would quickly drain stockpiles, leading to shortages, hoarding, long lines and even sharper price spikes. If every driver in the U.S. fleet of 220 million vehicles topped off his tank with 10 gallons, that would be an additional 2.2 billion gallons of demand for gasoline and diesel inventories that stood on Aug. 19 at 8.19 billion gallons and 3.23 billion gallons, respectively.
"In terms of the scale and impact on the American market, this is comparable to the oil embargo" of 1973 and 1974, said Jay E. Fakes, head of the federal Energy Information Administration from 1993 to 2000. The only answer, he says, is immediate conservation. His call for drivers to cut back was echoed by such oil-industry heavyweights as the American Petroleum Institute and the Petroleum Marketers Association of America.
The industry's ability to snuff out the gasoline-price spike is critical because if the crunch persists, it has the potential to significantly slow the U.S. and global economies or even trigger a recession. American consumers kept spending strongly through this summer even as crude-oil prices soared, largely because other factors -- low interest rates, rising home values and cheap imports -- offset the sting of higher prices at the pump. Their spending has been a linchpin of world-wide economic growth.
But signs of stress are emerging. Home values may be peaking. The government reported yesterday that the personal-saving rate dipped into negative territory for just the first time since the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, suggesting consumers are going into debt to support their spending habits. A sustained gasoline-price shock, many economists warn, could help tip the economy into a recession.
Gasoline stations in some parts of the country say supplies are drying up. Worst hit are the unbranded retailers -- stations that aren't affiliated with a major oil company such as Exxon or Chevron but still account for about one-third of U.S. gasoline sales. Jenny Love, a spokeswoman for Love's, an Oklahoma City-based chain of 160 interstate and highway locations, said some of the company's outlets were out of both gasoline and diesel fuel. "The unbranded retailer is at the bottom of the totem pole," she said. "There's nothing we can do about it."
Some service stations in gas-crimped areas like Atlanta were charging in excess of $5 a gallon for gas, before a gubernatorial state of emergency forced them to lower the price. The White House warned that federal officials would have "zero tolerance for price-gouging."
Cary Gavant, a 58-year-old Atlanta broker, says he conserved fuel last night by driving more slowly than usual on the 50 miles north on I-75 toward his suburban home from Atlanta and noticed that many other drivers were doing so, too. "The thought of not having gasoline was terrifying," he said.
While the triggering event for the country's energy squeeze was the destruction Katrina unleashed on the vital gasoline-producing region of Louisiana and Mississippi, the scene was set for this catastrophe by both drivers and the energy industry. U.S. drivers pump 11% of the world's crude oil into their tanks in the form of gasoline, and increasingly over the past couple of decades they have been buying gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks.
WALL STREET JOURNAL VIDEO
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson discusses why fuel rules were waived in order to increase capacity out of the Gulf Coast region. Plus, WSJ's Gerald Seib discusses the Bush administration's plan to release oil from government stockpiles. And AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson talks about how Katrina may affect the auto industry.
At the same time, the oil industry has been reluctant to invest in new refinery capacity because of historically low returns, even while refiners have pared back inventories to beef up margins. This reluctance has shrunk U.S. and international spare refining capacity, creating a world-wide gasoline-delivery system hard-pressed to cope with a major disruption such as the one wrought by Katrina.
Even though these twin trends were well-known, the scope of the disruption has caught even long-time oil-refining veterans by surprise. "In my 30 years, I do not remember a time like this," says Tom O'Malley, former chairman of Premcor Inc., a major U.S. refiner acquired this year by Valero. "It is absolutely clear that a significant amount of refining capacity that is currently down will take time to come up. And I don't think it's a matter of days. For some refineries, it could be a matter of months. There is certainly going to be a domestic product shortfall."
Still, Mr. O'Malley doesn't believe the U.S. is headed for an energy crisis. The rocketing wholesale and retail gasoline prices should fall back soon, as tankers full of gasoline from Europe begin arriving. "I think the industry, you will find, will do an amazing job of coming up with supply. It's a question of weeks, but this is no long-term problem."
Industry experts said they expect the refineries hardest hit by the hurricane to be out of service for more than a month since flooding can ruin the electric pumps that send crude oil through a refinery's complex system of pipes. "It looks quite serious," said Bob Funk, who recently retired as head of planning from Citgo Petroleum Corp., a U.S. refiner and subsidiary of Venezuela's national oil company. Mr. Funk expressed particular concern for a plant run by Exxon Mobil and Petroleos de Venezuela in Chalmette, La., which is on the Mississippi River near downtown New Orleans. Exxon Mobil said it couldn't provide any information on potential damage at the Chalmette refinery.
The extent of the probable damage to the plants struck by the storm, he says, is likely to be more than the Gulf Coast work force can repair, meaning refiners will have to bring workers in from other parts of the country. That and the extensive flooding are likely to slow refinery repair efforts. Even when the refineries are up and running it is unclear whether they will have adequate staffing, given the flood damage in surrounding communities and neighborhoods where workers live.
And while European traders reported as many as 20 bookings in the past two days for tankers to carry gasoline across the Atlantic, the shipments won't provide immediate relief. The ships are scheduled to load gasoline at European ports later this month but will take as long as three weeks before reaching East Coast ports like New York. On top of that, traders are finding it difficult to find available ships. Rates for trans-Atlantic voyage have soared in the past few days as shipbrokers try to line up tonnage.
While most attention was on the onshore infrastructure, there were ominous signs of damage to the offshore platforms and pipelines that produce one-quarter of U.S. oil. Shell reported that its West Delta 143 platform, which serves a pipeline hub, needed substantial repairs. Less than 20% of energy production within the Gulf of Mexico had been restored yesterday, according to the federal Minerals Management Service. Four days after Hurricane Ivan last year, 60% of production had been restarted, the agency said.
Ivan scrambled numerous critical underwater pipelines, essentially leaving functional producing platforms with no way to get the oil and gas to shore. Robert Bea, Shell's former chief engineer in the U.S. and a longtime student of the impact of hurricanes on the Gulf's energy infrastructure, says he has heard from a network of oilfield workers that the damage to pipelines and platforms could be "10 times what we saw in Ivan."
Even before Katrina, the refining industry faced a severe capacity crunch, a problem that promised to limit the prospects for cheaper gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for at least several years. Nor is it exclusively a U.S. problem: Growing demand for oil from China, India and other rising powers is aggravating the shortfall in refining and threatening to keep prices elevated for years.
While global demand is expected to grow by nearly two million barrels a day this year -- from 82.5 million barrels a day last year -- the world's capacity to refine and process crude oil is expected to grow by less than half that, according to the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation.
For these reasons, Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, a New York-based group, said that the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and increased gasoline imports from abroad won't fundamentally address the situation. "How could this not be a major problem for an indefinite period of time?" he said. Mr. Goldstein said he expects sustained high gasoline prices as demand exceeds supply. "It's powerful and it's ugly," he said. "But it's true."
--Chip Cummins and Steve LeVine contributed to this article.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB...Ffree%5Ffeature
Man-Made Mistakes
Increase Devastation
Of 'Natural' Disasters
September 2, 2005; Page B1
While storms such as Hurricane Katrina are sometimes called an act of God or a natural disaster, the devastation they leave behind is not. Some scientists believe even the storms themselves could be at least partly man-made.
As Theodore Steinberg argues, God is getting a bum rap. "This is an unnatural disaster if ever there was one, not an act of God," says Prof. Steinberg, an environmental historian at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. "If the potential for mass death and destruction from extreme weather existed anywhere in the U.S., it existed in New Orleans."
In his 2000 book "Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America," Prof. Steinberg documented how much of the toll from "natural" disasters, from the 1886 Charleston earthquake to 1990s hurricanes, has been exacerbated by human actions.
The temporary lull in hurricane activity in Florida, from 1969 to 1989, spurred a reckless building boom, for example, putting billions of dollars worth of condos and hotels within reach of storm surges, notes Roger Pielke Jr., of the University of Colorado, Boulder. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 would have caused an estimated $90 billion damage had it occurred in 2000, he calculated. It caused just over $1 billion, in today's dollars.
It isn't only hurricanes whose destructiveness has been increased by human actions. Tornadoes turn mobile homes into matchsticks (one of Prof. Steinberg's first jobs was at a New York brokerage firm, where he followed the trailer-home industry). From 1981 to 1997, he found, more than one-third of all deaths from tornadoes occurred among people living in mobile homes; federal regulations didn't require them to withstand high winds, and a 1974 statute actually pre-empted stricter state standards with more lax federal ones.
Throughout the South and Midwest, mobile-home communities and poor neighborhoods are also much more likely to be sited in flood plains.
In New Orleans, the worst-hit parishes were the lower-income ones. But the city also ignored the power of nature. More than one million acres of Louisiana's coastal wetlands, or 1,900 square miles, have been lost since 1930, due to development and the construction of levees and canals. Barrier islands and stands of tupelo and cypress also vanished. All of them absorb some of the energy and water from storm surges, which, more than the rain falling from the sky, caused the current calamity. "If these had been in place, at least some of the energy in the storm surge would have been dissipated," says geologist Jeffrey Mount of the University of California, Davis. "This is a self-inflicted wound."
Studies estimate that for every square mile of wetlands lost, storm surges rise by one foot.
Leaving aside whether the levees that broke in New Orleans could have been better constructed, their very existence contributed to the disaster. Built to keep the city from being flooded by the Mississippi, they also keep the Big Muddy from depositing silt to replenish marshes and the river's delta, as do projects that direct the river's water and sediment out to sea to create a deep shipping channel.
The result is that much of New Orleans fell below sea level. Combined with the dredging to build canals, "the Gulf of Mexico is a lot closer to New Orleans than it was when Hurricane Betsy ripped through in 1965," says Prof. Steinberg. Now the gulf is in the city.
The ultimate question is whether Katrina's power reflects human-caused global warming, or is at minimum a harbinger of the kinds of storms we can expect in a warmer world.
No single freak storm can be attributed to global climate trends. But for hurricanes to form, the surface temperature in the tropical Atlantic must exceed about 80° Fahrenheit. That is more likely in a warmer world.
The best science to date suggests the frequency of hurricanes doesn't reflect global warming. Straightforward physics, however, says their intensity might. As the seas and air warm, there is more evaporation, which fuels storms, and more energy available to pump them up. A new analysis by atmospheric physicist Kerry Emanuel of MIT suggests the net power of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and Pacific typhoons), a combination of the energy they pack and how long they last, "has increased markedly since 1970."
The power of storms in the North Atlantic has tripled, while the power of those in the western North Pacific has more than doubled.
Similarly, a 2004 study from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that a warmer world is likely to deepen hurricanes' central pressure (a measure of their power) and intensify the rainfall they bring. Today's storms, the scientists write, "may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
By continuing to blame weather extremes on random events, the "stuff happens" attitude, officials and city planners are ignoring their contributions to the disasters that have pummeled the planet and promise to become only worse.
Man-Made Mistakes
Increase Devastation
Of 'Natural' Disasters
September 2, 2005; Page B1
While storms such as Hurricane Katrina are sometimes called an act of God or a natural disaster, the devastation they leave behind is not. Some scientists believe even the storms themselves could be at least partly man-made.
As Theodore Steinberg argues, God is getting a bum rap. "This is an unnatural disaster if ever there was one, not an act of God," says Prof. Steinberg, an environmental historian at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. "If the potential for mass death and destruction from extreme weather existed anywhere in the U.S., it existed in New Orleans."
In his 2000 book "Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America," Prof. Steinberg documented how much of the toll from "natural" disasters, from the 1886 Charleston earthquake to 1990s hurricanes, has been exacerbated by human actions.
The temporary lull in hurricane activity in Florida, from 1969 to 1989, spurred a reckless building boom, for example, putting billions of dollars worth of condos and hotels within reach of storm surges, notes Roger Pielke Jr., of the University of Colorado, Boulder. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 would have caused an estimated $90 billion damage had it occurred in 2000, he calculated. It caused just over $1 billion, in today's dollars.
It isn't only hurricanes whose destructiveness has been increased by human actions. Tornadoes turn mobile homes into matchsticks (one of Prof. Steinberg's first jobs was at a New York brokerage firm, where he followed the trailer-home industry). From 1981 to 1997, he found, more than one-third of all deaths from tornadoes occurred among people living in mobile homes; federal regulations didn't require them to withstand high winds, and a 1974 statute actually pre-empted stricter state standards with more lax federal ones.
Throughout the South and Midwest, mobile-home communities and poor neighborhoods are also much more likely to be sited in flood plains.
In New Orleans, the worst-hit parishes were the lower-income ones. But the city also ignored the power of nature. More than one million acres of Louisiana's coastal wetlands, or 1,900 square miles, have been lost since 1930, due to development and the construction of levees and canals. Barrier islands and stands of tupelo and cypress also vanished. All of them absorb some of the energy and water from storm surges, which, more than the rain falling from the sky, caused the current calamity. "If these had been in place, at least some of the energy in the storm surge would have been dissipated," says geologist Jeffrey Mount of the University of California, Davis. "This is a self-inflicted wound."
Studies estimate that for every square mile of wetlands lost, storm surges rise by one foot.
Leaving aside whether the levees that broke in New Orleans could have been better constructed, their very existence contributed to the disaster. Built to keep the city from being flooded by the Mississippi, they also keep the Big Muddy from depositing silt to replenish marshes and the river's delta, as do projects that direct the river's water and sediment out to sea to create a deep shipping channel.
The result is that much of New Orleans fell below sea level. Combined with the dredging to build canals, "the Gulf of Mexico is a lot closer to New Orleans than it was when Hurricane Betsy ripped through in 1965," says Prof. Steinberg. Now the gulf is in the city.
The ultimate question is whether Katrina's power reflects human-caused global warming, or is at minimum a harbinger of the kinds of storms we can expect in a warmer world.
No single freak storm can be attributed to global climate trends. But for hurricanes to form, the surface temperature in the tropical Atlantic must exceed about 80° Fahrenheit. That is more likely in a warmer world.
The best science to date suggests the frequency of hurricanes doesn't reflect global warming. Straightforward physics, however, says their intensity might. As the seas and air warm, there is more evaporation, which fuels storms, and more energy available to pump them up. A new analysis by atmospheric physicist Kerry Emanuel of MIT suggests the net power of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and Pacific typhoons), a combination of the energy they pack and how long they last, "has increased markedly since 1970."
The power of storms in the North Atlantic has tripled, while the power of those in the western North Pacific has more than doubled.
Similarly, a 2004 study from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that a warmer world is likely to deepen hurricanes' central pressure (a measure of their power) and intensify the rainfall they bring. Today's storms, the scientists write, "may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
By continuing to blame weather extremes on random events, the "stuff happens" attitude, officials and city planners are ignoring their contributions to the disasters that have pummeled the planet and promise to become only worse.
HURRICANE KATRINA
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1125583...e_journal_links
Crisis News Tracker
September 5, 2005 9:46 a.m.
Updated regularly with news on the hurricane's aftermath. All times EDT.
Monday, Sept. 5
9:45 a.m. A city of hundreds of thousands is now just a fraction of that as people are airlifted, bused and floated out of New Orleans. Federal officials urged those still left in New Orleans to leave for their own safety. In New Orleans, Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore told ABC's "Good Morning America'' on Monday that fewer than 10,000 people remained in the city, based on aerial reconnaissance.
9:10 a.m.: Miles-long lines of vehicles crawled into Jefferson Parish, west of New Orleans, as residents were allowed to return for brief inspections of what's left of their homes. The traffic began moving into the parish at about 6 a.m., and officials planned to allow traffic in for 12 hours, though they encouraged residents to inspect their property, pick up personal items and leave. Most of the single-story bungalow homes in the neighborhood had water nearly to the rooflines.
8:25 a.m.: Oil prices continued to fall after industrialized nations agreed to release crude from their strategic stockpiles to help avert a severe fuel shortage in the U.S. Industrialized nations arranged by Monday to ship about 30 cargoes of gasoline to the U.S., Vienna's PV oil associates said, after the International Energy Agency on Friday said its 26 members would release two million barrels daily for 30 days to meet shortfalls in world energy markets. On London's International Petroleum Exchange Monday, October Brent was down $1.41 at $64.65 a barrel by midday in Europe – close to what it had been before Katrina hit. The New York Mercantile Exchange is closed for the Labor Day holiday.
6:30 a.m.: European Union nations on Monday prepared aid teams, food rations, water pumps and other emergency material. The European Commission said further pledges of aid had come in Sunday, including promises to ship power generators, cots, tents and first-aid kits. U.S. authorities made a rare request for help from Europe over the weekend, asking for anything from diapers and baby formula to forklifts and veterinarian supplies to speed up aid efforts. The NATO alliance has also started to coordinate food-aid shipments, drinking water, generators, and tarpaulins through its disaster coordination center.
2.45 a.m.: Carnival Corp. said its earnings are likely to be reduced by one cent to three cents a share due to the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Most of the reduction is expected to fall in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ends Nov. 30, the Miami-based cruise-line operator said. Carnival is forecasting earnings of 45 cents a share for the current quarter and a profit of $2.70 a share for the fiscal year. Carnival said severe weather resulted in the cancellation of one voyage and the shortening of two others. The company has two ships based in New Orleans and doesn't expect them to operate from that port for an extended period of time.
1:43 a.m.: Oil prices fell Monday, declining more than $1 in London after industrialized nations agreed to release 60 million barrels of crude from their strategic stockpiles to help avert a severe fuel shortage in the U.S. The U.S. refinery system was struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina, with two storm-shuttered facilities restarting and flows of crude oil improving enough to allow refineries in the Gulf Coast and Midwest to ramp up production. But four damaged Gulf Coast refiners look likely to remain shut for weeks or even months, taking with them more than 5% of U.S. capacity.
Sunday, Sept. 4
8:55 p.m.: With nearly a quarter million evacuees already in Texas and more still pouring in, Gov. Rick Perry on Sunday ordered emergency officials to initiate an airlift to take some of them to other states that have offered help. Aid centers will be set up at airports in Houston and Dallas where incoming refugees can be given food, water and medical care before they are flown out. Two flights were scheduled Sunday night.
8:00 p.m.: MSNBC shows a civilian helicopter crashed in New Orleans on a spit of land surrounded by flood waters. The helicopter is lying on its side and smoking slightly. The AP reported that the two people on board escaped with only cuts and scrapes, according to Mark Smith of the state office of emergency preparedness.
7:45 p.m.: Here are updated death tolls reported by state officials from Katrina as of Sunday. The numbers are expected to rise.
ALABAMA: 2
FLORIDA: 11
GEORGIA: 2
LOUISIANA: 59
MISSISSIPPI: 161
TOTAL: 235
7 p.m.: It will cost at least $1.5 billion to rebuild destroyed highways in the Gulf Coast region, Transportation Secretary Mineta said. That amount would just restore Interstate 10 and U.S. 90, two major arteries leading into New Orleans. Mineta also said 15 flights an hour were arriving and departing from New Orleans International Airport by Sunday afternoon, and that more than 20,000 people had been flown out of the city in the last 72 hours.
6:30 p.m.: Multimedia: Latest AP video shows evacuations in New Orleans and progress in Biloxi. Updated WSJ gallery includes photo of city streets by hunkered-down staff at New Orleans Internet registrar DirectNic (More at mgno.com.)
6:20 p.m.: The Army Corps of Engineers says some of its contractors were shot at, then police shot fatally the gunmen who fired on the contractors. The contractors weren't killed, the Army Corps said. An earlier report incorrectly said the police had shot and killed the contractors.
• Updated photos | New Orleans Map
• See complete coverage.
5:55 p.m.: The AP reports from Fort Chaffee, Ark. After arriving here weary and hungry, thousands of people driven from their homes by faced one more task before they could rest: paperwork. Marion Landry, 84, held onto her younger sister's walker as the bedraggled pair went through the required registration. What they really wanted was a shower. "I've worn the same set of clothes for three days," said Fay Roberts, 81. "My hair is sweaty. I don't look like this. Normally I'm very nice."
4:52 p.m.: Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six of them, a deputy chief said. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said the shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge on U.S. 90, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. He said he had no other details.
4:40 p.m.: In the first official count, Louisiana emergency medical director Louis Cataldie said authorities had verified 59 deaths.
Ken Wells
3:50 p.m.: The Wall Street Journal's Ken Wells reports from New Orleans. Frank Churchville and Kenny Ellison have come from Alabama to help. Mr. Churchville is perched up in the bed of a white Ford F150 pickup truck, sporting a black T-shirt that has "Police" emblazoned across it in big white letters and, in case anyone misses that hint, a big black shotgun, locked and loaded, perched in his lap. He's a cop back in Mobile; Mr. Ellison a contractor there. As soon as they started hearing the reports from New Orleans, they lit out, one of an estimated 1,600 such volunteers who have come in with boats to search the still flooded ramparts of the city for Katrina's trapped and dead. "How can we get out of here?" pleads 19-year-old Janessa Bailey, who has walked three long blocks through the filthy water and has a fevered, stricken look on her face. "Do you know anything about the buses? Are they picking up people anywhere near?" Read Ken's full report.
3:20 p.m: The Wall Street Journal's Gary Fields reports from Washington. Alphonso Jackson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said the government is working with housing directors from around the country as well as private entities to identify more long term housing. "It's important to understand they will not [all] be in Louisiana or Mississippi. We are talking about a 500-mile radius," he said. Mr. Jackson said authorities also are exploring the wider use of rental vouchers. See the full report.
3:05 p.m.: WSJ.com rounds up editorials from Sunday's papers on the New Orleans catastrophe. Reactions ranged from frustration with the federal government's response to determination to rebuild the broken city. Plus, graphic showing newspaper front pages.
Lt. Gen. Honore
2:40 p.m.: Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore tells Fox News: "The local officials were doing the best they could given the conditions. They were in the conditions themselves and were also victims. … The storm took down the power, the storm took down the antennas. … The telephone goes down and that makes it very hard to coordinate. That takes you back 50 to 100 years. … Coordination is dependent on reliable communications. … I am not trying to defend this I am trying to explain this." See an AP profile of Honore. Recall that Honore was the one official New Orleans Mayor Nagin praised, calling him a "John Wayne" type. (Audio)
2:38 p.m.: Fox News's Geraldo Rivera, witnessing a woman being coaxed on to a helicopter, says, "This was a dress rehearsal for a nuclear attack on the major American city." Helicopter video shown on cable networks shows chopper rescues continuing, amid flooding stretching for miles. Men stand on slanted roofs of houses waiting for rescue. Earlier, Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La., breaks down while telling NBC's Meet the Press of the slow-motion death of a colleague's stranded mother: "I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sake, shut up and send somebody."
2:30 p.m.: The first group of evacuees who will be given shelter in Arizona arrived Sunday morning at Sky Harbor International Airport. The New Orleans diaspora stretches to New England as well. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says about 2,500 displaced people will arrive in the state for emergency shelter within the next 72 hours.
2:15 p.m.: Embattled FEMA Director Michael Brown said Sunday his agency and the Department of Homeland Security didn't ask for military help until they realized it was "beyond the capability of FEMA" to get its job done. "We asked for it as soon as it became necessary. As soon as we recognized this was beyond the capabilities of FEMA to do its traditional recovery efforts," Brown said during a press conference. "I think people need to understand the response was ongoing ... . This disaster did not start the day Katrina moved out of here; the disaster continued on and grew and grew," he said. See an August 2004 profile of Brown, which includes a discussion of low morale at FEMA.
1:45 p.m.: The Wall Street Journal's Melanie Trottman and Ann Zimmerman report from Dallas. Volunteers taped signs up on a long row of windows near the building's entrance, offering transportation to Sunday church services, jobs at Kentucky Fried Chicken and Domino's Pizza, and pet help and care. One sign offered shelter to members of Alcoholics Anonymous, along with rides to local meetings. At Reunion Arena, 27-year-old Dallas resident Gerald Brown set up a makeshift barbershop to offer free haircuts, calling it God's work. His lamp is clamped to a metal guardrail and he's plugged the power cord of his clippers into an outlet outside the building. Elsewhere, Calvin Armstead, 34, who worked in New Orleans as a gas-station cashier, said he is debating whether to meet up with family in Houston or stay in Dallas, where he says he's had more outpouring of support from people than he had his entire life in New Orleans. "I'd like to go back to New Orleans but I don't think that's possible," he said. "Dallas sounds like a good idea."
1:30 p.m.: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comments from the New Orleans airport: "As the president said, it is a natural disaster of historic proportions." He added, "It is important to keep the magnitude of it mind. …. It will take many, many, many months, into years, for this area to recover." Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) identifies Friday as the turning point in the rescue efforts.
12:40 p.m.: New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said 150 police officers were to leave for Gulf Coast region Monday, in addition to 172 officers sent on Saturday. Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said FEMA on Sunday requested 300 New York firefighters. They were to leave Monday to help fight fires and search for survivors. He said hundreds of firefighters had already volunteered before they were asked.
12:30 p.m. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to her native Alabama to attend services at the Pilgrim Rest AME Zion church outside Mobile and a community center in the ravaged Bayou La Batre, 45 minutes away. About 718,000 homes and businesses in Mobile were left without power for days, and at least two people died.
11:48 a.m.: President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush visited the Red Cross's disaster operation center in Washington, where they thanked employees. The president also announced that the White House would hold a blood drive on Friday.
11:45 a.m.: British nationals caught up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina recounted horror stories of their experience sheltering in squalid and terrifying conditions as they arrived home Sunday. Will Nelson, 21 years old, who was visiting New Orleans after working on the Camp America cultural exchange program and took shelter in the city's Superdome, said conditions in the refuge deteriorated to desperate levels. Fellow summer camp worker Sarah Yorston, 21, said she witnessed "total chaos and devastation." She added "These people have lost everything and they are just desperate people doing desperate things." Another Briton, Marisa Haigh, said international tourists stranded in the Superdome had stuck together for safety. See Brits' Hell Inside The Terror Dome.
10:50 a.m.: Pool cameras show dramatic rescue of older woman from rooftop. Meanwhile, a woman's body remained at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street, a business area in the lower Garden District with antique shops. The AP reports the body had been there since at least Wednesday. People covered her with blankets or plastic. By Sunday, a short wall of bricks had been built around her body, holding down a plastic tarpaulin. On it, someone spray-painted a cross and the words, "Here lies Vera. God help us.'' (See the photo in the WSJ photo gallery.)
10:41 a.m.: U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt says death toll from Hurricane Katrina is in the thousands, echoing bleak remarks made a day earlier by Louisiana's governor. He couldn't give a precise number on the impact of the devastation, but when asked if it was in the thousands, he told CNN, "I think it's evident it's in the thousands.''
10:40 a.m.: Wall Street Journal reporters Russell Gold in Dallas and Thaddeus Herrick in Houston report. Nearly a week after Hurricane Katrina cut through a main artery of the U.S. energy industry, a large amount of crucial infrastructure remains off line, leaving the world's largest economy and the rest of the globe on the brink of a potential energy crisis. A focused picture of the damage to the region's infrastructure remains elusive amid the post-storm chaos, but in broad-brush strokes, it is becoming clear the industry faces a two-pronged problem. Full report.
Chertoff and embattled Brown brief media
10:20 a.m.: "We are going to have to go house to house" to find survivors and the dead, Homeland chief Michael Chertoff tells reporters. "From this point on … I want to do everything as possible as quickly as possible." Answering questions from reports, he said, "I'm not going to take one minute" away from working on the crisis to answers questions on what may or may not have gone wrong in the government's earlier efforts. He declined to give an approximate death toll. See profiles of Chertoff and other key people in the crisis.
10:00 a.m.: The Wall Street Journal's Robert Guy Matthews reports. In an effort to soften the blow of higher fuel prices and disrupted supplies, the federal government is taking steps to increase the supply of diesel fuel as some states moved to suspend gasoline excise taxes. States that suspend gas taxes stand to lose millions of dollars in revenues. Late last week, the state of Georgia suspended its 7.5 cents-a-gallon gas tax and 4% sales tax on gasoline purchases until Oct. 1. Read the full report.
9:55 a.m.: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told "Fox News Sunday" that a grim toll is expected to be found in swamped homes and elsewhere. "We need to prepare the country for what's coming. ... We are going to uncover people who died hiding in the houses, maybe got caught in floods, it is going to be as ugly a scene as you can imagine,'' Mr. Chertoff said.
7:33 a.m.: Pope Benedict offered his prayers to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. "These days we are all pained by the disaster caused by the hurricane in the United States of America," Pope Benedict said. "I want to ensure my prayer for the dead and their relatives, for the wounded without a roof, for the sick, the children, the elderly and I bless those who are busy with the difficult rescue and rebuilding operation."
6:47 a.m.: South Korea said it will send $30 million to the U.S. for hurricane relief, according to an official with the South Korean Prime Minister's Office.
2:48 a.m.: Associated Press gives snapshot of evacuee status across the south of the U.S. Governor Rick Perry said more than 120,000 evacuees are in 97 shelters across Texas, with another 100,000 in hotels and motels in the state. Hundreds more are housed in churches or private homes.
1:25 a.m.: North Korea's Red Cross expressed sympathy to its U.S. counterpart over the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The North Korean Red Cross said it hoped "the living of the inhabitants in the afflicted areas return to normal as early as possible."
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1125583...e_journal_links
Crisis News Tracker
September 5, 2005 9:46 a.m.
Updated regularly with news on the hurricane's aftermath. All times EDT.
Monday, Sept. 5
9:45 a.m. A city of hundreds of thousands is now just a fraction of that as people are airlifted, bused and floated out of New Orleans. Federal officials urged those still left in New Orleans to leave for their own safety. In New Orleans, Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore told ABC's "Good Morning America'' on Monday that fewer than 10,000 people remained in the city, based on aerial reconnaissance.
9:10 a.m.: Miles-long lines of vehicles crawled into Jefferson Parish, west of New Orleans, as residents were allowed to return for brief inspections of what's left of their homes. The traffic began moving into the parish at about 6 a.m., and officials planned to allow traffic in for 12 hours, though they encouraged residents to inspect their property, pick up personal items and leave. Most of the single-story bungalow homes in the neighborhood had water nearly to the rooflines.
8:25 a.m.: Oil prices continued to fall after industrialized nations agreed to release crude from their strategic stockpiles to help avert a severe fuel shortage in the U.S. Industrialized nations arranged by Monday to ship about 30 cargoes of gasoline to the U.S., Vienna's PV oil associates said, after the International Energy Agency on Friday said its 26 members would release two million barrels daily for 30 days to meet shortfalls in world energy markets. On London's International Petroleum Exchange Monday, October Brent was down $1.41 at $64.65 a barrel by midday in Europe – close to what it had been before Katrina hit. The New York Mercantile Exchange is closed for the Labor Day holiday.
6:30 a.m.: European Union nations on Monday prepared aid teams, food rations, water pumps and other emergency material. The European Commission said further pledges of aid had come in Sunday, including promises to ship power generators, cots, tents and first-aid kits. U.S. authorities made a rare request for help from Europe over the weekend, asking for anything from diapers and baby formula to forklifts and veterinarian supplies to speed up aid efforts. The NATO alliance has also started to coordinate food-aid shipments, drinking water, generators, and tarpaulins through its disaster coordination center.
2.45 a.m.: Carnival Corp. said its earnings are likely to be reduced by one cent to three cents a share due to the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Most of the reduction is expected to fall in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ends Nov. 30, the Miami-based cruise-line operator said. Carnival is forecasting earnings of 45 cents a share for the current quarter and a profit of $2.70 a share for the fiscal year. Carnival said severe weather resulted in the cancellation of one voyage and the shortening of two others. The company has two ships based in New Orleans and doesn't expect them to operate from that port for an extended period of time.
1:43 a.m.: Oil prices fell Monday, declining more than $1 in London after industrialized nations agreed to release 60 million barrels of crude from their strategic stockpiles to help avert a severe fuel shortage in the U.S. The U.S. refinery system was struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina, with two storm-shuttered facilities restarting and flows of crude oil improving enough to allow refineries in the Gulf Coast and Midwest to ramp up production. But four damaged Gulf Coast refiners look likely to remain shut for weeks or even months, taking with them more than 5% of U.S. capacity.
Sunday, Sept. 4
8:55 p.m.: With nearly a quarter million evacuees already in Texas and more still pouring in, Gov. Rick Perry on Sunday ordered emergency officials to initiate an airlift to take some of them to other states that have offered help. Aid centers will be set up at airports in Houston and Dallas where incoming refugees can be given food, water and medical care before they are flown out. Two flights were scheduled Sunday night.
8:00 p.m.: MSNBC shows a civilian helicopter crashed in New Orleans on a spit of land surrounded by flood waters. The helicopter is lying on its side and smoking slightly. The AP reported that the two people on board escaped with only cuts and scrapes, according to Mark Smith of the state office of emergency preparedness.
7:45 p.m.: Here are updated death tolls reported by state officials from Katrina as of Sunday. The numbers are expected to rise.
ALABAMA: 2
FLORIDA: 11
GEORGIA: 2
LOUISIANA: 59
MISSISSIPPI: 161
TOTAL: 235
7 p.m.: It will cost at least $1.5 billion to rebuild destroyed highways in the Gulf Coast region, Transportation Secretary Mineta said. That amount would just restore Interstate 10 and U.S. 90, two major arteries leading into New Orleans. Mineta also said 15 flights an hour were arriving and departing from New Orleans International Airport by Sunday afternoon, and that more than 20,000 people had been flown out of the city in the last 72 hours.
6:30 p.m.: Multimedia: Latest AP video shows evacuations in New Orleans and progress in Biloxi. Updated WSJ gallery includes photo of city streets by hunkered-down staff at New Orleans Internet registrar DirectNic (More at mgno.com.)
6:20 p.m.: The Army Corps of Engineers says some of its contractors were shot at, then police shot fatally the gunmen who fired on the contractors. The contractors weren't killed, the Army Corps said. An earlier report incorrectly said the police had shot and killed the contractors.
• Updated photos | New Orleans Map
• See complete coverage.
5:55 p.m.: The AP reports from Fort Chaffee, Ark. After arriving here weary and hungry, thousands of people driven from their homes by faced one more task before they could rest: paperwork. Marion Landry, 84, held onto her younger sister's walker as the bedraggled pair went through the required registration. What they really wanted was a shower. "I've worn the same set of clothes for three days," said Fay Roberts, 81. "My hair is sweaty. I don't look like this. Normally I'm very nice."
4:52 p.m.: Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six of them, a deputy chief said. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said the shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge on U.S. 90, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. He said he had no other details.
4:40 p.m.: In the first official count, Louisiana emergency medical director Louis Cataldie said authorities had verified 59 deaths.
Ken Wells
3:50 p.m.: The Wall Street Journal's Ken Wells reports from New Orleans. Frank Churchville and Kenny Ellison have come from Alabama to help. Mr. Churchville is perched up in the bed of a white Ford F150 pickup truck, sporting a black T-shirt that has "Police" emblazoned across it in big white letters and, in case anyone misses that hint, a big black shotgun, locked and loaded, perched in his lap. He's a cop back in Mobile; Mr. Ellison a contractor there. As soon as they started hearing the reports from New Orleans, they lit out, one of an estimated 1,600 such volunteers who have come in with boats to search the still flooded ramparts of the city for Katrina's trapped and dead. "How can we get out of here?" pleads 19-year-old Janessa Bailey, who has walked three long blocks through the filthy water and has a fevered, stricken look on her face. "Do you know anything about the buses? Are they picking up people anywhere near?" Read Ken's full report.
3:20 p.m: The Wall Street Journal's Gary Fields reports from Washington. Alphonso Jackson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said the government is working with housing directors from around the country as well as private entities to identify more long term housing. "It's important to understand they will not [all] be in Louisiana or Mississippi. We are talking about a 500-mile radius," he said. Mr. Jackson said authorities also are exploring the wider use of rental vouchers. See the full report.
3:05 p.m.: WSJ.com rounds up editorials from Sunday's papers on the New Orleans catastrophe. Reactions ranged from frustration with the federal government's response to determination to rebuild the broken city. Plus, graphic showing newspaper front pages.
Lt. Gen. Honore
2:40 p.m.: Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore tells Fox News: "The local officials were doing the best they could given the conditions. They were in the conditions themselves and were also victims. … The storm took down the power, the storm took down the antennas. … The telephone goes down and that makes it very hard to coordinate. That takes you back 50 to 100 years. … Coordination is dependent on reliable communications. … I am not trying to defend this I am trying to explain this." See an AP profile of Honore. Recall that Honore was the one official New Orleans Mayor Nagin praised, calling him a "John Wayne" type. (Audio)
2:38 p.m.: Fox News's Geraldo Rivera, witnessing a woman being coaxed on to a helicopter, says, "This was a dress rehearsal for a nuclear attack on the major American city." Helicopter video shown on cable networks shows chopper rescues continuing, amid flooding stretching for miles. Men stand on slanted roofs of houses waiting for rescue. Earlier, Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La., breaks down while telling NBC's Meet the Press of the slow-motion death of a colleague's stranded mother: "I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sake, shut up and send somebody."
2:30 p.m.: The first group of evacuees who will be given shelter in Arizona arrived Sunday morning at Sky Harbor International Airport. The New Orleans diaspora stretches to New England as well. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says about 2,500 displaced people will arrive in the state for emergency shelter within the next 72 hours.
2:15 p.m.: Embattled FEMA Director Michael Brown said Sunday his agency and the Department of Homeland Security didn't ask for military help until they realized it was "beyond the capability of FEMA" to get its job done. "We asked for it as soon as it became necessary. As soon as we recognized this was beyond the capabilities of FEMA to do its traditional recovery efforts," Brown said during a press conference. "I think people need to understand the response was ongoing ... . This disaster did not start the day Katrina moved out of here; the disaster continued on and grew and grew," he said. See an August 2004 profile of Brown, which includes a discussion of low morale at FEMA.
1:45 p.m.: The Wall Street Journal's Melanie Trottman and Ann Zimmerman report from Dallas. Volunteers taped signs up on a long row of windows near the building's entrance, offering transportation to Sunday church services, jobs at Kentucky Fried Chicken and Domino's Pizza, and pet help and care. One sign offered shelter to members of Alcoholics Anonymous, along with rides to local meetings. At Reunion Arena, 27-year-old Dallas resident Gerald Brown set up a makeshift barbershop to offer free haircuts, calling it God's work. His lamp is clamped to a metal guardrail and he's plugged the power cord of his clippers into an outlet outside the building. Elsewhere, Calvin Armstead, 34, who worked in New Orleans as a gas-station cashier, said he is debating whether to meet up with family in Houston or stay in Dallas, where he says he's had more outpouring of support from people than he had his entire life in New Orleans. "I'd like to go back to New Orleans but I don't think that's possible," he said. "Dallas sounds like a good idea."
1:30 p.m.: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comments from the New Orleans airport: "As the president said, it is a natural disaster of historic proportions." He added, "It is important to keep the magnitude of it mind. …. It will take many, many, many months, into years, for this area to recover." Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) identifies Friday as the turning point in the rescue efforts.
12:40 p.m.: New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said 150 police officers were to leave for Gulf Coast region Monday, in addition to 172 officers sent on Saturday. Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said FEMA on Sunday requested 300 New York firefighters. They were to leave Monday to help fight fires and search for survivors. He said hundreds of firefighters had already volunteered before they were asked.
12:30 p.m. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to her native Alabama to attend services at the Pilgrim Rest AME Zion church outside Mobile and a community center in the ravaged Bayou La Batre, 45 minutes away. About 718,000 homes and businesses in Mobile were left without power for days, and at least two people died.
11:48 a.m.: President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush visited the Red Cross's disaster operation center in Washington, where they thanked employees. The president also announced that the White House would hold a blood drive on Friday.
11:45 a.m.: British nationals caught up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina recounted horror stories of their experience sheltering in squalid and terrifying conditions as they arrived home Sunday. Will Nelson, 21 years old, who was visiting New Orleans after working on the Camp America cultural exchange program and took shelter in the city's Superdome, said conditions in the refuge deteriorated to desperate levels. Fellow summer camp worker Sarah Yorston, 21, said she witnessed "total chaos and devastation." She added "These people have lost everything and they are just desperate people doing desperate things." Another Briton, Marisa Haigh, said international tourists stranded in the Superdome had stuck together for safety. See Brits' Hell Inside The Terror Dome.
10:50 a.m.: Pool cameras show dramatic rescue of older woman from rooftop. Meanwhile, a woman's body remained at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street, a business area in the lower Garden District with antique shops. The AP reports the body had been there since at least Wednesday. People covered her with blankets or plastic. By Sunday, a short wall of bricks had been built around her body, holding down a plastic tarpaulin. On it, someone spray-painted a cross and the words, "Here lies Vera. God help us.'' (See the photo in the WSJ photo gallery.)
10:41 a.m.: U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt says death toll from Hurricane Katrina is in the thousands, echoing bleak remarks made a day earlier by Louisiana's governor. He couldn't give a precise number on the impact of the devastation, but when asked if it was in the thousands, he told CNN, "I think it's evident it's in the thousands.''
10:40 a.m.: Wall Street Journal reporters Russell Gold in Dallas and Thaddeus Herrick in Houston report. Nearly a week after Hurricane Katrina cut through a main artery of the U.S. energy industry, a large amount of crucial infrastructure remains off line, leaving the world's largest economy and the rest of the globe on the brink of a potential energy crisis. A focused picture of the damage to the region's infrastructure remains elusive amid the post-storm chaos, but in broad-brush strokes, it is becoming clear the industry faces a two-pronged problem. Full report.
Chertoff and embattled Brown brief media
10:20 a.m.: "We are going to have to go house to house" to find survivors and the dead, Homeland chief Michael Chertoff tells reporters. "From this point on … I want to do everything as possible as quickly as possible." Answering questions from reports, he said, "I'm not going to take one minute" away from working on the crisis to answers questions on what may or may not have gone wrong in the government's earlier efforts. He declined to give an approximate death toll. See profiles of Chertoff and other key people in the crisis.
10:00 a.m.: The Wall Street Journal's Robert Guy Matthews reports. In an effort to soften the blow of higher fuel prices and disrupted supplies, the federal government is taking steps to increase the supply of diesel fuel as some states moved to suspend gasoline excise taxes. States that suspend gas taxes stand to lose millions of dollars in revenues. Late last week, the state of Georgia suspended its 7.5 cents-a-gallon gas tax and 4% sales tax on gasoline purchases until Oct. 1. Read the full report.
9:55 a.m.: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told "Fox News Sunday" that a grim toll is expected to be found in swamped homes and elsewhere. "We need to prepare the country for what's coming. ... We are going to uncover people who died hiding in the houses, maybe got caught in floods, it is going to be as ugly a scene as you can imagine,'' Mr. Chertoff said.
7:33 a.m.: Pope Benedict offered his prayers to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. "These days we are all pained by the disaster caused by the hurricane in the United States of America," Pope Benedict said. "I want to ensure my prayer for the dead and their relatives, for the wounded without a roof, for the sick, the children, the elderly and I bless those who are busy with the difficult rescue and rebuilding operation."
6:47 a.m.: South Korea said it will send $30 million to the U.S. for hurricane relief, according to an official with the South Korean Prime Minister's Office.
2:48 a.m.: Associated Press gives snapshot of evacuee status across the south of the U.S. Governor Rick Perry said more than 120,000 evacuees are in 97 shelters across Texas, with another 100,000 in hotels and motels in the state. Hundreds more are housed in churches or private homes.
1:25 a.m.: North Korea's Red Cross expressed sympathy to its U.S. counterpart over the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The North Korean Red Cross said it hoped "the living of the inhabitants in the afflicted areas return to normal as early as possible."
Bush Chooses John Roberts as Next US Chief Justice Bloomberg
U.S. President George W. Bush, acting only two days after the death of William H. Rehnquist, said he will nominate federal appeals court Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to be the nation's 17th chief justice. Roberts, 50, was in line to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, with Senate confirmation hearings scheduled to begin tomorrow. Bush instead will pick a new nominee for that seat. "Both those who've worked with him and those who have faced him in the courtroom speak with admiration of his striking ability as a lawyer and his natural gifts as a leader,'' Bush said from the Oval Office in Washington with Roberts at his side. "Judge Roberts has earned the nation's confidence.'' In announcing Roberts's nomination so quickly -- two days before Rehnquist's funeral -- Bush said he hoped the Senate would confirm him before the formal start of the Supreme Court's term on Oct. 3. "It is in the interest of the court and the country to have a chief justice on the bench on the first full day of the fall term,'' said Bush. Roberts, who until two years ago was an appellate litigator at a Washington law firm, said he was "honored and humbled by the confidence the president has shown in me.'' A former official in two Republican administrations, Roberts is now a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He had been an overwhelming favorite to win confirmation as an associate justice by the Senate, where Republicans hold a 55-45 advantage.
`Raises the Stakes'
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, a Judiciary Committee member who previously vowed to ask Roberts tough questions about his views on constitutional law, suggested he would try to hold Roberts to an even higher standard. "This nomination certainly raises the stakes in making sure that the American people and the Senate know Judge Roberts's views fully before he assumes perhaps the second most powerful position in the United States,'' Schumer said in an e-mailed statement. Bush said he would fill O'Connor's seat ``in a timely manner.'' He faces conflicting, probably even irreconcilable, pressures, as he prepares to fill the second vacancy. Dealing with sagging approval ratings and criticism over his response to Hurricane Katrina, he may try to reach out to moderates with his next appointment. At the same time, his political base will want a new justice to be at least as conservative as Rehnquist, who voted to allow the death penalty, restrict abortion and limit affirmative action. And some political allies say Bush must appoint either a woman or a racial minority.
Formal Offer
"Roberts has soaked up the white male seat,'' said Manuel Miranda, executive director of the Third Branch Conference a Washington-based coalition of conservative groups that support Bush's judicial nominees. Bush officially offered Roberts the chief justice position at 7:15 a.m. today Washington time after the two met privately at the White House yesterday at 5:30 p.m., spokesman Scott McClellan said. "This had been something that had been in the president's thinking for some time in case the chief justice retired'' or died or became unable to fulfill his duties, McClellan said. White House chief of staff Andy Card notified congressional leaders early today of Bush's decision. Justice John Paul Stevens, acting as liaison for the court, was also notified of the president's decision, McClellan said.
Court Moves May Give Bush Political High Ground Los Angeles Times
US Supreme court loses Chief Justice William Rehnquist ABC Online
[urlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/politics/politicsspecial1/05cnd-scotus.html]New York Times[/url] - DetNews.com - San Francisco Chronicle - Reuters - all 3,867 related »
U.S. President George W. Bush, acting only two days after the death of William H. Rehnquist, said he will nominate federal appeals court Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to be the nation's 17th chief justice. Roberts, 50, was in line to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, with Senate confirmation hearings scheduled to begin tomorrow. Bush instead will pick a new nominee for that seat. "Both those who've worked with him and those who have faced him in the courtroom speak with admiration of his striking ability as a lawyer and his natural gifts as a leader,'' Bush said from the Oval Office in Washington with Roberts at his side. "Judge Roberts has earned the nation's confidence.'' In announcing Roberts's nomination so quickly -- two days before Rehnquist's funeral -- Bush said he hoped the Senate would confirm him before the formal start of the Supreme Court's term on Oct. 3. "It is in the interest of the court and the country to have a chief justice on the bench on the first full day of the fall term,'' said Bush. Roberts, who until two years ago was an appellate litigator at a Washington law firm, said he was "honored and humbled by the confidence the president has shown in me.'' A former official in two Republican administrations, Roberts is now a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He had been an overwhelming favorite to win confirmation as an associate justice by the Senate, where Republicans hold a 55-45 advantage.
`Raises the Stakes'
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, a Judiciary Committee member who previously vowed to ask Roberts tough questions about his views on constitutional law, suggested he would try to hold Roberts to an even higher standard. "This nomination certainly raises the stakes in making sure that the American people and the Senate know Judge Roberts's views fully before he assumes perhaps the second most powerful position in the United States,'' Schumer said in an e-mailed statement. Bush said he would fill O'Connor's seat ``in a timely manner.'' He faces conflicting, probably even irreconcilable, pressures, as he prepares to fill the second vacancy. Dealing with sagging approval ratings and criticism over his response to Hurricane Katrina, he may try to reach out to moderates with his next appointment. At the same time, his political base will want a new justice to be at least as conservative as Rehnquist, who voted to allow the death penalty, restrict abortion and limit affirmative action. And some political allies say Bush must appoint either a woman or a racial minority.
Formal Offer
"Roberts has soaked up the white male seat,'' said Manuel Miranda, executive director of the Third Branch Conference a Washington-based coalition of conservative groups that support Bush's judicial nominees. Bush officially offered Roberts the chief justice position at 7:15 a.m. today Washington time after the two met privately at the White House yesterday at 5:30 p.m., spokesman Scott McClellan said. "This had been something that had been in the president's thinking for some time in case the chief justice retired'' or died or became unable to fulfill his duties, McClellan said. White House chief of staff Andy Card notified congressional leaders early today of Bush's decision. Justice John Paul Stevens, acting as liaison for the court, was also notified of the president's decision, McClellan said.
Court Moves May Give Bush Political High Ground Los Angeles Times
US Supreme court loses Chief Justice William Rehnquist ABC Online
[urlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/politics/politicsspecial1/05cnd-scotus.html]New York Times[/url] - DetNews.com - San Francisco Chronicle - Reuters - all 3,867 related »
Hurricane Maria Strengthens Over Atlantic Washington Post
Hurricane Maria continued to intensify early Monday over warm water in the open Atlantic, but remained only a threat to shipping interests, forecasters said. The storm was centered 475 miles east of Bermuda at 11 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center said. It was moving north at 8 mph and forecasters said gradual turns to the north and northeast would keep Maria well to the east of Bermuda. Its top sustained wind speed was approaching 100 mph, up from 90 mph in the early morning, and the system was expected to continue strengthening until it is sapped of its strength when it reaches cooler water later in the week.
This NOAA satellite image taken Monday, Sept. 5, 2005 at 2:45 a.m. EDT shows a dense area of clouds over the Northern Plains associated with showers and thunderstorms. Fewer clouds can be seen over the Northeast and Southeast. Clouds associated with two areas of disturbed weather can be seen east of Florida, and clouds associated with Hurricane Maria can be seen far out in the Atlantic.
Maria is the fifth hurricane and 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, one of the busiest on record. Historically, only about four or five named storms form by this time of year, according to the hurricane center. Peak storm activity typically occurs from late August through mid-September.
On the Net:National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
Thanks for the support Last chapter Kansas City Star
Now, Hurricane Maria forms over open Atlantic Hindustan Times
Guardian Unlimited - Florida Today - Monsters and Critics.com - Orlando Sentinel - all 460 related »
Hurricane Maria continued to intensify early Monday over warm water in the open Atlantic, but remained only a threat to shipping interests, forecasters said. The storm was centered 475 miles east of Bermuda at 11 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center said. It was moving north at 8 mph and forecasters said gradual turns to the north and northeast would keep Maria well to the east of Bermuda. Its top sustained wind speed was approaching 100 mph, up from 90 mph in the early morning, and the system was expected to continue strengthening until it is sapped of its strength when it reaches cooler water later in the week.
This NOAA satellite image taken Monday, Sept. 5, 2005 at 2:45 a.m. EDT shows a dense area of clouds over the Northern Plains associated with showers and thunderstorms. Fewer clouds can be seen over the Northeast and Southeast. Clouds associated with two areas of disturbed weather can be seen east of Florida, and clouds associated with Hurricane Maria can be seen far out in the Atlantic.
Maria is the fifth hurricane and 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, one of the busiest on record. Historically, only about four or five named storms form by this time of year, according to the hurricane center. Peak storm activity typically occurs from late August through mid-September.
On the Net:National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
Thanks for the support Last chapter Kansas City Star
Now, Hurricane Maria forms over open Atlantic Hindustan Times
Guardian Unlimited - Florida Today - Monsters and Critics.com - Orlando Sentinel - all 460 related »
Lawmakers face crowded agendas in final week of session San Francisco Chronicle
After more than seven months of wrangling, negotiating and pleading for votes, California legislators will try to put the finishing touches on about 400 bills as their 2005 session ends this week. Measures that would recognize gay marriages, raise the minimum wage, allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses and promote a massive expansion of solar power need to clear final hurdles in the next few days to reach the governor's desk. Also on lawmakers' agendas are bills that would boost nutrition requirements for school food, require identifying marks on handgun bullets to help solve crimes, allow alternatives to passing the high school graduation exam and authorize Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to cancel the Nov. 8 special election. The Legislature is scheduled to adjourn for the year on Friday, but an earlier — or even slightly later departure — is possible. Here are some of the key bills that face votes this week: GAY MARRIAGE: Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, will try again to convince the Assembly to approve a bill that would recognize gay marriages performed in California. His first attempt, in June, fell four votes short. But the Senate gave him another chance last week by approving another of his bills that was turned into a gay marriage measure after it passed the Assembly. That amended bill is back for another Assembly vote that will determine if it makes it to Schwarzenegger, who has indicated he'd rather have the issue decided by the courts or voters, not by his signature on the bill. DRIVER'S LICENSES: Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, is making another attempt — his fifth in seven years — to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, a step he says will improve highway safety. But his latest bill, which is awaiting a vote in the Assembly, seems to be headed for a veto by Schwarzenegger. The Republican governor, who vetoed Cedillo's bill last year, has raised a series of objections to the legislation. His latest: It shouldn't be enacted until the federal government issues regulations covering the licenses. The Assembly amended the bill last week to allow the Department of Motor Vehicles to wait eight months after the federal regulations come out to issue the licenses, which would have to have a different look than standard driver's licenses and wouldn't be widely accepted as valid identification documents. Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Margita Thompson, said the amendments won't satisfy the administration. "We still need to see what the parameters are in terms of the regulations that are disseminated ... before we can make a decision in California," she said. "Any state action remains premature." SOLAR POWER: Schwarzenegger has backed off his support for a bill that would offer subsidies to home and business owners who install solar energy systems. He said he wouldn't accept amendments that set wage standards for workers who install the systems on businesses. Now the Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers are trying to negotiate a compromise that would result in the bill being signed into law. MINIMUM WAGE: This is another bill that seems certain to draw a veto from Schwarzenegger. It would raise California's minimum wage by $1 an hour, to $7.75, in two steps and then tie future increases to inflation. It's strongly opposed by Schwarzenegger's allies among employers, particularly restaurant owners. The governor vetoed a less ambitious minimum wage increase last year. Bill supporters say the state's minimum wage has lagged behind inflation and minimum wages in other West Coast states, forcing many low-wage workers into public assistance programs. Business groups contend an increase in the wage would cost jobs. SPECIAL ELECTION: A bill by Assemblyman Johan Klehs, D-San Leandro, would specify that Schwarzenegger has the power to cancel the special election he called for Nov. 8. But the bill, awaiting a vote in the Senate, probably won't reach him. It needs support from at least a few Republican lawmakers and isn't likely to get it. In any event, Schwarzenegger has said he has no plans to cancel the election, despite polls showing little support for it.
On the Net: www.assembly.ca.gov and www.senate.ca.gov
Politics May Rule Who Says 'I Do' Los Angeles Times
Legislature reflects state's schizophrenia on gay marriage San Jose Mercury News
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After more than seven months of wrangling, negotiating and pleading for votes, California legislators will try to put the finishing touches on about 400 bills as their 2005 session ends this week. Measures that would recognize gay marriages, raise the minimum wage, allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses and promote a massive expansion of solar power need to clear final hurdles in the next few days to reach the governor's desk. Also on lawmakers' agendas are bills that would boost nutrition requirements for school food, require identifying marks on handgun bullets to help solve crimes, allow alternatives to passing the high school graduation exam and authorize Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to cancel the Nov. 8 special election. The Legislature is scheduled to adjourn for the year on Friday, but an earlier — or even slightly later departure — is possible. Here are some of the key bills that face votes this week: GAY MARRIAGE: Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, will try again to convince the Assembly to approve a bill that would recognize gay marriages performed in California. His first attempt, in June, fell four votes short. But the Senate gave him another chance last week by approving another of his bills that was turned into a gay marriage measure after it passed the Assembly. That amended bill is back for another Assembly vote that will determine if it makes it to Schwarzenegger, who has indicated he'd rather have the issue decided by the courts or voters, not by his signature on the bill. DRIVER'S LICENSES: Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, is making another attempt — his fifth in seven years — to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, a step he says will improve highway safety. But his latest bill, which is awaiting a vote in the Assembly, seems to be headed for a veto by Schwarzenegger. The Republican governor, who vetoed Cedillo's bill last year, has raised a series of objections to the legislation. His latest: It shouldn't be enacted until the federal government issues regulations covering the licenses. The Assembly amended the bill last week to allow the Department of Motor Vehicles to wait eight months after the federal regulations come out to issue the licenses, which would have to have a different look than standard driver's licenses and wouldn't be widely accepted as valid identification documents. Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Margita Thompson, said the amendments won't satisfy the administration. "We still need to see what the parameters are in terms of the regulations that are disseminated ... before we can make a decision in California," she said. "Any state action remains premature." SOLAR POWER: Schwarzenegger has backed off his support for a bill that would offer subsidies to home and business owners who install solar energy systems. He said he wouldn't accept amendments that set wage standards for workers who install the systems on businesses. Now the Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers are trying to negotiate a compromise that would result in the bill being signed into law. MINIMUM WAGE: This is another bill that seems certain to draw a veto from Schwarzenegger. It would raise California's minimum wage by $1 an hour, to $7.75, in two steps and then tie future increases to inflation. It's strongly opposed by Schwarzenegger's allies among employers, particularly restaurant owners. The governor vetoed a less ambitious minimum wage increase last year. Bill supporters say the state's minimum wage has lagged behind inflation and minimum wages in other West Coast states, forcing many low-wage workers into public assistance programs. Business groups contend an increase in the wage would cost jobs. SPECIAL ELECTION: A bill by Assemblyman Johan Klehs, D-San Leandro, would specify that Schwarzenegger has the power to cancel the special election he called for Nov. 8. But the bill, awaiting a vote in the Senate, probably won't reach him. It needs support from at least a few Republican lawmakers and isn't likely to get it. In any event, Schwarzenegger has said he has no plans to cancel the election, despite polls showing little support for it.
On the Net: www.assembly.ca.gov and www.senate.ca.gov
Politics May Rule Who Says 'I Do' Los Angeles Times
Legislature reflects state's schizophrenia on gay marriage San Jose Mercury News
Contra Costa Times - MTV.com - Inside Bay Area - Detroit Free Press - all 43 related »
Bush aide hails US Muslims' anti-terrorism efforts Chicago Sun-Times
President Bush's top aide, Karen Hughes, praised the Islamic Society of North America for creating a brochure condemning terrorism and religious extremism and called American Muslims her "new allies" in helping her convey a positive image of the United States to the larger Islamic world.
American Muslims Open Convention Guardian Unlimited
From State Dept., Advice for Muslim Convention New York Times
Miami Herald - Indianapolis Star - Chicago Tribune - NewsBlaze - all 64 related »
President Bush's top aide, Karen Hughes, praised the Islamic Society of North America for creating a brochure condemning terrorism and religious extremism and called American Muslims her "new allies" in helping her convey a positive image of the United States to the larger Islamic world.
American Muslims Open Convention Guardian Unlimited
From State Dept., Advice for Muslim Convention New York Times
Miami Herald - Indianapolis Star - Chicago Tribune - NewsBlaze - all 64 related »
Toll Suspected to Soar as Body Recovery Begins
By Jacqueline L. Salmon and Josh White
ST. GABRIEL, La., Sept. 5 -- Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing floods along the Gulf Coast could mark one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history, as the macabre task of locating and cataloguing its dead moves into its early stages. Officials estimate the death toll could rise to several thousand over coming days.
The search-and-rescue efforts in coastal communities of Louisiana and Mississippi are turning their focus to recovering the bodies, as workers attempt to reach isolated communities that were ravaged by high winds and flooding that reached rooftops. The more than 200 confirmed dead suggest a grimmer total, as rescuers break residential windows to find bodies floating in flooded houses, to discover victims under piles of tree limbs, wood planks and rocks, and to secure bodies found floating in the streets to fence posts.
Totals of the dead are elusive, say local, state and federal officials, because of great difficulty finding missing people trapped in nursing homes, office buildings and apartment complexes. Debris is piled more than 10 feet high in Mississippi. In New Orleans, the battle is against deep waters and completely obstructed roadways.
New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D) told NBC's "Today" that "it wouldn't be unreasonable to have 10,000" dead as a result of the catastrophe, and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) said thousands were probably killed.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in Baton Rouge on Monday, warned that the death toll is "going to be an unhappy number."
Should that number reach near the 10,000 mark, Katrina could be remembered as the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The September 1900 hurricane that swamped Galveston, Tex., left more than 8,000 dead. The San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906 claimed about 3,000 lives.
Mississippi's estimate of the dead is 150, but official death numbers are not released until a coroner has identified the body. In Hancock County, for example, rescue officials believe the announced total of 36 dead could easily rise to between 600 and 1,000. Rescuers there were going from house to house and leaving coded markings to indicate suspected deaths, and then moving on.
"It's access more than anything," said Mick Bullock, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, who said there have been reports of people being trapped in their attics for the past week. "There's so much debris still blocking traffic. These local roads are really still covered up, and there are places we haven't been able to get to. . . . It's going to be an extensive and long process. The reality is that the death toll will climb."
Louisiana officials have counted 71 dead so far.
In St. Gabriel, a tiny hamlet south of Baton Rouge, La., the dead may soon outnumber the living.
In a cavernous warehouse, across from the local baseball field in this gritty town of 5,000, the bodies of those killed during Katrina's fury and its deadly aftermath started arriving yesterday.
Plucked from the filthy floodwaters, the bodies will be transported in refrigerated trucks to this temporary morgue. There, they will be washed, examined, photographed, fingerprinted and, eventually, released to their families when they have been identified. Seven refrigerated trucks were lined up to hold bodies for processing.
This morgue, essentially the major clearinghouse for those killed in Louisiana, and a similar facility in Mississippi will take bodies from several regional collection points throughout the affected area. The St. Gabriel mortuary unit is set up to process in excess of 5,000 dead, said Ricardo Zuniga, a FEMA spokesman.
Jeffrey Kraft, publisher of American Funeral Director magazine in Rockville, said the facility was significantly larger than the temporary morgue set up to handle the dead from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, where more than 2,700 died.
Once bodies are turned over to the smaller collection points, basic identifying information and specific data about where the body was found is noted. Then, the bodies travel under police escort to the larger mortuary units for forensic inspection. After all of that information is processed, the bodies move on to state control for identification and notification of families.
On Monday, before the truckloads of body bags began to arrive in St. Gabriel, federal and state officials briefly opened the facility -- expected to be the main morgue for bodies retrieved west of the Mississippi River -- to journalists before it is closed to anyone except morgue staff.
Officials said they wanted to show families, and the country, the conditions under which the bodies would be handled.
"Families need to know what happened to their loved one," said David Senn, a forensic odontologist who helped identify victims of the Columbia shuttle disaster and the World Trade Center attacks.
Inside the facility, slightly smaller than a football field, sheets of black plastic were taped down to concrete floors. A dozen metal gurneys were already lined up near the loading dock, ready to transport bodies to the blue-and-white decontamination tent. Officials said they will be able to process 140 bodies a day.
FBI fingerprint specialists and teams of volunteer forensic pathologists, forensic odontologists, archaeologists, and DNA experts from FEMA's Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team and its Disaster Medical Assistance Team will examine the bodies after they have been decontaminated. A veterinary team will separate human from animal remains. One escort will accompany each body through the entire route, Ellis said.
On a tent pole near the start of the grim assembly line was taped a handwritten sign. "Let the dead teach the living," it said. It is, said Ellis, "a dignified, respectful process."
Staff writers Sally Jenkins in Waveland, Miss., and Timothy Dwyer in New Orleans and staff researcher Karl Evanzz in Washington contributed to this report. White reported from Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Jacqueline L. Salmon and Josh White
ST. GABRIEL, La., Sept. 5 -- Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing floods along the Gulf Coast could mark one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history, as the macabre task of locating and cataloguing its dead moves into its early stages. Officials estimate the death toll could rise to several thousand over coming days.
The search-and-rescue efforts in coastal communities of Louisiana and Mississippi are turning their focus to recovering the bodies, as workers attempt to reach isolated communities that were ravaged by high winds and flooding that reached rooftops. The more than 200 confirmed dead suggest a grimmer total, as rescuers break residential windows to find bodies floating in flooded houses, to discover victims under piles of tree limbs, wood planks and rocks, and to secure bodies found floating in the streets to fence posts.
Totals of the dead are elusive, say local, state and federal officials, because of great difficulty finding missing people trapped in nursing homes, office buildings and apartment complexes. Debris is piled more than 10 feet high in Mississippi. In New Orleans, the battle is against deep waters and completely obstructed roadways.
New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D) told NBC's "Today" that "it wouldn't be unreasonable to have 10,000" dead as a result of the catastrophe, and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) said thousands were probably killed.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in Baton Rouge on Monday, warned that the death toll is "going to be an unhappy number."
Should that number reach near the 10,000 mark, Katrina could be remembered as the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The September 1900 hurricane that swamped Galveston, Tex., left more than 8,000 dead. The San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906 claimed about 3,000 lives.
Mississippi's estimate of the dead is 150, but official death numbers are not released until a coroner has identified the body. In Hancock County, for example, rescue officials believe the announced total of 36 dead could easily rise to between 600 and 1,000. Rescuers there were going from house to house and leaving coded markings to indicate suspected deaths, and then moving on.
"It's access more than anything," said Mick Bullock, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, who said there have been reports of people being trapped in their attics for the past week. "There's so much debris still blocking traffic. These local roads are really still covered up, and there are places we haven't been able to get to. . . . It's going to be an extensive and long process. The reality is that the death toll will climb."
Louisiana officials have counted 71 dead so far.
In St. Gabriel, a tiny hamlet south of Baton Rouge, La., the dead may soon outnumber the living.
In a cavernous warehouse, across from the local baseball field in this gritty town of 5,000, the bodies of those killed during Katrina's fury and its deadly aftermath started arriving yesterday.
Plucked from the filthy floodwaters, the bodies will be transported in refrigerated trucks to this temporary morgue. There, they will be washed, examined, photographed, fingerprinted and, eventually, released to their families when they have been identified. Seven refrigerated trucks were lined up to hold bodies for processing.
This morgue, essentially the major clearinghouse for those killed in Louisiana, and a similar facility in Mississippi will take bodies from several regional collection points throughout the affected area. The St. Gabriel mortuary unit is set up to process in excess of 5,000 dead, said Ricardo Zuniga, a FEMA spokesman.
Jeffrey Kraft, publisher of American Funeral Director magazine in Rockville, said the facility was significantly larger than the temporary morgue set up to handle the dead from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, where more than 2,700 died.
Once bodies are turned over to the smaller collection points, basic identifying information and specific data about where the body was found is noted. Then, the bodies travel under police escort to the larger mortuary units for forensic inspection. After all of that information is processed, the bodies move on to state control for identification and notification of families.
On Monday, before the truckloads of body bags began to arrive in St. Gabriel, federal and state officials briefly opened the facility -- expected to be the main morgue for bodies retrieved west of the Mississippi River -- to journalists before it is closed to anyone except morgue staff.
Officials said they wanted to show families, and the country, the conditions under which the bodies would be handled.
"Families need to know what happened to their loved one," said David Senn, a forensic odontologist who helped identify victims of the Columbia shuttle disaster and the World Trade Center attacks.
Inside the facility, slightly smaller than a football field, sheets of black plastic were taped down to concrete floors. A dozen metal gurneys were already lined up near the loading dock, ready to transport bodies to the blue-and-white decontamination tent. Officials said they will be able to process 140 bodies a day.
FBI fingerprint specialists and teams of volunteer forensic pathologists, forensic odontologists, archaeologists, and DNA experts from FEMA's Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team and its Disaster Medical Assistance Team will examine the bodies after they have been decontaminated. A veterinary team will separate human from animal remains. One escort will accompany each body through the entire route, Ellis said.
On a tent pole near the start of the grim assembly line was taped a handwritten sign. "Let the dead teach the living," it said. It is, said Ellis, "a dignified, respectful process."
Staff writers Sally Jenkins in Waveland, Miss., and Timothy Dwyer in New Orleans and staff researcher Karl Evanzz in Washington contributed to this report. White reported from Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
Democrats Pledge More Intense Scrutiny of Roberts
By Jo Becker
Senate Democrats yesterday promised to subject John G. Roberts Jr. to an increased level of scrutiny in light of President Bush's decision to nominate the 50-year-old appeals court judge to replace the late William H. Rehnquist as chief justice.
But with conservatives and liberals alike saying that Roberts is on track to be confirmed, the focus was already shifting to what both sides believe will be the real battle: Bush's yet-to-be-named pick to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
O'Connor's seat is critical because she often provided a swing vote on such controversial issues as affirmative action, abortion and prayer in public places. Roberts was initially chosen to replace her, but instead is now poised to succeed Rehnquist, a reliable conservative who died Saturday of thyroid cancer.
The rare opening of two seats on the nine-member court gives Bush the opportunity to dramatically move the balance of power on the court to the right.
The switch, which comes as the Bush administration struggles to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, had both sides hurriedly recalibrating their strategies. Senate leaders agreed to postpone Roberts's confirmation hearings, which had been scheduled to start today, probably until next Monday.
Bush urged the Senate to quickly confirm Roberts in time for the Oct. 3 start of the new Supreme Court term, saying that the Senate was "well along in the process of considering Judge Roberts's qualifications."
But Senate Democrats said that the move to make Roberts the 17th chief justice of the United States required careful deliberation, particularly given Roberts's relatively short, two-year tenure as a federal appeals court judge.
"The stakes are higher and the Senate's advice and consent responsibility is even more important," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "If confirmed to this lifetime job, John Roberts would become the leader of the third branch of the federal government and the most prominent judge in the nation."
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee plan to renew their calls for the White House to release memos and other documents from Roberts's 1989-1993 tenure as principal deputy solicitor general in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, his highest government posting. "Judge Roberts has a clear obligation to make his views known fully and completely," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y).
Still, even liberal groups opposed to Roberts's nomination said yesterday that the shift is unlikely to alter his chances of being confirmed, given that Republicans are in firm control of the Senate. Some Republicans argued that it will even help his prospects, given that replacing Rehnquist with Roberts isn't likely to change the ideological center of the court.
Kate Michelman, a former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said that what senators must do now is highlight Roberts's record on civil rights, his skeptical writings about the legal underpinnings of abortion rights and other stances to "show people what it means to have his views on the court and lay the groundwork for the next nomination fight."
Democrats are already moving to link the two nominations. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said that a review of memos that Roberts wrote while a young lawyer in the Reagan administration shows that Roberts sought to "weaken voting rights, roll back women's rights, and impede our progress toward a more equal nation."
Before the Senate acts on Roberts new nomination, Kennedy said, the Senate has a right to know who Bush intends to nominate for O'Connor's position. "The American people care deeply about the overall balance of their highest court."
With President Bush's approval ratings at an all-time low and his administration under fire over its handling of Hurricane Katrina, some conservatives are worried that Bush will forgo the chance to pick another conservative in favor of someone who will not provoke a fight.
Manuel Miranda, former legal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the founder of a conservative group that follows judicial issues, said Bush must keep his campaign promise to nominate a justice in the tradition of conservative Justices Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, or risk "sinking even lower in the polls."
"If anything is keeping him afloat right now, it's conservative support," Miranda said.
Meanwhile, Democrats on the Hill are feeling more emboldened by the president's weakened political standing, according to interviews with senior aides and Democratic strategists. Ron Klain, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, said Democrats may be more willing to fight a staunchly conservative second pick.
"As his poll numbers fall, his domestic problems accumulate, and as independent voters increasingly wonder if he is out of touch with what's going on in the country, then Democrats in conservative states have less to fear by crossing him," Klain said.
The question for Democrats is whether the American public, consumed with images of the devastation in the Gulf Coast states, will tune in to the nomination hearings.
Senators are treading carefully. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said that the Senate looks forward to consulting Bush on a successor to O'Connor, a pick he stressed will "affect all of us, and the generations who follow us."
At the same time, he said, "these are not the only challenges facing the nation at this critical time. Most urgent at this moment is providing the necessary help to Americans still suffering in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Jo Becker
Senate Democrats yesterday promised to subject John G. Roberts Jr. to an increased level of scrutiny in light of President Bush's decision to nominate the 50-year-old appeals court judge to replace the late William H. Rehnquist as chief justice.
But with conservatives and liberals alike saying that Roberts is on track to be confirmed, the focus was already shifting to what both sides believe will be the real battle: Bush's yet-to-be-named pick to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
O'Connor's seat is critical because she often provided a swing vote on such controversial issues as affirmative action, abortion and prayer in public places. Roberts was initially chosen to replace her, but instead is now poised to succeed Rehnquist, a reliable conservative who died Saturday of thyroid cancer.
The rare opening of two seats on the nine-member court gives Bush the opportunity to dramatically move the balance of power on the court to the right.
The switch, which comes as the Bush administration struggles to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, had both sides hurriedly recalibrating their strategies. Senate leaders agreed to postpone Roberts's confirmation hearings, which had been scheduled to start today, probably until next Monday.
Bush urged the Senate to quickly confirm Roberts in time for the Oct. 3 start of the new Supreme Court term, saying that the Senate was "well along in the process of considering Judge Roberts's qualifications."
But Senate Democrats said that the move to make Roberts the 17th chief justice of the United States required careful deliberation, particularly given Roberts's relatively short, two-year tenure as a federal appeals court judge.
"The stakes are higher and the Senate's advice and consent responsibility is even more important," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "If confirmed to this lifetime job, John Roberts would become the leader of the third branch of the federal government and the most prominent judge in the nation."
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee plan to renew their calls for the White House to release memos and other documents from Roberts's 1989-1993 tenure as principal deputy solicitor general in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, his highest government posting. "Judge Roberts has a clear obligation to make his views known fully and completely," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y).
Still, even liberal groups opposed to Roberts's nomination said yesterday that the shift is unlikely to alter his chances of being confirmed, given that Republicans are in firm control of the Senate. Some Republicans argued that it will even help his prospects, given that replacing Rehnquist with Roberts isn't likely to change the ideological center of the court.
Kate Michelman, a former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said that what senators must do now is highlight Roberts's record on civil rights, his skeptical writings about the legal underpinnings of abortion rights and other stances to "show people what it means to have his views on the court and lay the groundwork for the next nomination fight."
Democrats are already moving to link the two nominations. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said that a review of memos that Roberts wrote while a young lawyer in the Reagan administration shows that Roberts sought to "weaken voting rights, roll back women's rights, and impede our progress toward a more equal nation."
Before the Senate acts on Roberts new nomination, Kennedy said, the Senate has a right to know who Bush intends to nominate for O'Connor's position. "The American people care deeply about the overall balance of their highest court."
With President Bush's approval ratings at an all-time low and his administration under fire over its handling of Hurricane Katrina, some conservatives are worried that Bush will forgo the chance to pick another conservative in favor of someone who will not provoke a fight.
Manuel Miranda, former legal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the founder of a conservative group that follows judicial issues, said Bush must keep his campaign promise to nominate a justice in the tradition of conservative Justices Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, or risk "sinking even lower in the polls."
"If anything is keeping him afloat right now, it's conservative support," Miranda said.
Meanwhile, Democrats on the Hill are feeling more emboldened by the president's weakened political standing, according to interviews with senior aides and Democratic strategists. Ron Klain, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, said Democrats may be more willing to fight a staunchly conservative second pick.
"As his poll numbers fall, his domestic problems accumulate, and as independent voters increasingly wonder if he is out of touch with what's going on in the country, then Democrats in conservative states have less to fear by crossing him," Klain said.
The question for Democrats is whether the American public, consumed with images of the devastation in the Gulf Coast states, will tune in to the nomination hearings.
Senators are treading carefully. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said that the Senate looks forward to consulting Bush on a successor to O'Connor, a pick he stressed will "affect all of us, and the generations who follow us."
At the same time, he said, "these are not the only challenges facing the nation at this critical time. Most urgent at this moment is providing the necessary help to Americans still suffering in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/obsession.html
Tragic costs of Bush's Iraq obsession
Michael Lind
Published: September 5 2005 21:17
Samuel Huntington has called it the Lippmann Gap, echoing the American journalist Walter Lippmann in 1943: “Foreign policy consists in bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power.” The historian Paul Kennedy has another name for it: “Imperial overextension”. Whatever you call this dangerous disease, the symptoms are clear in the US.
In early 2001, shortly after President George W.Bush was inaugurated and before 9/11, the Federal Emergency Management Agency warned of the three most devastating disasters that could strike the US: a terrorist attack on New York City, a hurricane flooding New Orleans and a San Francisco earthquake. The Bush administration was focused on its priority: Iraq.
The first foreseen disaster took place on September 11, 2001, when al-Qaeda flew hijacked jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The federal government was taken by surprise. New York City’s first responders were hampered by communications problems and poor planning for this long-predicted event. The Bush administration’s response to the mass murder committed by al-Qaeda was warped by the focus on Iraq. Many in Washington believe that the administration failed to send sufficient troops to Afghanistan because it was with-holding forces for the invasion of Iraq.
Day after day, the levees of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans and the wetlands that protected the city were eroding. Mr Bush and his allies in the Republican-majority Congress have slashed federal spending for flood control in south-east Louisiana by half and funds for work at Lake Pontchartrain by almost two-thirds. From 2003, funds authorised for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project were diverted to pay for the war in Iraq. Earlier this year, the US Army Corps of Engineers requested $27m (€21.6m) to repair the levees to protect them from hurricanes. Mr Bush sought to cut the amount to $3.9m and also proposed reducing spending to prevent flooding from $78m to $30m (the Republican Congress ultimately passed $5.7m and $36.5m, respectively). The New Orleans Times-Picayune published numerous articles warning that the war in Iraq was taking money away from hurricane protection on the Gulf coast.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the insurgency metastasised. With US forces divided between the necessary war in Afghanistan and the war of choice in Iraq, and army recruitment numbers plunging, the Bush administration, in addition to hiring private contractors, was forced to mobilise National Guard reserves overseas. When Katrina struck, tens of thousands of National Guard soldiers were in Iraq, along with much of the equipment needed for disaster relief.
At the same time, America’s long border with Mexico has gone largely unprotected. Around a million illegal immigrants are apprehended each year, in addition to the estimated half a million who join the roughly 10m living in the US. A growing number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border are from Middle Eastern countries including Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. President Bush’s justice department claims that suspected American terrorist Jose Padilla and an accomplice planned to enter the US through Mexico and blow up buildings in New York and other cities. Mohammed Junaid Babar, an alleged al-Qaeda agent linked with plots against London, has told US investigators of a plan to bring terrorists into the US from Mexico.
On December 17 2004, Mr Bush signed the National Intelligence Reform Act, which required the addition of 10,000 border patrol agents beginning in 2006. In his February 2005 budget, however, Mr Bush authorised funds for only 210 new border agents. Last month, the Democratic governors of Arizona and New Mexico asked for federal disaster relief to help deal with border chaos.
The horror in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, and the chaos along the US-Mexican border, join anarchy in Afghanistan and Iraq as proof of the bankruptcy of the Bush doctrine. Mr Bush’s neoconservative strategists wanted a crusade for US hegemony in the Middle East and the world; as “national greatness conservatives,” some might have been willing to pay for it with higher taxes. But Mr Bush’s political base consists of conservatives and libertarians united by a crusade to cut taxes. The attempt to establish American global hegemony without paying for it was a disaster – actually, several disasters – waiting to happen.
If, early in 2001, the Bush administration had focused on al-Qaeda instead of Iraq, it might have responded to FEMA’s call to prepare New York for a big terrorist incident. If it had not divided US forces to fight two wars at once, Afghanistan might have been pacified while Saddam remained in power but contained. If Bush had not sacrificed border security to pay for the war in Iraq, the Mexican border might be under control. If Bush had not diverted so many National Guard units to Iraq, disaster relief following Hurricane Katrina would have been swifter and more effective. And if the war in Iraq had not caused the Bush administration to raid money for the New Orleans levees, this big port city might not be a corpse-filled cesspool.
Supporters of the war in Iraq predicted that the dominos would fall in the Middle East. Instead, the dominos are falling across America.
The writer is Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.
Tragic costs of Bush's Iraq obsession
Michael Lind
Published: September 5 2005 21:17
Samuel Huntington has called it the Lippmann Gap, echoing the American journalist Walter Lippmann in 1943: “Foreign policy consists in bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power.” The historian Paul Kennedy has another name for it: “Imperial overextension”. Whatever you call this dangerous disease, the symptoms are clear in the US.
In early 2001, shortly after President George W.Bush was inaugurated and before 9/11, the Federal Emergency Management Agency warned of the three most devastating disasters that could strike the US: a terrorist attack on New York City, a hurricane flooding New Orleans and a San Francisco earthquake. The Bush administration was focused on its priority: Iraq.
The first foreseen disaster took place on September 11, 2001, when al-Qaeda flew hijacked jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The federal government was taken by surprise. New York City’s first responders were hampered by communications problems and poor planning for this long-predicted event. The Bush administration’s response to the mass murder committed by al-Qaeda was warped by the focus on Iraq. Many in Washington believe that the administration failed to send sufficient troops to Afghanistan because it was with-holding forces for the invasion of Iraq.
Day after day, the levees of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans and the wetlands that protected the city were eroding. Mr Bush and his allies in the Republican-majority Congress have slashed federal spending for flood control in south-east Louisiana by half and funds for work at Lake Pontchartrain by almost two-thirds. From 2003, funds authorised for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project were diverted to pay for the war in Iraq. Earlier this year, the US Army Corps of Engineers requested $27m (€21.6m) to repair the levees to protect them from hurricanes. Mr Bush sought to cut the amount to $3.9m and also proposed reducing spending to prevent flooding from $78m to $30m (the Republican Congress ultimately passed $5.7m and $36.5m, respectively). The New Orleans Times-Picayune published numerous articles warning that the war in Iraq was taking money away from hurricane protection on the Gulf coast.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the insurgency metastasised. With US forces divided between the necessary war in Afghanistan and the war of choice in Iraq, and army recruitment numbers plunging, the Bush administration, in addition to hiring private contractors, was forced to mobilise National Guard reserves overseas. When Katrina struck, tens of thousands of National Guard soldiers were in Iraq, along with much of the equipment needed for disaster relief.
At the same time, America’s long border with Mexico has gone largely unprotected. Around a million illegal immigrants are apprehended each year, in addition to the estimated half a million who join the roughly 10m living in the US. A growing number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border are from Middle Eastern countries including Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. President Bush’s justice department claims that suspected American terrorist Jose Padilla and an accomplice planned to enter the US through Mexico and blow up buildings in New York and other cities. Mohammed Junaid Babar, an alleged al-Qaeda agent linked with plots against London, has told US investigators of a plan to bring terrorists into the US from Mexico.
On December 17 2004, Mr Bush signed the National Intelligence Reform Act, which required the addition of 10,000 border patrol agents beginning in 2006. In his February 2005 budget, however, Mr Bush authorised funds for only 210 new border agents. Last month, the Democratic governors of Arizona and New Mexico asked for federal disaster relief to help deal with border chaos.
The horror in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, and the chaos along the US-Mexican border, join anarchy in Afghanistan and Iraq as proof of the bankruptcy of the Bush doctrine. Mr Bush’s neoconservative strategists wanted a crusade for US hegemony in the Middle East and the world; as “national greatness conservatives,” some might have been willing to pay for it with higher taxes. But Mr Bush’s political base consists of conservatives and libertarians united by a crusade to cut taxes. The attempt to establish American global hegemony without paying for it was a disaster – actually, several disasters – waiting to happen.
If, early in 2001, the Bush administration had focused on al-Qaeda instead of Iraq, it might have responded to FEMA’s call to prepare New York for a big terrorist incident. If it had not divided US forces to fight two wars at once, Afghanistan might have been pacified while Saddam remained in power but contained. If Bush had not sacrificed border security to pay for the war in Iraq, the Mexican border might be under control. If Bush had not diverted so many National Guard units to Iraq, disaster relief following Hurricane Katrina would have been swifter and more effective. And if the war in Iraq had not caused the Bush administration to raid money for the New Orleans levees, this big port city might not be a corpse-filled cesspool.
Supporters of the war in Iraq predicted that the dominos would fall in the Middle East. Instead, the dominos are falling across America.
The writer is Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.
Democrats seek increased scrutiny of Roberts Reuters
Key Democrats called for greater scrutiny of John Roberts on Monday after President George W. Bush nominated him to head the US Supreme Court rather than be an associate justice. Their call was seconded by liberal groups, which have voiced concerns about Roberts' record on civil and women's rights in an uphill bid to deny the 50-year-old conservative a seat on the high court. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, hailed Bush's decision and predicted Roberts would win Senate confirmation as chief justice of the Supreme Court before the court begins its new term on October 3. "This nomination certainly raises the stakes," said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat and a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold confirmation hearings. Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said, "Before the Senate acts on John Roberts' new nomination, we should know even more about his record, and we should know whom the president intends to propose to nominate as a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor." Bush nominated Roberts, a federal appeals court judge the past two years, to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who died on Saturday after a long bout with cancer. In doing so, Bush recast the nomination he made of Roberts in July to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor, a moderate conservative, often cast the decisive vote on the nine-member court. Rehnquist was one of the most powerful and conservative jurists in U.S. history. Roberts' confirmation hearing was to begin on Tuesday. But in wake of Rehnquist's death, Bush's new nomination of Roberts as chief justice and Hurricane Katrina, Senate leaders agreed to postpone the proceeding briefly. Senate leaders arranged to announce on Tuesday a new date. A congressional aide said the hearing would start next Monday. Preparing for the hearing, Schumer said, "We hope the White House will reconsider its refusal to release relevant and important documents that will shed light on what kind of Chief Justice Judge Roberts would become."
DOCUMENTS DEBATE
Thousands of pages of documents have been released in recent weeks stemming from Roberts' work as an attorney in the Reagan administration two decades ago. But the White House has refused to make public records related to his work as deputy solicitor general in the administration of the first President George Bush. Roberts, who has received the American Bar Association's highest rating, appears to enjoy broad support in the Senate, which Republicans control, holding 55 of 100 seats. No Senate Democrat has come out against him, while others have spoken glowingly of the nominee. Some say they want to see him closely questioned before making a decision. Debra Ness of the National Partnership for Women & Families, which opposed the nomination of Roberts as an associate justice, denounced the bid to make him chief justice. "Judge Roberts stood out, even in the Reagan administration, for his ultra-conservative views and his disdain for measures that would protect rights of critical importance to women and people of color," Ness said.
Democrats seek to go slow on Roberts MSNBC
Reuters Politics Summary Washington Post
Christian Science Monitor - Boston Globe - Arizona Daily Wildcat - Guardian Unlimited - all 5,406 related »
Key Democrats called for greater scrutiny of John Roberts on Monday after President George W. Bush nominated him to head the US Supreme Court rather than be an associate justice. Their call was seconded by liberal groups, which have voiced concerns about Roberts' record on civil and women's rights in an uphill bid to deny the 50-year-old conservative a seat on the high court. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, hailed Bush's decision and predicted Roberts would win Senate confirmation as chief justice of the Supreme Court before the court begins its new term on October 3. "This nomination certainly raises the stakes," said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat and a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold confirmation hearings. Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said, "Before the Senate acts on John Roberts' new nomination, we should know even more about his record, and we should know whom the president intends to propose to nominate as a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor." Bush nominated Roberts, a federal appeals court judge the past two years, to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who died on Saturday after a long bout with cancer. In doing so, Bush recast the nomination he made of Roberts in July to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor, a moderate conservative, often cast the decisive vote on the nine-member court. Rehnquist was one of the most powerful and conservative jurists in U.S. history. Roberts' confirmation hearing was to begin on Tuesday. But in wake of Rehnquist's death, Bush's new nomination of Roberts as chief justice and Hurricane Katrina, Senate leaders agreed to postpone the proceeding briefly. Senate leaders arranged to announce on Tuesday a new date. A congressional aide said the hearing would start next Monday. Preparing for the hearing, Schumer said, "We hope the White House will reconsider its refusal to release relevant and important documents that will shed light on what kind of Chief Justice Judge Roberts would become."
DOCUMENTS DEBATE
Thousands of pages of documents have been released in recent weeks stemming from Roberts' work as an attorney in the Reagan administration two decades ago. But the White House has refused to make public records related to his work as deputy solicitor general in the administration of the first President George Bush. Roberts, who has received the American Bar Association's highest rating, appears to enjoy broad support in the Senate, which Republicans control, holding 55 of 100 seats. No Senate Democrat has come out against him, while others have spoken glowingly of the nominee. Some say they want to see him closely questioned before making a decision. Debra Ness of the National Partnership for Women & Families, which opposed the nomination of Roberts as an associate justice, denounced the bid to make him chief justice. "Judge Roberts stood out, even in the Reagan administration, for his ultra-conservative views and his disdain for measures that would protect rights of critical importance to women and people of color," Ness said.
Democrats seek to go slow on Roberts MSNBC
Reuters Politics Summary Washington Post
Christian Science Monitor - Boston Globe - Arizona Daily Wildcat - Guardian Unlimited - all 5,406 related »
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...05-102323-1829r
9-11 Commission 'swinging in the wind' on Abel Danger
Shaun Waterman
9-11 Commission 'swinging in the wind' on Abel Danger
Shaun Waterman
Remarks by the President After Meeting With Cabinet
9/6/2005 12:12:00 PM
Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2580
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a transcript of President Bush's remarks after meeting with the Cabinet today:
Cabinet Room
11:08 a.m. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. My message to the Cabinet this morning is this: This administration is not going to rest until every life can be saved; until families are reconnected; until this recovery is complete. Our goals -- our immediate goals are these: We want to complete the search and recovery; we want to restore essential services; we want to drain the water in the affected areas and begin removing debris; we want to -- and all are assessing public health and safety matters.
I've asked the Vice President to go down to the affected region on Thursday. He will go down to assess our recovery efforts. He will help me determine whether or not we're meeting these goals. He'll work with Secretary Chertoff and others to make sure that we remove any obstacles, bureaucratic obstacles that may be preventing us from achieving our goals. In other words, bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people.
I was briefed on plans to immediately help our folks; plans to reconnect families; plans to make sure health care is available -- and Secretary Leavitt gave me a good brief; plans on housing, both immediate and long-term housing. Most importantly, I was briefed by members of my Cabinet about how we're going to make sure that people who are owed a Social Security check get their Social Security check. At the center in Baton Rouge I went to yesterday I remember clearly a person saying, "When am I going to get my Social Security check?" And it's important to note people understand we have a strategy to make sure the benefits that are due are going to get to them.
Now, we understand people are scattered out across the country, but we have an obligation to make sure that whether a veteran's benefit or an unemployment benefit or a Social Security benefit gets to these people. And so we will have a strategy in place and we're going to implement that strategy -- to find people who are in those shelters or in churches or in private homes -- and get them the benefit.
A lot of people are doing good work. We've got a heck of a lot more work to do, and that's exactly what this government is going to do.
Q: Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Bob.
Q: Do you intend to replace any from your administration who are leading this recovery effort, who were part of the effort last week that has been so widely criticized?
THE PRESIDENT: What I intend to do is lead a -- to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong. And I'll tell you why. It's very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastrophe. And the reason it's important is, is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm. And so I'm going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong.
Q: Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q: Secretary Chertoff has talked about being disturbed at the information -- or lack of information to the state from the region. Just from what you know initially, do you think that more went wrong at the local or state level or the federal level? And do you think there should be a commission to sort it out?
THE PRESIDENT: I think one of the things that people want us to do here is to play a blame game. We've got to solve problems. We're problem-solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong. What I'm interested in is helping save lives. That's what I want to do. And I want to make sure those poor folks who have been taken out of their communities and who -- who live in a -- whose world has been shattered get the help they need. And then we want to help New Orleans rebuild, and we want to see Biloxi rise again.
And, you know, I was with the mayor of Waveland the other day, from Mississippi. His town was completely destroyed. What I'm interested in is helping that man and that community get back on their feet. That's where my focus is. There will be ample time to assess -- and we need to assess. And this administration will be part of the assessment as to what went wrong, because, I repeat, we've got to have as good a relationship as possible with all levels of government to be able to respond to major problems. And if things went wrong, we'll correct them. And when things went right, we'll duplicate them.
Patsy.
Q: Mr. President, on the Supreme Court, do you have a candidate in mind? And now that you have a second opportunity, are you more inclined to follow the First Lady's advice and choose a woman?
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I'm proud of my nominee to be the Chief. And the goal is to get this good person confirmed by the time the Court convenes this fall. See, they're going to need their Chief. And, therefore, the Senate needs to have a -- obviously, a thorough debate about Judge Roberts and get him confirmed quickly, so that when the Court convenes there is a Chief Justice. And I was deliberate in my process last time; I'll be deliberative this time. I obviously interviewed a lot of good candidates last time; I still will continue to reach out and make sure every good candidate is considered.
Q: Are the same ones on the list, sir? Some of the same ones that you interviewed last time, are they --
THE PRESIDENT: The list is wide open, which should create some good speculation here in Washington. (Laughter.) And make sure you notice when I said that I looked right at Al Gonzales, who can really create speculation. (Laughter.)
I'm not through yet. But this is important for people to understand. I want the Senate to focus not on who the next nominee is going to be, but the nominee I've got up there now. And it's important for the country that they complete the work. And in the meantime, the country can be assured that I'll take a good, long look at who should replace Justice O'Connor. I called her from Air Force One yesterday and told her of my decision to name John Roberts to be the Chief. And her first reaction was that she better get back to doing her homework, and she said so somewhat tongue in cheek, but she's right, she'll be there when the Court is seated with a new Chief Justice. And then we'll move deliberately to replace Justice O'Connor.
Thank you all for coming.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
-
9/6/2005 12:12:00 PM
Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2580
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a transcript of President Bush's remarks after meeting with the Cabinet today:
Cabinet Room
11:08 a.m. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. My message to the Cabinet this morning is this: This administration is not going to rest until every life can be saved; until families are reconnected; until this recovery is complete. Our goals -- our immediate goals are these: We want to complete the search and recovery; we want to restore essential services; we want to drain the water in the affected areas and begin removing debris; we want to -- and all are assessing public health and safety matters.
I've asked the Vice President to go down to the affected region on Thursday. He will go down to assess our recovery efforts. He will help me determine whether or not we're meeting these goals. He'll work with Secretary Chertoff and others to make sure that we remove any obstacles, bureaucratic obstacles that may be preventing us from achieving our goals. In other words, bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people.
I was briefed on plans to immediately help our folks; plans to reconnect families; plans to make sure health care is available -- and Secretary Leavitt gave me a good brief; plans on housing, both immediate and long-term housing. Most importantly, I was briefed by members of my Cabinet about how we're going to make sure that people who are owed a Social Security check get their Social Security check. At the center in Baton Rouge I went to yesterday I remember clearly a person saying, "When am I going to get my Social Security check?" And it's important to note people understand we have a strategy to make sure the benefits that are due are going to get to them.
Now, we understand people are scattered out across the country, but we have an obligation to make sure that whether a veteran's benefit or an unemployment benefit or a Social Security benefit gets to these people. And so we will have a strategy in place and we're going to implement that strategy -- to find people who are in those shelters or in churches or in private homes -- and get them the benefit.
A lot of people are doing good work. We've got a heck of a lot more work to do, and that's exactly what this government is going to do.
Q: Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Bob.
Q: Do you intend to replace any from your administration who are leading this recovery effort, who were part of the effort last week that has been so widely criticized?
THE PRESIDENT: What I intend to do is lead a -- to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong. And I'll tell you why. It's very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastrophe. And the reason it's important is, is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm. And so I'm going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong.
Q: Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q: Secretary Chertoff has talked about being disturbed at the information -- or lack of information to the state from the region. Just from what you know initially, do you think that more went wrong at the local or state level or the federal level? And do you think there should be a commission to sort it out?
THE PRESIDENT: I think one of the things that people want us to do here is to play a blame game. We've got to solve problems. We're problem-solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong. What I'm interested in is helping save lives. That's what I want to do. And I want to make sure those poor folks who have been taken out of their communities and who -- who live in a -- whose world has been shattered get the help they need. And then we want to help New Orleans rebuild, and we want to see Biloxi rise again.
And, you know, I was with the mayor of Waveland the other day, from Mississippi. His town was completely destroyed. What I'm interested in is helping that man and that community get back on their feet. That's where my focus is. There will be ample time to assess -- and we need to assess. And this administration will be part of the assessment as to what went wrong, because, I repeat, we've got to have as good a relationship as possible with all levels of government to be able to respond to major problems. And if things went wrong, we'll correct them. And when things went right, we'll duplicate them.
Patsy.
Q: Mr. President, on the Supreme Court, do you have a candidate in mind? And now that you have a second opportunity, are you more inclined to follow the First Lady's advice and choose a woman?
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I'm proud of my nominee to be the Chief. And the goal is to get this good person confirmed by the time the Court convenes this fall. See, they're going to need their Chief. And, therefore, the Senate needs to have a -- obviously, a thorough debate about Judge Roberts and get him confirmed quickly, so that when the Court convenes there is a Chief Justice. And I was deliberate in my process last time; I'll be deliberative this time. I obviously interviewed a lot of good candidates last time; I still will continue to reach out and make sure every good candidate is considered.
Q: Are the same ones on the list, sir? Some of the same ones that you interviewed last time, are they --
THE PRESIDENT: The list is wide open, which should create some good speculation here in Washington. (Laughter.) And make sure you notice when I said that I looked right at Al Gonzales, who can really create speculation. (Laughter.)
I'm not through yet. But this is important for people to understand. I want the Senate to focus not on who the next nominee is going to be, but the nominee I've got up there now. And it's important for the country that they complete the work. And in the meantime, the country can be assured that I'll take a good, long look at who should replace Justice O'Connor. I called her from Air Force One yesterday and told her of my decision to name John Roberts to be the Chief. And her first reaction was that she better get back to doing her homework, and she said so somewhat tongue in cheek, but she's right, she'll be there when the Court is seated with a new Chief Justice. And then we'll move deliberately to replace Justice O'Connor.
Thank you all for coming.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/national.../07deficit.html
Costs
Hurricane's Toll Is Likely to Reshape Bush's Economic Agenda
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: September 7, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 - Hurricane Katrina is about to blow a hole in the federal budget, and it is already jeopardizing President Bush's agenda for cutting taxes and reducing the deficit.
Administration officials told Republican lawmakers on Tuesday that relief efforts were running close to $700 million a day, and that the total federal cost could reach as high as $100 billion.
That would be many times the cost of any other natural disaster or even the $21 billion that was allocated for New York City after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The expenses would come just as Mr. Bush and Republican leaders are trying to push through spending cuts for programs like Medicaid and student loans, extend about $70 billion in expiring tax cuts, and reduce the federal budget deficit.
"There is no question but that the costs of this are going to exceed the costs of New York City after 9/11 by a significant multiple," said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
White House officials are planning to ask Congress as early as Wednesday for a second round of emergency financing, perhaps as much as $40 billion, but they said even that would be a "stopgap" measure while they assessed the full costs.
Though it is still too early for accurate estimates, the costs are all but certain to wreak havoc with Mr. Bush's plans to reduce the federal deficit and possibly his plans to extend tax cuts.
On Monday, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, postponed plans to push for a vote on repealing the estate tax, a move that would benefit the wealthiest 1 percent of households, costing more than $70 billion a year once fully put in effect.
House and Senate leaders are also grappling with their pre-hurricane plan to propose $35 billion in spending cuts over the next five years for entitlement programs like Medicaid, student loans, food stamps and welfare payments.
Those cuts could suddenly prove politically unpalatable to Mr. Bush and Republican lawmakers, who are trying to rebuff criticism that the federal government shortchanged the hurricane's poorest victims.
Congressional Democrats are already using the hurricane as a reason to block Republican tax and spending plans.
"Democrats think this is the worst possible time to be cutting taxes for those at the very top and cutting the social safety net of those at the very bottom, and adding $35 billion," said Thomas S. Kahn, staff director for Democrats on the House Budget Committee.
Budget analysts said the magnitude and unique characteristics of the hurricane made it unlike any previous natural disaster, resulting in a variety of extraordinary costs:
¶Shelter for as many as a million people for months.
¶A potentially high share of uninsured property losses that stem from flooding, which is not covered by private insurers.
¶Education and health care for hundreds of thousands forced to live outside their home states.
"Katrina could easily become a milestone in the history of the federal budget," said Stanley Collender, a longtime budget analyst here. "Policies that never would have been considered before could now become standard."
Indeed, there were signs on Tuesday that Republicans and Democrats had already begun to compete with each other over who might be willing to spend more.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic leader, predicted on Tuesday that costs could total $150 billion. Top Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have begun to call for "stimulus" measures to buck up the overall economy.
White House officials contend that costs attributable to the hurricane are separate from Mr. Bush's underlying budget goals, which include cutting the deficit in half over the next four years and permanently extending most of the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003.
Budget analysts also note that natural disasters are essentially one-time costs that do not affect the government's long-run fiscal health.
"We can afford $100 billion - one time," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office. "What we cannot afford is $100 billion in additional spending year after year."
The problem is that, even without the hurricane, the federal government's underlying fiscal health is in poor shape. In July, the White House predicted that surging tax revenues would reduce the deficit this year to $333 billion from $412 billion in 2004.
But many analysts believe that the tax surge was largely a one-time event and that overall government spending is still poised to climb rapidly as a result of the war in Iraq, the Medicare prescription drug benefit and the growing number of baby boomers who will soon reach retirement age.
Before the hurricane, House and Senate Republicans were preparing to work out $35 billion in spending cuts over the next five years that would trim Medicaid payments by $10 billion and make smaller cuts in student loan programs, farm programs, food stamps, housing and cash assistance to poor families.
Under the budget resolution that Congress passed this spring, Congressional committees are supposed to spell out the proposed cuts by Sept. 16. House and Senate leaders had been planning to pass the cuts within a week or so after that.
Costs
Hurricane's Toll Is Likely to Reshape Bush's Economic Agenda
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: September 7, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 - Hurricane Katrina is about to blow a hole in the federal budget, and it is already jeopardizing President Bush's agenda for cutting taxes and reducing the deficit.
Administration officials told Republican lawmakers on Tuesday that relief efforts were running close to $700 million a day, and that the total federal cost could reach as high as $100 billion.
That would be many times the cost of any other natural disaster or even the $21 billion that was allocated for New York City after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The expenses would come just as Mr. Bush and Republican leaders are trying to push through spending cuts for programs like Medicaid and student loans, extend about $70 billion in expiring tax cuts, and reduce the federal budget deficit.
"There is no question but that the costs of this are going to exceed the costs of New York City after 9/11 by a significant multiple," said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
White House officials are planning to ask Congress as early as Wednesday for a second round of emergency financing, perhaps as much as $40 billion, but they said even that would be a "stopgap" measure while they assessed the full costs.
Though it is still too early for accurate estimates, the costs are all but certain to wreak havoc with Mr. Bush's plans to reduce the federal deficit and possibly his plans to extend tax cuts.
On Monday, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, postponed plans to push for a vote on repealing the estate tax, a move that would benefit the wealthiest 1 percent of households, costing more than $70 billion a year once fully put in effect.
House and Senate leaders are also grappling with their pre-hurricane plan to propose $35 billion in spending cuts over the next five years for entitlement programs like Medicaid, student loans, food stamps and welfare payments.
Those cuts could suddenly prove politically unpalatable to Mr. Bush and Republican lawmakers, who are trying to rebuff criticism that the federal government shortchanged the hurricane's poorest victims.
Congressional Democrats are already using the hurricane as a reason to block Republican tax and spending plans.
"Democrats think this is the worst possible time to be cutting taxes for those at the very top and cutting the social safety net of those at the very bottom, and adding $35 billion," said Thomas S. Kahn, staff director for Democrats on the House Budget Committee.
Budget analysts said the magnitude and unique characteristics of the hurricane made it unlike any previous natural disaster, resulting in a variety of extraordinary costs:
¶Shelter for as many as a million people for months.
¶A potentially high share of uninsured property losses that stem from flooding, which is not covered by private insurers.
¶Education and health care for hundreds of thousands forced to live outside their home states.
"Katrina could easily become a milestone in the history of the federal budget," said Stanley Collender, a longtime budget analyst here. "Policies that never would have been considered before could now become standard."
Indeed, there were signs on Tuesday that Republicans and Democrats had already begun to compete with each other over who might be willing to spend more.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic leader, predicted on Tuesday that costs could total $150 billion. Top Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have begun to call for "stimulus" measures to buck up the overall economy.
White House officials contend that costs attributable to the hurricane are separate from Mr. Bush's underlying budget goals, which include cutting the deficit in half over the next four years and permanently extending most of the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003.
Budget analysts also note that natural disasters are essentially one-time costs that do not affect the government's long-run fiscal health.
"We can afford $100 billion - one time," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office. "What we cannot afford is $100 billion in additional spending year after year."
The problem is that, even without the hurricane, the federal government's underlying fiscal health is in poor shape. In July, the White House predicted that surging tax revenues would reduce the deficit this year to $333 billion from $412 billion in 2004.
But many analysts believe that the tax surge was largely a one-time event and that overall government spending is still poised to climb rapidly as a result of the war in Iraq, the Medicare prescription drug benefit and the growing number of baby boomers who will soon reach retirement age.
Before the hurricane, House and Senate Republicans were preparing to work out $35 billion in spending cuts over the next five years that would trim Medicaid payments by $10 billion and make smaller cuts in student loan programs, farm programs, food stamps, housing and cash assistance to poor families.
Under the budget resolution that Congress passed this spring, Congressional committees are supposed to spell out the proposed cuts by Sept. 16. House and Senate leaders had been planning to pass the cuts within a week or so after that.
The Lure of Coastal Life Outweighs The Risks
By Michael Powell and Michael Grunwald
BILOXI, Miss. -- The hurricane that flattened parts of this coastal city and drowned New Orleans, that tossed casino boats into apartment buildings and killed perhaps thousands of Americans, was a disaster long ago foretold.
Scientists and environmentalists have cautioned for years that the nation's coastline is dangerously overbuilt. But with Americans migrating in increasing numbers to coastal counties, construction only accelerated, and local officials increasingly relied on technology and luck to forestall catastrophe. As high-rise condominiums and sprawling beach homes have proliferated, warnings have been consistently ignored.
In Mississippi, 20 glittering casinos sprouted at the water's edge. An Army official tried to impose a moratorium on casino projects along the coast in 1998 but was outmuscled by developers and Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.). All those casinos, which employed 16,000 people, now lie wrecked and broken.
The development pressure comes from one immutable fact: Americans love waterfront property. And the federal government has fueled that love through flood insurance that minimizes its risks and by paying for infrastructure such as bridges and roads that makes it more accessible.
In the process, coastal development often degrades the barrier beaches and coastal wetlands that can serve as natural buffers against hurricanes. "You just cannot justify massive building and rebuilding near the most dangerous property in the United States," said Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., a professor emeritus at Duke University and a specialist in coastal ecosystems. "It's a form of societal madness."
In Florida, more than 13 million people live in coastal counties, up from 200,000 a century ago. As a result, all four of last year's Florida hurricanes made the list of America's 10 most damaging storms ever. And federal meteorologist Stanley B. Goldenberg, who flew into the eye of Hurricane Katrina as it made landfall, forecasts a spike in hurricanes that could last a decade or more. If the next great storm rolls into Miami Beach or Charleston, S.C., or North Carolina's Outer Banks on a Labor Day weekend, he said, the impact could be almost as devastating -- albeit without New Orleans-style flooding.
"I don't like what I'm finding, but if the steering wind patterns continue, we're going to have a lot more landfalls and . . . a lot more people affected multiple times," said Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Miami. "I look at the buildings that have gone up, and there are a lot more targets and a lot more arrows."
Scientists and some engineers believe that Americans put too much faith in technological fixes to stave off nature's primal force. For example, the Mississippi River used to bring loads of silt down to the Mississippi Delta, building coastal marshes that helped buffer the Louisiana coast from hurricanes. But as the river was tamed by a series of dikes and dams, cutting off the flow of silt, wetlands began disappearing at the rate of 25 square miles a year -- and New Orleans began to sink even lower.
The Mississippi Delta, scientists note, was the most engineered and industrialized delta in the world, but disaster struck anyway. The levees designed to protect New Orleans were intended only for a Category 3 hurricane, and in previous years critics had questioned whether they could withstand a storm of even that power. (Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane.)
"There's only two kinds of levees," said Jane Bullock, chief of staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Clinton administration. "Ones that have failed and those that will fail."
The disaster in New Orleans "is not an act of God," said Benigno Aguirre, a professor at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. "This is an act of man. The federal government refused to spend the money to improve the levees."
Scientists have warned of the dangers to New Orleans for years. In 2001, for example, Scientific American published a prescient article titled "Drowning New Orleans," predicting that "a major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands." Evacuating huge numbers of people from New Orleans and from coastal areas has long been seen as a problem, especially given the concentration of the poor in New Orleans and the growing population in other parts of the Gulf Coast.
It takes twice as long to evacuate Biloxi and Gulfport, Miss., as it did 10 years ago, say officials. On the Outer Banks, an evacuation could take three times as long as it did 20 years ago. And faith in science can lead to complacency.
"We evacuated for Ivan and there wasn't nothing but a little wind damage," said Arthur Smith, 70, a school bus driver who lived with his wife in a down-on-its-luck bungalow in Biloxi, about a mile from the Gulf of Mexico. "Hugo came and we were ready to go but nothing happened. Then all of a sudden here come Katrina and we waited too long." Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989; Ivan, in 2004.
The storm surge rose 12 feet around their house. Smith and his wife survived by clinging to the top of a school bus.
A report for the Institute of Transportation Engineers in 2002 noted that 200,000 to 300,000 New Orleans residents lacked access to cars. On the Mississippi and Alabama coasts, where development patterns are more suburban than urban, tens of thousands of poor residents get around by bike, bus and bumming rides.
For much of the 20th century, the coastal areas were dominated by the poor and working class. Wealthy and middle-class Americans did not start moving there until the long lull after Hurricane Camille in 1969, when there was a demographic explosion.
In 1960, there were 180 people per square mile in the coastal United States; by 1994, there were 275 per square mile. A USA Today study in 2000 found 1,000 year-round settlers arriving in coastal counties each day.
"Insurance companies were underwriting coastal development with reckless abandon," said Ted Steinberg, a history professor at Case Western Reserve University and author of "Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disasters." "Developers overbuilt to their hearts' content."
Mississippi's coastal counties grow three times as fast as any other county in the state, a pattern found in many coastal states, and fighting this trend is a lonely business.
In 1998, Deputy Assistant Army Secretary Michael L. Davis tried to stop the Army Corps of Engineers from rubber-stamping casino applications without studying the impact dredging would have on marshes that shelter wildlife, purify drinking water and help prevent flooding. This angered Lott, then Senate majority leader, who had recently flown to Las Vegas in a casino executive's jet and had raised $100,000 for Republicans at a casino-industry fundraiser.
Lott got the moratorium lifted, then he got the Army to launch an investigation of Davis. No wrongdoing was found, but Davis was removed from Gulf Coast permitting issues.
Other federal decisions have spurred coastal development. By law, barrier-island homeowners are not eligible for federal flood insurance. Ecologically, these islands act as a mutable and natural buffers against hurricane surges. But when Hurricane Fran hit North Carolina in 1996, the federal government forked over money to rebuild barrier-island roads and bridges -- and set off a development gold rush.
"They used to require 600-foot-deep lots on these islands -- now developers are selling postage-stamp lots," said Pilkey, the Duke professor.
The federal government also paid prodigious sums in flood insurance claims to property owners who had insisted on building in harm's way. In 1998, David Conrad of the National Wildlife Federation identified 32,000 properties in which the owners already had cashed in at least two federal flood insurance claims. The federal flood insurance fund now shows a negative balance -- and it has not begun to address the coming surge of Katrina claims.
"There's been a steadily increasing buildup in high-hazard areas, especially in the Gulf from Louisiana to Alabama," Conrad said. " The federal and local governments don't have the ability to say no, even when the risks are so obvious."
On the coastal roadway in Biloxi, a massive red crane -- in place to repair work from the last hurricane -- sprawls across the road. Elegant Victorian homes are hollowed shells; discount motels seemed to have just exploded. The gray branches of cypress trees are clotted with mattresses and sheets and little girls' dolls. Up the road, a 30-foot storm surge had hurled a huge casino ship across the coastal road and into the flank of an old apartment building. The casino lies on its side, like a beached whale.
"The most impressive picture to me was the casino that . . . squished on top of a Holiday Inn," said retired Brig. Gen. Gerald Galloway, formerly of the Army Corps and author of a report on flood-plain management. "I hope this makes people in the risk zones realize what they're up against."
None of this is inevitable. In Japan, the government has spent billions of dollars fortifying cities against super-typhoons. After the Mississippi River floods of 1993, federal and state officials made the wrenching decision to buy out more than 13,000 flood-prone homes and businesses.
High waters in those areas now cause very little damage. In 1993, Charles County, Mo., suffered $26 million in damage; after a big buyout, a similar flood two years later cost $300,000. The entire town of Valmeyer, Ill., moved to higher ground.
Might this offer a solution for low-lying sections of New Orleans? House Speaker L. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was castigated last week for even suggesting such a thing.
"I'm not sure it's tenable in this country to abandon a city of that size, but New Orleans should not even exist and hundreds of people are dying to prove that point," said David M. Bush, a professor of geology at West Georgia University. "To build it somewhere else would cost trillions of dollars -- but not to make a move risks an even greater disaster."
Scientists suggest that Gulf Coast officials should ban new building on barrier islands, require setbacks for all coastal development, and perhaps refuse to reconstruct a bridge or two. But they doubt that will happen.
"It's almost unpatriotic to say we can't stop nature," Pilkey said.
While American flags hang from the broken bones of homes, and thousands of residents wait for flood insurance checks in Biloxi and Gulfport, three gleaming, 20-story condominium projects -- the Vue Crescent, the Caribbean Dream and the Shores of Paradise -- remain slated for construction. The determination in the voice of Biloxi Police Officer John Campbell, 50 and bald and muscular, is heard everywhere.
"I'm going to rebuild my house on stilts this time," Johnson said. "You can't let Mother Nature beat you."
That determination was seconded by President Bush when he visited the Gulf Coast last week.
"The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before," Bush said. "Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
Grunwald reported from Washington. Staff writer Michelle Garcia in New York contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Michael Powell and Michael Grunwald
BILOXI, Miss. -- The hurricane that flattened parts of this coastal city and drowned New Orleans, that tossed casino boats into apartment buildings and killed perhaps thousands of Americans, was a disaster long ago foretold.
Scientists and environmentalists have cautioned for years that the nation's coastline is dangerously overbuilt. But with Americans migrating in increasing numbers to coastal counties, construction only accelerated, and local officials increasingly relied on technology and luck to forestall catastrophe. As high-rise condominiums and sprawling beach homes have proliferated, warnings have been consistently ignored.
In Mississippi, 20 glittering casinos sprouted at the water's edge. An Army official tried to impose a moratorium on casino projects along the coast in 1998 but was outmuscled by developers and Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.). All those casinos, which employed 16,000 people, now lie wrecked and broken.
The development pressure comes from one immutable fact: Americans love waterfront property. And the federal government has fueled that love through flood insurance that minimizes its risks and by paying for infrastructure such as bridges and roads that makes it more accessible.
In the process, coastal development often degrades the barrier beaches and coastal wetlands that can serve as natural buffers against hurricanes. "You just cannot justify massive building and rebuilding near the most dangerous property in the United States," said Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., a professor emeritus at Duke University and a specialist in coastal ecosystems. "It's a form of societal madness."
In Florida, more than 13 million people live in coastal counties, up from 200,000 a century ago. As a result, all four of last year's Florida hurricanes made the list of America's 10 most damaging storms ever. And federal meteorologist Stanley B. Goldenberg, who flew into the eye of Hurricane Katrina as it made landfall, forecasts a spike in hurricanes that could last a decade or more. If the next great storm rolls into Miami Beach or Charleston, S.C., or North Carolina's Outer Banks on a Labor Day weekend, he said, the impact could be almost as devastating -- albeit without New Orleans-style flooding.
"I don't like what I'm finding, but if the steering wind patterns continue, we're going to have a lot more landfalls and . . . a lot more people affected multiple times," said Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Miami. "I look at the buildings that have gone up, and there are a lot more targets and a lot more arrows."
Scientists and some engineers believe that Americans put too much faith in technological fixes to stave off nature's primal force. For example, the Mississippi River used to bring loads of silt down to the Mississippi Delta, building coastal marshes that helped buffer the Louisiana coast from hurricanes. But as the river was tamed by a series of dikes and dams, cutting off the flow of silt, wetlands began disappearing at the rate of 25 square miles a year -- and New Orleans began to sink even lower.
The Mississippi Delta, scientists note, was the most engineered and industrialized delta in the world, but disaster struck anyway. The levees designed to protect New Orleans were intended only for a Category 3 hurricane, and in previous years critics had questioned whether they could withstand a storm of even that power. (Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane.)
"There's only two kinds of levees," said Jane Bullock, chief of staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Clinton administration. "Ones that have failed and those that will fail."
The disaster in New Orleans "is not an act of God," said Benigno Aguirre, a professor at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. "This is an act of man. The federal government refused to spend the money to improve the levees."
Scientists have warned of the dangers to New Orleans for years. In 2001, for example, Scientific American published a prescient article titled "Drowning New Orleans," predicting that "a major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands." Evacuating huge numbers of people from New Orleans and from coastal areas has long been seen as a problem, especially given the concentration of the poor in New Orleans and the growing population in other parts of the Gulf Coast.
It takes twice as long to evacuate Biloxi and Gulfport, Miss., as it did 10 years ago, say officials. On the Outer Banks, an evacuation could take three times as long as it did 20 years ago. And faith in science can lead to complacency.
"We evacuated for Ivan and there wasn't nothing but a little wind damage," said Arthur Smith, 70, a school bus driver who lived with his wife in a down-on-its-luck bungalow in Biloxi, about a mile from the Gulf of Mexico. "Hugo came and we were ready to go but nothing happened. Then all of a sudden here come Katrina and we waited too long." Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989; Ivan, in 2004.
The storm surge rose 12 feet around their house. Smith and his wife survived by clinging to the top of a school bus.
A report for the Institute of Transportation Engineers in 2002 noted that 200,000 to 300,000 New Orleans residents lacked access to cars. On the Mississippi and Alabama coasts, where development patterns are more suburban than urban, tens of thousands of poor residents get around by bike, bus and bumming rides.
For much of the 20th century, the coastal areas were dominated by the poor and working class. Wealthy and middle-class Americans did not start moving there until the long lull after Hurricane Camille in 1969, when there was a demographic explosion.
In 1960, there were 180 people per square mile in the coastal United States; by 1994, there were 275 per square mile. A USA Today study in 2000 found 1,000 year-round settlers arriving in coastal counties each day.
"Insurance companies were underwriting coastal development with reckless abandon," said Ted Steinberg, a history professor at Case Western Reserve University and author of "Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disasters." "Developers overbuilt to their hearts' content."
Mississippi's coastal counties grow three times as fast as any other county in the state, a pattern found in many coastal states, and fighting this trend is a lonely business.
In 1998, Deputy Assistant Army Secretary Michael L. Davis tried to stop the Army Corps of Engineers from rubber-stamping casino applications without studying the impact dredging would have on marshes that shelter wildlife, purify drinking water and help prevent flooding. This angered Lott, then Senate majority leader, who had recently flown to Las Vegas in a casino executive's jet and had raised $100,000 for Republicans at a casino-industry fundraiser.
Lott got the moratorium lifted, then he got the Army to launch an investigation of Davis. No wrongdoing was found, but Davis was removed from Gulf Coast permitting issues.
Other federal decisions have spurred coastal development. By law, barrier-island homeowners are not eligible for federal flood insurance. Ecologically, these islands act as a mutable and natural buffers against hurricane surges. But when Hurricane Fran hit North Carolina in 1996, the federal government forked over money to rebuild barrier-island roads and bridges -- and set off a development gold rush.
"They used to require 600-foot-deep lots on these islands -- now developers are selling postage-stamp lots," said Pilkey, the Duke professor.
The federal government also paid prodigious sums in flood insurance claims to property owners who had insisted on building in harm's way. In 1998, David Conrad of the National Wildlife Federation identified 32,000 properties in which the owners already had cashed in at least two federal flood insurance claims. The federal flood insurance fund now shows a negative balance -- and it has not begun to address the coming surge of Katrina claims.
"There's been a steadily increasing buildup in high-hazard areas, especially in the Gulf from Louisiana to Alabama," Conrad said. " The federal and local governments don't have the ability to say no, even when the risks are so obvious."
On the coastal roadway in Biloxi, a massive red crane -- in place to repair work from the last hurricane -- sprawls across the road. Elegant Victorian homes are hollowed shells; discount motels seemed to have just exploded. The gray branches of cypress trees are clotted with mattresses and sheets and little girls' dolls. Up the road, a 30-foot storm surge had hurled a huge casino ship across the coastal road and into the flank of an old apartment building. The casino lies on its side, like a beached whale.
"The most impressive picture to me was the casino that . . . squished on top of a Holiday Inn," said retired Brig. Gen. Gerald Galloway, formerly of the Army Corps and author of a report on flood-plain management. "I hope this makes people in the risk zones realize what they're up against."
None of this is inevitable. In Japan, the government has spent billions of dollars fortifying cities against super-typhoons. After the Mississippi River floods of 1993, federal and state officials made the wrenching decision to buy out more than 13,000 flood-prone homes and businesses.
High waters in those areas now cause very little damage. In 1993, Charles County, Mo., suffered $26 million in damage; after a big buyout, a similar flood two years later cost $300,000. The entire town of Valmeyer, Ill., moved to higher ground.
Might this offer a solution for low-lying sections of New Orleans? House Speaker L. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was castigated last week for even suggesting such a thing.
"I'm not sure it's tenable in this country to abandon a city of that size, but New Orleans should not even exist and hundreds of people are dying to prove that point," said David M. Bush, a professor of geology at West Georgia University. "To build it somewhere else would cost trillions of dollars -- but not to make a move risks an even greater disaster."
Scientists suggest that Gulf Coast officials should ban new building on barrier islands, require setbacks for all coastal development, and perhaps refuse to reconstruct a bridge or two. But they doubt that will happen.
"It's almost unpatriotic to say we can't stop nature," Pilkey said.
While American flags hang from the broken bones of homes, and thousands of residents wait for flood insurance checks in Biloxi and Gulfport, three gleaming, 20-story condominium projects -- the Vue Crescent, the Caribbean Dream and the Shores of Paradise -- remain slated for construction. The determination in the voice of Biloxi Police Officer John Campbell, 50 and bald and muscular, is heard everywhere.
"I'm going to rebuild my house on stilts this time," Johnson said. "You can't let Mother Nature beat you."
That determination was seconded by President Bush when he visited the Gulf Coast last week.
"The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before," Bush said. "Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
Grunwald reported from Washington. Staff writer Michelle Garcia in New York contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
It's Your Failure, Too, Mr. Bush
By Eugene Robinson
BATON ROUGE -- After a tragically incompetent beginning, the effort to give urgent care to the multitudes from New Orleans whose homes and livelihoods have been obliterated is finally in high gear. The problem now is that nobody knows where it's headed.
At the top, things are still hopeless. Federal, local and state officials who perform for the cameras here at the Louisiana State Police complex, headquarters for the relief effort, still spend an unconscionable amount of time debating who's in charge. Is the president the ultimate authority, or is it Blanco, Nagin, Chertoff, Brown or the generals? The answer seems to vary from hour to hour, depending on who's holding court in the hot, stuffy briefing room or outside on the portico, where visiting luminaries get mobbed by microphones.
Fortunately, the finger-pointing follies don't matter much on the ground and in the water. Military, police and civilian relief units did what had to be done and emptied the New Orleans basin of Hurricane Katrina's bereft survivors. They are being fed, sheltered and clothed. They can't be described as alive and well, but they're alive.
Now what?
Hundreds of thousands of evacuees are scattered around Louisiana and neighboring states in a sudden diaspora, and no one seems to have any idea what to do with them next. The evacuees bristle at the word "refugees," which makes them sound as if they don't belong in this country. But whatever you call them, they won't be able to go back home -- and won't have a home to go back to -- for months or even years.
Baton Rouge, perhaps the best example, has swollen like the Mississippi River in an epic flood. The people here have been generous and good-natured to a fault. Down by the river, at the convention center, the Red Cross is housing about 5,000 evacuees; another big shelter is being opened across town, and smaller shelters are being organized every day, many by local churches. It's impossible to count the families who have opened their homes to relatives, friends or needy strangers.
Every city and town in Louisiana that wasn't blasted by the hurricane is full of evacuees. Then there are the tens of thousands in Texas and the multitudes scattered across neighboring states. Their host communities have the best of intentions, but many won't be able to stand the added drain on resources indefinitely. Where will these people go? Why wasn't there a plan?
That's when I start my finger-pointing, because a few days in and around this ground zero have convinced me that there are two things the federal government failed to do, and that for these failures there's ultimately no one to blame but the president.
First, an administration that since Sept. 11, 2001, has told us a major terrorist strike is inevitable should have had in place a well-elaborated plan for evacuating a major American city. Even if there wasn't a specific plan for New Orleans -- although it was clear that a breach of the city's levees was one of the likeliest natural catastrophes -- there should have been a generic plan. George W. Bush told us time and again that our cities were threatened. Shouldn't he have ordered up a plan to get people out?
Second, someone should have thought about what to do with hundreds of thousands of evacuees, both in the days after a disaster and in the long term. As people flooded out of New Orleans, it was officials at the state and local level who rose to the challenge, making it up as they went along. Bring a bunch of people to the Astrodome. We have a vacant hotel that we can use. Send a hundred or so down to our church and we'll do the best we can.
Tent cities aren't a happy option, but neither is haphazard improvisation. Is the problem the Bush administration's ideological fervor for small government? Does the White House really believe that primary responsibility should fall on volunteers, church groups and individuals? Or is it just stunning incompetence and lack of foresight?
At the big shelter here in Baton Rouge on Sunday, some student volunteers from Louisiana State University took a group of children outside to get some air. The kids were using sheets of cardboard as sleds and surfboards, zooming down the grassy levee next to the Mississippi River and then scampering back uphill for another ride. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the scene warmed your heart. But those college students are going to have to go back to their classes, and then how will those kids from New Orleans spend their days?
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Eugene Robinson
BATON ROUGE -- After a tragically incompetent beginning, the effort to give urgent care to the multitudes from New Orleans whose homes and livelihoods have been obliterated is finally in high gear. The problem now is that nobody knows where it's headed.
At the top, things are still hopeless. Federal, local and state officials who perform for the cameras here at the Louisiana State Police complex, headquarters for the relief effort, still spend an unconscionable amount of time debating who's in charge. Is the president the ultimate authority, or is it Blanco, Nagin, Chertoff, Brown or the generals? The answer seems to vary from hour to hour, depending on who's holding court in the hot, stuffy briefing room or outside on the portico, where visiting luminaries get mobbed by microphones.
Fortunately, the finger-pointing follies don't matter much on the ground and in the water. Military, police and civilian relief units did what had to be done and emptied the New Orleans basin of Hurricane Katrina's bereft survivors. They are being fed, sheltered and clothed. They can't be described as alive and well, but they're alive.
Now what?
Hundreds of thousands of evacuees are scattered around Louisiana and neighboring states in a sudden diaspora, and no one seems to have any idea what to do with them next. The evacuees bristle at the word "refugees," which makes them sound as if they don't belong in this country. But whatever you call them, they won't be able to go back home -- and won't have a home to go back to -- for months or even years.
Baton Rouge, perhaps the best example, has swollen like the Mississippi River in an epic flood. The people here have been generous and good-natured to a fault. Down by the river, at the convention center, the Red Cross is housing about 5,000 evacuees; another big shelter is being opened across town, and smaller shelters are being organized every day, many by local churches. It's impossible to count the families who have opened their homes to relatives, friends or needy strangers.
Every city and town in Louisiana that wasn't blasted by the hurricane is full of evacuees. Then there are the tens of thousands in Texas and the multitudes scattered across neighboring states. Their host communities have the best of intentions, but many won't be able to stand the added drain on resources indefinitely. Where will these people go? Why wasn't there a plan?
That's when I start my finger-pointing, because a few days in and around this ground zero have convinced me that there are two things the federal government failed to do, and that for these failures there's ultimately no one to blame but the president.
First, an administration that since Sept. 11, 2001, has told us a major terrorist strike is inevitable should have had in place a well-elaborated plan for evacuating a major American city. Even if there wasn't a specific plan for New Orleans -- although it was clear that a breach of the city's levees was one of the likeliest natural catastrophes -- there should have been a generic plan. George W. Bush told us time and again that our cities were threatened. Shouldn't he have ordered up a plan to get people out?
Second, someone should have thought about what to do with hundreds of thousands of evacuees, both in the days after a disaster and in the long term. As people flooded out of New Orleans, it was officials at the state and local level who rose to the challenge, making it up as they went along. Bring a bunch of people to the Astrodome. We have a vacant hotel that we can use. Send a hundred or so down to our church and we'll do the best we can.
Tent cities aren't a happy option, but neither is haphazard improvisation. Is the problem the Bush administration's ideological fervor for small government? Does the White House really believe that primary responsibility should fall on volunteers, church groups and individuals? Or is it just stunning incompetence and lack of foresight?
At the big shelter here in Baton Rouge on Sunday, some student volunteers from Louisiana State University took a group of children outside to get some air. The kids were using sheets of cardboard as sleds and surfboards, zooming down the grassy levee next to the Mississippi River and then scampering back uphill for another ride. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the scene warmed your heart. But those college students are going to have to go back to their classes, and then how will those kids from New Orleans spend their days?
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
Why, Oh Why?
By Terry M. Neal
Questions. So many questions.
Why, throughout most of last week, was the most eloquent ambassador, and the only recognizable white face in New Orleans, the great and noted statesman . . . Harry Connick Jr.? The jazz musician appeared on NBC's "Today" show several times, roaming the streets of his home town, ruminating on its history, delivering food to the displaced and bemoaning the hideous lack of response to Hurricane Katrina.
Why did Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA head Michael Brown appear on television repeatedly patting themselves on the back for the federal government's effort, when it was so clear to the rest of the world that people were suffering and dying in the streets? "People are getting the help they need," Brown said Friday on the "Today" show, even though the newsreel suggested otherwise.
What in the world was President Bush talking about when he praised Brown at a news conference in Mobile, Ala., saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"?
Speaking of Brownie, how did a guy with no notable experience in disaster relief get that job, anyway?
Mr. President, why did you think it was so important to deliver a political speech comparing Iraq to WWII the day after the hurricane?
Anybody seen Dick Cheney?
Why was Condoleezza Rice, the administration's highest ranking black official, grinning and guffawing at the Broadway show "Spamalot" and shopping for expensive shoes at Salvatore Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue days after the hurricane ravaged the Gulf Coast and left tens of thousands of poor black folks hungry, desperate and dying?
Dear Federal Officials, what kind of message do you think your response to the hurricane must have sent the terrorists, sitting at home watching CNN?
Local and state officials, you can't escape scrutiny: Why didn't you do a better job preparing for the process of evacuating people, given that this sort of disaster has been predicted for decades, and at least one previous study has shown that as many as a third of the residents of New Orleans would be reluctant to evacuate? Did you do everything in your power to prepare the police department, state law enforcements and other emergency services for this disastrous event?
Wait a minute . . . Democrats, you can't get away scot-free. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid did issue some tough sounding press releases, and Pelosi held a press conference on Friday. But neither exactly played a high profile role earlier in the week. Is that what you call leadership?
Back to Connick for a minute . . . why is it that he had no trouble getting in and out of New Orleans, but the feds couldn't figure out a way to deliver water to people five days after the hurricane?
[Here's what the New Orleans Times-Picayune had to say on that subject in a blistering editorial on Sunday:
"Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
"Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
"Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning."]
Why did it take a president who embraces black kids in campaign photo ops as often as possible five days to get to the scene and embrace some of the mostly black suffering masses in New Orleans?
Why do some in the media seem more intent on focusing on the looting of a criminal few than on the more pervasive acts of human kindness of a people enduring the monumental stress of hunger, thirst, separation from family members, loss of homes, and fatigue in the blistering 90 degree heat of Louisiana and Mississippi?
Why have some of the president's supporters attempted to shift blame onto those who did not, or were not able to, evacuate before the storm?
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, why did you suggest that the city looked like "a place that could be bulldozed"? And why were you at a campaign fundraiser for a colleague when the House was voting on a $10.5 billion relief effort bill?
Mr. President, will you ever hold anyone accountable for performance deficiencies? Will you even bother to demand answers?
Would the federal response have taken so long if some similarly devastating disaster had struck, say, McLean, Va., or Scarsdale, N.Y.?
Would a president who proclaims himself to be a conservative sign a $286 billion highway bill packed with some 6,000 pork-barrel projects, many of them frivolous, while cutting a request from the Army Corps of Engineers to bolster hurricane protection in New Orleans from $105 million to $40 million? Wouldn't a president who calls himself a conservative, demand that taxpayer money be spent on priorities and try to do something to reform a budgeting system that rewards politicians for acting like pigs at a trough?
Final question:
Bush, the CEO president?
While I never wrote this in my column, I suggested in my washingtonpost.com Live OnLine chat on Friday and in a Sunday appearance on the Chris Matthews Show on NBC that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had relocated to Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina. In fact, Nagin had relocated his office and his family to Baton Rouge, but he stayed behind in New Orleans. I apologize for the mistake.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Terry M. Neal
Questions. So many questions.
Why, throughout most of last week, was the most eloquent ambassador, and the only recognizable white face in New Orleans, the great and noted statesman . . . Harry Connick Jr.? The jazz musician appeared on NBC's "Today" show several times, roaming the streets of his home town, ruminating on its history, delivering food to the displaced and bemoaning the hideous lack of response to Hurricane Katrina.
Why did Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA head Michael Brown appear on television repeatedly patting themselves on the back for the federal government's effort, when it was so clear to the rest of the world that people were suffering and dying in the streets? "People are getting the help they need," Brown said Friday on the "Today" show, even though the newsreel suggested otherwise.
What in the world was President Bush talking about when he praised Brown at a news conference in Mobile, Ala., saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"?
Speaking of Brownie, how did a guy with no notable experience in disaster relief get that job, anyway?
Mr. President, why did you think it was so important to deliver a political speech comparing Iraq to WWII the day after the hurricane?
Anybody seen Dick Cheney?
Why was Condoleezza Rice, the administration's highest ranking black official, grinning and guffawing at the Broadway show "Spamalot" and shopping for expensive shoes at Salvatore Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue days after the hurricane ravaged the Gulf Coast and left tens of thousands of poor black folks hungry, desperate and dying?
Dear Federal Officials, what kind of message do you think your response to the hurricane must have sent the terrorists, sitting at home watching CNN?
Local and state officials, you can't escape scrutiny: Why didn't you do a better job preparing for the process of evacuating people, given that this sort of disaster has been predicted for decades, and at least one previous study has shown that as many as a third of the residents of New Orleans would be reluctant to evacuate? Did you do everything in your power to prepare the police department, state law enforcements and other emergency services for this disastrous event?
Wait a minute . . . Democrats, you can't get away scot-free. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid did issue some tough sounding press releases, and Pelosi held a press conference on Friday. But neither exactly played a high profile role earlier in the week. Is that what you call leadership?
Back to Connick for a minute . . . why is it that he had no trouble getting in and out of New Orleans, but the feds couldn't figure out a way to deliver water to people five days after the hurricane?
[Here's what the New Orleans Times-Picayune had to say on that subject in a blistering editorial on Sunday:
"Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
"Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
"Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning."]
Why did it take a president who embraces black kids in campaign photo ops as often as possible five days to get to the scene and embrace some of the mostly black suffering masses in New Orleans?
Why do some in the media seem more intent on focusing on the looting of a criminal few than on the more pervasive acts of human kindness of a people enduring the monumental stress of hunger, thirst, separation from family members, loss of homes, and fatigue in the blistering 90 degree heat of Louisiana and Mississippi?
Why have some of the president's supporters attempted to shift blame onto those who did not, or were not able to, evacuate before the storm?
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, why did you suggest that the city looked like "a place that could be bulldozed"? And why were you at a campaign fundraiser for a colleague when the House was voting on a $10.5 billion relief effort bill?
Mr. President, will you ever hold anyone accountable for performance deficiencies? Will you even bother to demand answers?
Would the federal response have taken so long if some similarly devastating disaster had struck, say, McLean, Va., or Scarsdale, N.Y.?
Would a president who proclaims himself to be a conservative sign a $286 billion highway bill packed with some 6,000 pork-barrel projects, many of them frivolous, while cutting a request from the Army Corps of Engineers to bolster hurricane protection in New Orleans from $105 million to $40 million? Wouldn't a president who calls himself a conservative, demand that taxpayer money be spent on priorities and try to do something to reform a budgeting system that rewards politicians for acting like pigs at a trough?
Final question:
Bush, the CEO president?
While I never wrote this in my column, I suggested in my washingtonpost.com Live OnLine chat on Friday and in a Sunday appearance on the Chris Matthews Show on NBC that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had relocated to Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina. In fact, Nagin had relocated his office and his family to Baton Rouge, but he stayed behind in New Orleans. I apologize for the mistake.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
Time for a Tough Question: Why Rebuild?
By Klaus Jacob
It is time to swim against the tide. The direction of public discourse in the wake of Katrina goes like this: First we save lives and provide some basic assistance to the victims. Then we clean up New Orleans. And then we rebuild the city. Most will rightly agree on the first two. But should we rebuild New Orleans, 10 feet below sea level, just so it can be wiped out again?
Some say we can raise and strengthen the levees to fully protect the city. Here is some unpleasant truth: The higher the defenses, the deeper the floods that will inevitably follow. The current political climate is not conducive to having scientific arguments heard before political decisions are made. But not doing so leads to the kind of chaos we are seeing now.
This is not a natural disaster. It is a social, political, human and -- to a lesser degree -- engineering disaster. To many experts, it is a disaster that was waiting to happen. In fact, Katrina is not even the worst-case scenario. Had the eye of the storm made landfall just west of the city (instead of to the east, as it did) the wind speeds and its associated coastal storm surge would have been higher in New Orleans (and lower in Gulfport, Miss.). The city would have flooded faster, and the loss of life would have been greater.
What scientific facts do we need before making fateful political, social and economic decisions about New Orleans's future? Here are just two:
First, all river deltas tend to subside as fresh sediment (supplied during floods) compacts and is transformed into rock. The Mississippi River delta is no exception. In the early to mid-20th century, the Army Corps of Engineers was charged with protecting New Orleans from recurring natural floods. At the same time, the Corps kept the river (and some related canals) along defined pathways. These well-intended defensive measures prevented the natural transport of fresh sediments into the geologically subsiding areas. The protected land and the growing city sank, some of it to the point that it is now 10 feet below sea level. Over time, some of the defenses were raised and strengthened to keep up with land subsidence and to protect against river floods and storm surges. But the defenses were never designed to safeguard the city against a direct hit by a Category 5 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson scale) or a Category 4 hurricane making landfall just west of the city.
Second, global sea levels have risen less than a foot in the past century, and will rise one to three feet by the end of this century. Yes, there is uncertainty. But there is no doubt in the scientific community that the rise in global sea levels will accelerate.
What does this mean for New Orleans's future? Government officials and academic experts have said for years that in about 100 years, New Orleans may no longer exist. Period.
It is time to face up to some geological realities and start a carefully planned deconstruction of New Orleans, assessing what can or needs to be preserved, or vertically raised and, if affordable, by how much. Some of New Orleans could be transformed into a "floating city" using platforms not unlike the oil platforms offshore, or, over the short term, into a city of boathouses, to allow floods to fill in the 'bowl' with fresh sediment.
If realized, this "American Venice" would still need protection from the worst of storms. Restoration of mangroves and wetlands between the coast and the city would need to be carefully planned and executed. Much engineering talent would have to go into anchoring the floating assets to prevent chaos during storms. As for oil production, refining and transshipment facilities, buffer zones would have to be established to protect them from the direct onslaught of coastal storm surges.
Many ancient coastal cities of great fame have disappeared or are now shells of their former grandeur. Parts of ancient Alexandria suffered from the subsidence of the Nile delta, and earthquakes and tsunamis toppled the city's famed lighthouse, one of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World."
It is time that quantitative, science-based risk assessment became a cornerstone of urban and coastal land-use planning to prevent such disasters from happening again. Politicians and others must not make hollow promises for a future, safe New Orleans. Ten feet below sea level and sinking is not safe. It is time to constructively deconstruct, not destructively reconstruct.
The writer, a geophysicist, is an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He teaches and does research on disaster risk management.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Klaus Jacob
It is time to swim against the tide. The direction of public discourse in the wake of Katrina goes like this: First we save lives and provide some basic assistance to the victims. Then we clean up New Orleans. And then we rebuild the city. Most will rightly agree on the first two. But should we rebuild New Orleans, 10 feet below sea level, just so it can be wiped out again?
Some say we can raise and strengthen the levees to fully protect the city. Here is some unpleasant truth: The higher the defenses, the deeper the floods that will inevitably follow. The current political climate is not conducive to having scientific arguments heard before political decisions are made. But not doing so leads to the kind of chaos we are seeing now.
This is not a natural disaster. It is a social, political, human and -- to a lesser degree -- engineering disaster. To many experts, it is a disaster that was waiting to happen. In fact, Katrina is not even the worst-case scenario. Had the eye of the storm made landfall just west of the city (instead of to the east, as it did) the wind speeds and its associated coastal storm surge would have been higher in New Orleans (and lower in Gulfport, Miss.). The city would have flooded faster, and the loss of life would have been greater.
What scientific facts do we need before making fateful political, social and economic decisions about New Orleans's future? Here are just two:
First, all river deltas tend to subside as fresh sediment (supplied during floods) compacts and is transformed into rock. The Mississippi River delta is no exception. In the early to mid-20th century, the Army Corps of Engineers was charged with protecting New Orleans from recurring natural floods. At the same time, the Corps kept the river (and some related canals) along defined pathways. These well-intended defensive measures prevented the natural transport of fresh sediments into the geologically subsiding areas. The protected land and the growing city sank, some of it to the point that it is now 10 feet below sea level. Over time, some of the defenses were raised and strengthened to keep up with land subsidence and to protect against river floods and storm surges. But the defenses were never designed to safeguard the city against a direct hit by a Category 5 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson scale) or a Category 4 hurricane making landfall just west of the city.
Second, global sea levels have risen less than a foot in the past century, and will rise one to three feet by the end of this century. Yes, there is uncertainty. But there is no doubt in the scientific community that the rise in global sea levels will accelerate.
What does this mean for New Orleans's future? Government officials and academic experts have said for years that in about 100 years, New Orleans may no longer exist. Period.
It is time to face up to some geological realities and start a carefully planned deconstruction of New Orleans, assessing what can or needs to be preserved, or vertically raised and, if affordable, by how much. Some of New Orleans could be transformed into a "floating city" using platforms not unlike the oil platforms offshore, or, over the short term, into a city of boathouses, to allow floods to fill in the 'bowl' with fresh sediment.
If realized, this "American Venice" would still need protection from the worst of storms. Restoration of mangroves and wetlands between the coast and the city would need to be carefully planned and executed. Much engineering talent would have to go into anchoring the floating assets to prevent chaos during storms. As for oil production, refining and transshipment facilities, buffer zones would have to be established to protect them from the direct onslaught of coastal storm surges.
Many ancient coastal cities of great fame have disappeared or are now shells of their former grandeur. Parts of ancient Alexandria suffered from the subsidence of the Nile delta, and earthquakes and tsunamis toppled the city's famed lighthouse, one of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World."
It is time that quantitative, science-based risk assessment became a cornerstone of urban and coastal land-use planning to prevent such disasters from happening again. Politicians and others must not make hollow promises for a future, safe New Orleans. Ten feet below sea level and sinking is not safe. It is time to constructively deconstruct, not destructively reconstruct.
The writer, a geophysicist, is an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He teaches and does research on disaster risk management.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
Katrina Takes Environmental Toll
By Timothy Dwyer, Jacqueline L. Salmon and Dan Eggen
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 6 -- The dank and putrid floodwaters choking this once-gracious city are so poisoned with gasoline, industrial chemicals, feces and other contaminants that even casual contact is hazardous and safe drinking water may not be available for the entire population for years to come, state and federal officials warned Tuesday.
As hundreds of police officers, emergency workers and volunteers waded through flooded neighborhoods trying to coax remaining residents from their ruined homes, health officials offered the first tentative assessments of the environmental damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina and its resulting floods: They ranged from contaminated water to the destruction of coastline that acts as a buffer against hurricanes and other severe weather.
State officials also released new tallies of Katrina's destruction, with up to 160,000 homes in Louisiana destroyed and nearly 190,000 public school students displaced by the storm and its aftermath.
Louisiana health officials reported 83 confirmed deaths so far, but cautioned that the total is likely to soar into the thousands as corpses are uncovered in receding floodwaters. As of late Tuesday, 59 bodies had arrived at a temporary morgue in St. Gabriel, La., that is set up to handle more than 5,000 dead if necessary.
"It could take days, it could take years, it could take lifetimes" to identify some victims, said Bob Johannessen of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
The fallout from Katrina also continued to buffet Washington; President Bush and members of Congress announced at least three separate probes into the faltering governmental response to the storm and its aftermath. Bush, reeling from bipartisan complaints about the slow federal reaction, promised to lead an investigation to "find out what went right and what went wrong" and informed congressional leaders of a request for as much as $40 billion in additional relief funds.
Some local officials in Louisiana were adamant in placing most of the blame on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies.
"Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area," Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, said on CBS's "Early Show." "So I'm asking Congress, please investigate this now. Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."
Amid the detritus in New Orleans, officials began to shift their focus from rescue to recovery, affixing red tags to floating corpses and noting locations by global satellite for retrieval later. But with thousands of survivors still in the city, authorities continued efforts to locate holdouts and to persuade them to leave.
Micheline Doley, 24, and three companions agreed to abandon their dry third-floor apartment on South Liberty Street after aid officials warned they would no longer drop off water for them. Doley said she had a battery-powered television, hot water and gas for cooking.
"I didn't want to leave New Orleans," Doley said, carrying a duffel bag after getting off a rescue boat with her friends. "As long as they kept bringing us water, we didn't want to leave. We kept telling them to go help other people."
With tens of thousands taken out of the city in recent days, rescuers said there was a dramatic drop in the number of survivors found Tuesday.
"We're just seeing fewer and fewer people," said Larry Gillian, a paramedic volunteer from the North Arkansas Regional Medical Center. "The two people we brought in today, we've been after for the last couple days to come in and they wouldn't come. . . . Then they saw their friends come in and decided to come in themselves."
Gregory J. Smith, director of the National Wetlands Research Center for the U.S. Geological Survey in Lafayette, La., who was helping in search-and-rescue efforts, warned that parts of the city will be uninhabitable once the waters recede.
"There are concerns about hotspots for disease and for environmental hot spots," Smith said. "Some people left before the storm, some people left right after the storm and there are some people who will only leave under desperation, and that's where we are now."
Still others, he added, "will just never leave."
Although levels have continued to drop in some areas, authorities only began concerted efforts to pump floodwaters into Lake Pontchartrain after plugging the biggest levee breach on Monday.
Only three out of 148 pumps in the New Orleans pumping station are operating, and it could take 80 days before the city and its outlying suburbs to the east are dry, according to Gordon Nelson, an assistant Louisiana transportation secretary. In the city's 17th Street Canal, which had been the site of the most serious break, only 9 cubic feet per second is being pumped out, compared with a potential capacity of 4,600 feet per second, Gordon said.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representative Dan Hitchings said 34 portable pumps were being installed, with more on the way.
Tuesday brought the first sign that the number of evacuees housed in hundreds of shelters nationwide may begin to fall off, with the Department of Homeland Security reporting about 180,000 shelter residents, down from about 230,000 the day before. Officials in several states said evacuees are leaving shelters once friends and family members can take them in.
At the same time, the number of storm victims seeking assistance continued to climb. FEMA said more than 360,000 individuals and families had applied for state and federal disaster relief by Tuesday afternoon. That number includes about 270,000 in Louisiana, 70,000 in Mississippi and 26,000 in Alabama, according to FEMA spokeswoman Mary Margaret Walker.
In the first formal assessment of the environmental devastation wrought by Katrina, state authorities in Baton Rouge announced a litany of contaminants likely to be found in the floodwaters, including tens of millions of pounds of concrete, lumber, cars, animal carcasses and all the other solid waste of a major metropolitan area.
Most sewage-treatment plants in New Orleans were destroyed. Two major spills sent 78,000 barrels of oil into Lake Pontchartrain, and fuel has coated the city from 2,200 fuel tanks and leaking gasoline from flooded cars and boats.
"It is almost unimaginable what we're going to have to plan for and deal with," said Mike McDaniel, the state's secretary of environmental quality. "I don't think anyone has ever dealt with this. The tsunami comes to mind."
As residents return to the city, they will probably need to bring in bottled water and other sources of water while the city rebuilds water-treatment plants.
The mix of contaminants poses a serious disease risk to those wading through the filthy water on rescue and body-recovery missions, McDaniel and others warned. Those working on search-and-rescue missions in the city were being urged to get hepatitis and tetanus shots.
In a telephone news briefing Tuesday, Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said "it would not be too surprising" if evacuees living in shelters experience somewhat higher rates of infectious illness.
Respiratory illness, including influenza when the season for it begins in the fall, are the most likely, she said. Diarrheal diseases are also possible, especially ones caused by norovirus and the bacterium Escherichia coli . The infections most likely to appear are ones already in the population before the flood, she said, noting that "in the city of New Orleans, cholera has not been present for years."
The Gulf of Mexico is an environmental reservoir for the bacterium that causes cholera. In 1986, 12 people were diagnosed with the infection, 11 of whom had recently eaten local seafood. The microbe was detected in oysters in Mobile Bay, Ala., in 1991 and 1992. Between 1995 and 2003, six cases of cholera linked to consumption of Gulf Coast seafood were reported to the CDC.
Other aspects of the environmental toll wrought by Katrina are obvious to rescuers and others traveling the increasingly empty city. On such grand boulevards as St. Charles and Napoleon avenues, the foliage that drapes the majestic oaks and magnolia trees is suddenly turning brown. Birdsong has largely disappeared, replaced with the whine of boat engines and the shouts of rescuers seeking survivors.
Lloyd Thornton, a volunteer from Kemah, Tex., cut the engine on his airboat Tuesday while floating along General Taylor Street. He and his companion, a New Orleans police officer, spotted a towel hanging out a broken window that could have been a cry for help.
"Is anybody in there?" Thornton yelled. "Is anybody home?"
There was no answer. Thornton restarted the engine and continued the search.
Salmon reported from Baton Rouge, La.; Eggen, from Washington. Staff writers David Brown, Juliet Eilperin, Michael A. Fletcher, Spencer S. Hsu and Shankar Vedantam and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report from Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Timothy Dwyer, Jacqueline L. Salmon and Dan Eggen
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 6 -- The dank and putrid floodwaters choking this once-gracious city are so poisoned with gasoline, industrial chemicals, feces and other contaminants that even casual contact is hazardous and safe drinking water may not be available for the entire population for years to come, state and federal officials warned Tuesday.
As hundreds of police officers, emergency workers and volunteers waded through flooded neighborhoods trying to coax remaining residents from their ruined homes, health officials offered the first tentative assessments of the environmental damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina and its resulting floods: They ranged from contaminated water to the destruction of coastline that acts as a buffer against hurricanes and other severe weather.
State officials also released new tallies of Katrina's destruction, with up to 160,000 homes in Louisiana destroyed and nearly 190,000 public school students displaced by the storm and its aftermath.
Louisiana health officials reported 83 confirmed deaths so far, but cautioned that the total is likely to soar into the thousands as corpses are uncovered in receding floodwaters. As of late Tuesday, 59 bodies had arrived at a temporary morgue in St. Gabriel, La., that is set up to handle more than 5,000 dead if necessary.
"It could take days, it could take years, it could take lifetimes" to identify some victims, said Bob Johannessen of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
The fallout from Katrina also continued to buffet Washington; President Bush and members of Congress announced at least three separate probes into the faltering governmental response to the storm and its aftermath. Bush, reeling from bipartisan complaints about the slow federal reaction, promised to lead an investigation to "find out what went right and what went wrong" and informed congressional leaders of a request for as much as $40 billion in additional relief funds.
Some local officials in Louisiana were adamant in placing most of the blame on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies.
"Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area," Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, said on CBS's "Early Show." "So I'm asking Congress, please investigate this now. Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."
Amid the detritus in New Orleans, officials began to shift their focus from rescue to recovery, affixing red tags to floating corpses and noting locations by global satellite for retrieval later. But with thousands of survivors still in the city, authorities continued efforts to locate holdouts and to persuade them to leave.
Micheline Doley, 24, and three companions agreed to abandon their dry third-floor apartment on South Liberty Street after aid officials warned they would no longer drop off water for them. Doley said she had a battery-powered television, hot water and gas for cooking.
"I didn't want to leave New Orleans," Doley said, carrying a duffel bag after getting off a rescue boat with her friends. "As long as they kept bringing us water, we didn't want to leave. We kept telling them to go help other people."
With tens of thousands taken out of the city in recent days, rescuers said there was a dramatic drop in the number of survivors found Tuesday.
"We're just seeing fewer and fewer people," said Larry Gillian, a paramedic volunteer from the North Arkansas Regional Medical Center. "The two people we brought in today, we've been after for the last couple days to come in and they wouldn't come. . . . Then they saw their friends come in and decided to come in themselves."
Gregory J. Smith, director of the National Wetlands Research Center for the U.S. Geological Survey in Lafayette, La., who was helping in search-and-rescue efforts, warned that parts of the city will be uninhabitable once the waters recede.
"There are concerns about hotspots for disease and for environmental hot spots," Smith said. "Some people left before the storm, some people left right after the storm and there are some people who will only leave under desperation, and that's where we are now."
Still others, he added, "will just never leave."
Although levels have continued to drop in some areas, authorities only began concerted efforts to pump floodwaters into Lake Pontchartrain after plugging the biggest levee breach on Monday.
Only three out of 148 pumps in the New Orleans pumping station are operating, and it could take 80 days before the city and its outlying suburbs to the east are dry, according to Gordon Nelson, an assistant Louisiana transportation secretary. In the city's 17th Street Canal, which had been the site of the most serious break, only 9 cubic feet per second is being pumped out, compared with a potential capacity of 4,600 feet per second, Gordon said.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representative Dan Hitchings said 34 portable pumps were being installed, with more on the way.
Tuesday brought the first sign that the number of evacuees housed in hundreds of shelters nationwide may begin to fall off, with the Department of Homeland Security reporting about 180,000 shelter residents, down from about 230,000 the day before. Officials in several states said evacuees are leaving shelters once friends and family members can take them in.
At the same time, the number of storm victims seeking assistance continued to climb. FEMA said more than 360,000 individuals and families had applied for state and federal disaster relief by Tuesday afternoon. That number includes about 270,000 in Louisiana, 70,000 in Mississippi and 26,000 in Alabama, according to FEMA spokeswoman Mary Margaret Walker.
In the first formal assessment of the environmental devastation wrought by Katrina, state authorities in Baton Rouge announced a litany of contaminants likely to be found in the floodwaters, including tens of millions of pounds of concrete, lumber, cars, animal carcasses and all the other solid waste of a major metropolitan area.
Most sewage-treatment plants in New Orleans were destroyed. Two major spills sent 78,000 barrels of oil into Lake Pontchartrain, and fuel has coated the city from 2,200 fuel tanks and leaking gasoline from flooded cars and boats.
"It is almost unimaginable what we're going to have to plan for and deal with," said Mike McDaniel, the state's secretary of environmental quality. "I don't think anyone has ever dealt with this. The tsunami comes to mind."
As residents return to the city, they will probably need to bring in bottled water and other sources of water while the city rebuilds water-treatment plants.
The mix of contaminants poses a serious disease risk to those wading through the filthy water on rescue and body-recovery missions, McDaniel and others warned. Those working on search-and-rescue missions in the city were being urged to get hepatitis and tetanus shots.
In a telephone news briefing Tuesday, Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said "it would not be too surprising" if evacuees living in shelters experience somewhat higher rates of infectious illness.
Respiratory illness, including influenza when the season for it begins in the fall, are the most likely, she said. Diarrheal diseases are also possible, especially ones caused by norovirus and the bacterium Escherichia coli . The infections most likely to appear are ones already in the population before the flood, she said, noting that "in the city of New Orleans, cholera has not been present for years."
The Gulf of Mexico is an environmental reservoir for the bacterium that causes cholera. In 1986, 12 people were diagnosed with the infection, 11 of whom had recently eaten local seafood. The microbe was detected in oysters in Mobile Bay, Ala., in 1991 and 1992. Between 1995 and 2003, six cases of cholera linked to consumption of Gulf Coast seafood were reported to the CDC.
Other aspects of the environmental toll wrought by Katrina are obvious to rescuers and others traveling the increasingly empty city. On such grand boulevards as St. Charles and Napoleon avenues, the foliage that drapes the majestic oaks and magnolia trees is suddenly turning brown. Birdsong has largely disappeared, replaced with the whine of boat engines and the shouts of rescuers seeking survivors.
Lloyd Thornton, a volunteer from Kemah, Tex., cut the engine on his airboat Tuesday while floating along General Taylor Street. He and his companion, a New Orleans police officer, spotted a towel hanging out a broken window that could have been a cry for help.
"Is anybody in there?" Thornton yelled. "Is anybody home?"
There was no answer. Thornton restarted the engine and continued the search.
Salmon reported from Baton Rouge, La.; Eggen, from Washington. Staff writers David Brown, Juliet Eilperin, Michael A. Fletcher, Spencer S. Hsu and Shankar Vedantam and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report from Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
Long-Term Impact Depends on Consumers
By Margaret Webb Pressler and Paul Blustein
The long-term economic impact of Hurricane Katrina will hinge in large part on how U.S. consumers react to the disaster and resulting surge in gas prices. Will they fall into the camp represented by Lisa Kays of the District or Heather Rories of Burke?
Kays, who works in international development, said the hurricane has forced big changes in her spending plans.
"It reinforced to me the need to save, to have cash," Kays said while sitting in a sandwich shop near Dupont Circle. "We've been thinking about buying a car, but after this, I'm like, no, it's not worth it."
Likewise, one of Kays's lunch companions said she and her boyfriend had planned to drive to New York over the weekend but settled on a day trip to Annapolis instead.
But a little farther down Connecticut Avenue, Rories, a librarian for a downtown law firm, said rising gas prices have had no impact on her spending or travel plans. She and her family drove to Charlotte over the holiday weekend, she said, and "every time we stopped, the gas prices had gone up."
"I just felt fortunate we could afford it," Rories said.
Consumer spending on food, clothing, services and big-ticket items accounts or about 70 percent of U.S. economic output. So much is riding on the extent to which Americans change their spending in response to high gas prices.
The surge in gasoline prices in the week ending on Labor Day was virtually unprecedented -- the retail price rose 45 cents, to a nationwide average of about $3.057 a gallon (with prices in the Washington area about 20 cents above that). In inflation-adjusted terms, that's the highest since 1981.
"Of course, we don't know whether the price is going to stay at $3," said Nigel Gault, U.S. economist at Global Insight Inc., a forecasting and research firm. "But the longer prices stay at this level, the harder it is to believe that consumers will just carry on doing what they were doing."
Even before Katrina laid waste to the central Gulf Coast, gas prices were dampening consumption, according to a survey in early May for the National Retail Federation. People with low incomes are those most likely to economize when gas prices rise. That is one reason Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reduced its earnings forecast for the third quarter.
Americans are hardly about to abandon their free-spending ways. Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy in New York, issued a study yesterday showing that after disasters, U.S. consumers tend to be "resilient."
Citing evidence from Hurricane Andrew in 1992; the Northridge, Calif., earthquake in 1994; the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and the four hurricanes in Florida last year, Johnson said, "Although the months of the event may briefly stun retail momentum, consumer spending tends to snap back sharply." On average, the firm's data show, retail spending (excluding autos and food service) was nearly 6 percent higher than the year before by the first Christmas after the event.
Katrina, however, knocked out a substantial portion of the nation's petroleum infrastructure, especially refineries that produce gasoline, when gas supplies were already stretched thin. "The larger worry may not be Katrina itself," Johnson said, "but if energy prices were to continue their sharp climb."
Since the price of gas has risen about 70 cents a gallon since early August, keeping it at that level for a year would mean motorists would have to pour an additional $84 billion into gas pumps -- equal to almost 1 percent of their incomes. "So it's not trivial," Gault of Global Insight said.
What people choose to pass up will also affect the severity of the economic impact. Larry Osborne of Forestville said that it costs him $70 to fill up his Cadillac Deville, up from about $35 not long ago, and that as a result he is eating out less. "It's impacted food and entertainment, mostly," he said.
Some economists say that continued strong sales of luxury goods will help offset cutbacks consumers are making on other retail products. But they wonder how long those pockets of strength can hold out as the storm's effects widen.
The storm's impact will come in phases, said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist for the International Council of Shopping Centers. "We haven't really seen the impact from the home heating oil and natural gas use that will kick in in the wintertime."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Margaret Webb Pressler and Paul Blustein
The long-term economic impact of Hurricane Katrina will hinge in large part on how U.S. consumers react to the disaster and resulting surge in gas prices. Will they fall into the camp represented by Lisa Kays of the District or Heather Rories of Burke?
Kays, who works in international development, said the hurricane has forced big changes in her spending plans.
"It reinforced to me the need to save, to have cash," Kays said while sitting in a sandwich shop near Dupont Circle. "We've been thinking about buying a car, but after this, I'm like, no, it's not worth it."
Likewise, one of Kays's lunch companions said she and her boyfriend had planned to drive to New York over the weekend but settled on a day trip to Annapolis instead.
But a little farther down Connecticut Avenue, Rories, a librarian for a downtown law firm, said rising gas prices have had no impact on her spending or travel plans. She and her family drove to Charlotte over the holiday weekend, she said, and "every time we stopped, the gas prices had gone up."
"I just felt fortunate we could afford it," Rories said.
Consumer spending on food, clothing, services and big-ticket items accounts or about 70 percent of U.S. economic output. So much is riding on the extent to which Americans change their spending in response to high gas prices.
The surge in gasoline prices in the week ending on Labor Day was virtually unprecedented -- the retail price rose 45 cents, to a nationwide average of about $3.057 a gallon (with prices in the Washington area about 20 cents above that). In inflation-adjusted terms, that's the highest since 1981.
"Of course, we don't know whether the price is going to stay at $3," said Nigel Gault, U.S. economist at Global Insight Inc., a forecasting and research firm. "But the longer prices stay at this level, the harder it is to believe that consumers will just carry on doing what they were doing."
Even before Katrina laid waste to the central Gulf Coast, gas prices were dampening consumption, according to a survey in early May for the National Retail Federation. People with low incomes are those most likely to economize when gas prices rise. That is one reason Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reduced its earnings forecast for the third quarter.
Americans are hardly about to abandon their free-spending ways. Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy in New York, issued a study yesterday showing that after disasters, U.S. consumers tend to be "resilient."
Citing evidence from Hurricane Andrew in 1992; the Northridge, Calif., earthquake in 1994; the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and the four hurricanes in Florida last year, Johnson said, "Although the months of the event may briefly stun retail momentum, consumer spending tends to snap back sharply." On average, the firm's data show, retail spending (excluding autos and food service) was nearly 6 percent higher than the year before by the first Christmas after the event.
Katrina, however, knocked out a substantial portion of the nation's petroleum infrastructure, especially refineries that produce gasoline, when gas supplies were already stretched thin. "The larger worry may not be Katrina itself," Johnson said, "but if energy prices were to continue their sharp climb."
Since the price of gas has risen about 70 cents a gallon since early August, keeping it at that level for a year would mean motorists would have to pour an additional $84 billion into gas pumps -- equal to almost 1 percent of their incomes. "So it's not trivial," Gault of Global Insight said.
What people choose to pass up will also affect the severity of the economic impact. Larry Osborne of Forestville said that it costs him $70 to fill up his Cadillac Deville, up from about $35 not long ago, and that as a result he is eating out less. "It's impacted food and entertainment, mostly," he said.
Some economists say that continued strong sales of luxury goods will help offset cutbacks consumers are making on other retail products. But they wonder how long those pockets of strength can hold out as the storm's effects widen.
The storm's impact will come in phases, said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist for the International Council of Shopping Centers. "We haven't really seen the impact from the home heating oil and natural gas use that will kick in in the wintertime."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
Deconstructing Katrina
By Dana Milbank
"Never did we dream that they would use our own airplanes as weapons."
-- President Bush, April 20, 2004.
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
-- Bush, Sept. 1, 2005.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) wore a burgundy suit, dangling earrings and a demure smile when she appeared in the Senate television studio yesterday. But the questions she asked were sharp and unnerving.
"If our system did such a poor job when there was no enemy, how would the federal, state and local governments have coped with a terrorist attack that provided no advance warning and that was intent on causing as much death and destruction as possible?" the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee wondered, announcing a probe into the response to Hurricane Katrina. "How is it possible that almost four years to the day after the attacks on our country, with billions of dollars spent to improve our preparedness, that a major area of our nation was so ill prepared to respond to a catastrophe?"
As horrendous as the death and dislocation have been in and around New Orleans, the government's "woefully inadequate" response there, as Collins put it, has left Americans far from the disaster area to assume that, if a terrorist's nuclear bomb goes off on K Street or smallpox is released in Times Square, it will be every man for himself. Bush linked the two yesterday, telling reporters, "We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm."
But there was a disconnect yesterday at opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. On the Hill, outraged lawmakers launched a bipartisan investigation and demanded to know what good had come from all that homeland security spending. At the White House, the president was still operating in the conditional. "If things went wrong, we'll correct them," he said. "And when things went right, we'll duplicate them."
Collins and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, had scheduled their announcement of an investigation for 11:15 yesterday morning. Bush preempted them, inviting reporters into the Cabinet Room at 11:08. "What I intend to do is to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong," the president said.
Bush was in no hurry to probe. "There will be ample time to assess," he said. Rearranging a presidential coaster on the Cabinet table, he said that to ask questions while the relief operation is underway would be "to play a blame game."
The mood was more urgent on the Hill, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House was preparing legislation to separate FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security. In the Senate, the issue eclipsed the excitement over the sudden emergence of a second Supreme Court vacancy, with the death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.
At an otherwise subdued briefing announcing the postponement of confirmation hearings for John G. Roberts Jr., Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) erupted when asked about the hurricane response. "We've given billions of dollars to the Department of Homeland Security," he said, almost shouting. "What in heaven's name was happening?"
Collins, performing before a standing-room-only crowd, had an answer to Bush's objections. She said her committee's goal is not "to fix blame," and she promised "not to divert resources from the rescue and recovery."
But she said the questions could not wait; hearings are planned for next week. "We would be remiss," she said, "if we did not ask the hard questions needed to understand what went so wrong and what our country must do to improve our ability to respond to future crises, whether they are natural disasters or terrorist attacks."
Lieberman, too, spoke of a problem bigger than New Orleans. "Hurricane Katrina was in one sense the most significant test of the new national emergency preparedness and response system that was created after 9/11, and it obviously did not pass that test," he said. "We need to know why -- not just to fix what went wrong, but in my opinion, to rebuild the confidence of the American people."
The normally adept White House has had trouble settling on a message over the past week. Officials have condemned the "blame game" even as they point fingers at state and local authorities. They have made public assertions -- that nobody anticipated a levee breach and that Louisiana did not declare a state of emergency -- that turned out to be flat wrong. Now, Bush is in the position of promising to lead an investigation but saying it's still a question of "if things went wrong."
After a midday meeting with the president at the White House, even top GOP congressional leaders dropped the "if." House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) called for investigations "to make sure that this doesn't happen again." And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), promising to "investigate aggressively," floated the idea of an independent commission or bicameral committee. "If we don't have a strong disaster response," he said, things such as a bioterrorism attack "could result in not hundreds of deaths, but thousands of deaths and indeed millions of deaths."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Dana Milbank
"Never did we dream that they would use our own airplanes as weapons."
-- President Bush, April 20, 2004.
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
-- Bush, Sept. 1, 2005.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) wore a burgundy suit, dangling earrings and a demure smile when she appeared in the Senate television studio yesterday. But the questions she asked were sharp and unnerving.
"If our system did such a poor job when there was no enemy, how would the federal, state and local governments have coped with a terrorist attack that provided no advance warning and that was intent on causing as much death and destruction as possible?" the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee wondered, announcing a probe into the response to Hurricane Katrina. "How is it possible that almost four years to the day after the attacks on our country, with billions of dollars spent to improve our preparedness, that a major area of our nation was so ill prepared to respond to a catastrophe?"
As horrendous as the death and dislocation have been in and around New Orleans, the government's "woefully inadequate" response there, as Collins put it, has left Americans far from the disaster area to assume that, if a terrorist's nuclear bomb goes off on K Street or smallpox is released in Times Square, it will be every man for himself. Bush linked the two yesterday, telling reporters, "We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm."
But there was a disconnect yesterday at opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. On the Hill, outraged lawmakers launched a bipartisan investigation and demanded to know what good had come from all that homeland security spending. At the White House, the president was still operating in the conditional. "If things went wrong, we'll correct them," he said. "And when things went right, we'll duplicate them."
Collins and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, had scheduled their announcement of an investigation for 11:15 yesterday morning. Bush preempted them, inviting reporters into the Cabinet Room at 11:08. "What I intend to do is to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong," the president said.
Bush was in no hurry to probe. "There will be ample time to assess," he said. Rearranging a presidential coaster on the Cabinet table, he said that to ask questions while the relief operation is underway would be "to play a blame game."
The mood was more urgent on the Hill, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House was preparing legislation to separate FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security. In the Senate, the issue eclipsed the excitement over the sudden emergence of a second Supreme Court vacancy, with the death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.
At an otherwise subdued briefing announcing the postponement of confirmation hearings for John G. Roberts Jr., Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) erupted when asked about the hurricane response. "We've given billions of dollars to the Department of Homeland Security," he said, almost shouting. "What in heaven's name was happening?"
Collins, performing before a standing-room-only crowd, had an answer to Bush's objections. She said her committee's goal is not "to fix blame," and she promised "not to divert resources from the rescue and recovery."
But she said the questions could not wait; hearings are planned for next week. "We would be remiss," she said, "if we did not ask the hard questions needed to understand what went so wrong and what our country must do to improve our ability to respond to future crises, whether they are natural disasters or terrorist attacks."
Lieberman, too, spoke of a problem bigger than New Orleans. "Hurricane Katrina was in one sense the most significant test of the new national emergency preparedness and response system that was created after 9/11, and it obviously did not pass that test," he said. "We need to know why -- not just to fix what went wrong, but in my opinion, to rebuild the confidence of the American people."
The normally adept White House has had trouble settling on a message over the past week. Officials have condemned the "blame game" even as they point fingers at state and local authorities. They have made public assertions -- that nobody anticipated a levee breach and that Louisiana did not declare a state of emergency -- that turned out to be flat wrong. Now, Bush is in the position of promising to lead an investigation but saying it's still a question of "if things went wrong."
After a midday meeting with the president at the White House, even top GOP congressional leaders dropped the "if." House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) called for investigations "to make sure that this doesn't happen again." And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), promising to "investigate aggressively," floated the idea of an independent commission or bicameral committee. "If we don't have a strong disaster response," he said, things such as a bioterrorism attack "could result in not hundreds of deaths, but thousands of deaths and indeed millions of deaths."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
Offers of Aid Immediate, but U.S. Approval Delayed for Days
By Elizabeth Williamson
Offers of foreign aid worth tens of millions of dollars -- including a Swedish water purification system, a German cellular telephone network and two Canadian rescue ships -- have been delayed for days awaiting review by backlogged federal agencies, according to European diplomats and information collected by the State Department.
Since Hurricane Katrina, more than 90 countries and international organizations offered to assist in recovery efforts for the flood-stricken region, but nearly all endeavors remained mired yesterday in bureaucratic entanglements, in most cases, at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In Germany, a massive telecommunication system and two technicians await the green light to fly to Louisiana, after its donors spent four days searching for someone willing to accept the gift.
"FEMA? That was a lost case," said Mirit Hemy, an executive with the Netherlands-based New Skies Satellite, who made the phone calls. "We got zero help, and we lost one week trying to get hold of them."
In Sweden, a transport plane loaded with a water purification system and a cellular network has been ready to take off for four days, while Swedish officials wait for flight clearance. Nearly a week after they were offered, four Canadian rescue vessels and two helicopters have been accepted but probably won't arrive from Halifax, Nova Scotia, until Saturday. The Canadians' offer of search and rescue divers has so far gone begging.
Matching offers of aid -- from Panamanian bananas to British engineers -- with needs in the devastated Gulf region is a laborious process, in a disaster whose scope is unheard of in recent U.S. history, especially for a country that is more accustomed to giving than receiving aid.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that to his knowledge, all offers of foreign aid have been accepted but must be vetted by emergency relief specialists. "I think the experts will take a look at exactly what is needed now," he said.
FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule said the foreign complaints echo those from governors and officials "across the nation."
"There has been that common thought that because [offers of aid] are not tapped immediately, they're not prudently used," Rule said. "We are pulling everything into a centralized database. We are trying not to suck everything in all at once, whether we need it or not."
European diplomats said publicly that they understand the difficulty of coordinating such a massive recovery effort. In an open letter released yesterday, though, Ambassador John Bruton, head of the Delegation of the European Commission to the United States, wrote:
"Perhaps one of those lessons will be that rugged individualism is not always enough in such a crisis, particularly if an individual does not have the material and psychological means to escape the fury of a hurricane in time."
Soon after the flooding, the government of Sweden offered a C-130 Hercules transport plane, loaded with water purification equipment, and a cellular network donated by Ericsson.
"As far as I know, it's still on the ground," said Claes Thorson, press counselor at the Swedish Embassy in Washington. He said that along with 20 other European Union nations that have pledged money and goods, "We are ready to send our things. We know they are needed, but what seems to be a problem is getting all these offers into the country."
So far, Thorson said, the State Department has denied Sweden's request for flight clearance. "We don't know exactly why, but we have a suspicion that the system is clogged on the receiving end," he said. "But we keep a request alive all the time, so we are not forgotten."
German telecommunications company KB Impuls contacted another company, Unisat, based in Rhode Island, with the idea of contributing an integrated satellite and cellular telephone system.
In a region with its communications systems in tatters, the $3 million system could handle 5,000 calls at once, routing them, if necessary, through Germany.
KB Impuls would contribute the equipment and two engineers, supplied with their own food, water and generator fuel, to set it up. Unisat contacted another firm, New Skies Satellite, based in the Netherlands with offices in Washington, which agreed to contribute satellite capacity.
New Skies even arranged transport, securing a C-130 cargo plane from the Israeli Air Force, to pick up the equipment and technicians from Germany and bring them to Louisiana. "With one call, I got an airplane," Hemy said. And then, over four days, she and the owner of Unisat, Uri Bar-Zemer, called contacts at FEMA, the American Red Cross, the State Department, even members of Congress, trying to find someone to accept the gift.
Finally the State Department told them that to receive flight clearance, the gift must have a specific recipient. "I was ringing, ringing, ringing -- and nothing," Hemy said. Finally, yesterday, she got a call from the U.S. Air Force's Joint Task Force Katrina Communication Operations division, thanking the companies for the gift and inquiring about the system's technical specifications.
As of late yesterday, the companies were waiting for a written order from the Northern Command to begin the mission. "I don't have a problem confirming that," Bar-Zemer said of the story. But he expressed concerns that disclosing the difficulties in donating could jeopardize the company's chances of actually delivering the aid.
Staff writers Robin Wright and Nelson Hernandez contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Elizabeth Williamson
Offers of foreign aid worth tens of millions of dollars -- including a Swedish water purification system, a German cellular telephone network and two Canadian rescue ships -- have been delayed for days awaiting review by backlogged federal agencies, according to European diplomats and information collected by the State Department.
Since Hurricane Katrina, more than 90 countries and international organizations offered to assist in recovery efforts for the flood-stricken region, but nearly all endeavors remained mired yesterday in bureaucratic entanglements, in most cases, at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In Germany, a massive telecommunication system and two technicians await the green light to fly to Louisiana, after its donors spent four days searching for someone willing to accept the gift.
"FEMA? That was a lost case," said Mirit Hemy, an executive with the Netherlands-based New Skies Satellite, who made the phone calls. "We got zero help, and we lost one week trying to get hold of them."
In Sweden, a transport plane loaded with a water purification system and a cellular network has been ready to take off for four days, while Swedish officials wait for flight clearance. Nearly a week after they were offered, four Canadian rescue vessels and two helicopters have been accepted but probably won't arrive from Halifax, Nova Scotia, until Saturday. The Canadians' offer of search and rescue divers has so far gone begging.
Matching offers of aid -- from Panamanian bananas to British engineers -- with needs in the devastated Gulf region is a laborious process, in a disaster whose scope is unheard of in recent U.S. history, especially for a country that is more accustomed to giving than receiving aid.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that to his knowledge, all offers of foreign aid have been accepted but must be vetted by emergency relief specialists. "I think the experts will take a look at exactly what is needed now," he said.
FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule said the foreign complaints echo those from governors and officials "across the nation."
"There has been that common thought that because [offers of aid] are not tapped immediately, they're not prudently used," Rule said. "We are pulling everything into a centralized database. We are trying not to suck everything in all at once, whether we need it or not."
European diplomats said publicly that they understand the difficulty of coordinating such a massive recovery effort. In an open letter released yesterday, though, Ambassador John Bruton, head of the Delegation of the European Commission to the United States, wrote:
"Perhaps one of those lessons will be that rugged individualism is not always enough in such a crisis, particularly if an individual does not have the material and psychological means to escape the fury of a hurricane in time."
Soon after the flooding, the government of Sweden offered a C-130 Hercules transport plane, loaded with water purification equipment, and a cellular network donated by Ericsson.
"As far as I know, it's still on the ground," said Claes Thorson, press counselor at the Swedish Embassy in Washington. He said that along with 20 other European Union nations that have pledged money and goods, "We are ready to send our things. We know they are needed, but what seems to be a problem is getting all these offers into the country."
So far, Thorson said, the State Department has denied Sweden's request for flight clearance. "We don't know exactly why, but we have a suspicion that the system is clogged on the receiving end," he said. "But we keep a request alive all the time, so we are not forgotten."
German telecommunications company KB Impuls contacted another company, Unisat, based in Rhode Island, with the idea of contributing an integrated satellite and cellular telephone system.
In a region with its communications systems in tatters, the $3 million system could handle 5,000 calls at once, routing them, if necessary, through Germany.
KB Impuls would contribute the equipment and two engineers, supplied with their own food, water and generator fuel, to set it up. Unisat contacted another firm, New Skies Satellite, based in the Netherlands with offices in Washington, which agreed to contribute satellite capacity.
New Skies even arranged transport, securing a C-130 cargo plane from the Israeli Air Force, to pick up the equipment and technicians from Germany and bring them to Louisiana. "With one call, I got an airplane," Hemy said. And then, over four days, she and the owner of Unisat, Uri Bar-Zemer, called contacts at FEMA, the American Red Cross, the State Department, even members of Congress, trying to find someone to accept the gift.
Finally the State Department told them that to receive flight clearance, the gift must have a specific recipient. "I was ringing, ringing, ringing -- and nothing," Hemy said. Finally, yesterday, she got a call from the U.S. Air Force's Joint Task Force Katrina Communication Operations division, thanking the companies for the gift and inquiring about the system's technical specifications.
As of late yesterday, the companies were waiting for a written order from the Northern Command to begin the mission. "I don't have a problem confirming that," Bar-Zemer said of the story. But he expressed concerns that disclosing the difficulties in donating could jeopardize the company's chances of actually delivering the aid.
Staff writers Robin Wright and Nelson Hernandez contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
Mourners, including Bush and Roberts, pay respects to Rehnquist San Jose Mercury News
Thousands of people began paying their respects Tuesday to William H. Rehnquist, the son of Wisconsin who rose to become chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Bush Pledges Wide Search Washington Post
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Thousands of people began paying their respects Tuesday to William H. Rehnquist, the son of Wisconsin who rose to become chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.
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Calif. Assembly passes bill to allow gay marriage Washington Post
A bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry won final passage on Tuesday in the California Assembly, marking the first time a state legislature in the United States has endorsed gay marriage. The bill by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno passed by a 41-35 vote, with the help of four Democrats who had not voted for it when the Assembly had previously taken up the legislation. The state Senate backed the same bill last week. "I couldn't do anything but keep going. It says something for being a little bit tenacious," Leno told cheering supporters. Both the California Assembly and state Senate are controlled by Democrats. The office of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has previously opposed gay marriage, issued a statement saying he believes that the issue is best decided in the courts. California voters in 2000 endorsed a ballot measure defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, but that ban on same-sex marriages is facing court challenges. The California Supreme Court has ruled invalid same-sex marriage licenses issued in 2004 by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, which helped fuel a national debate over gay marriage. Opponents of gay marriage aim to place a measure on next year's ballot that would amend the state Constitution to include a ban. "I think it's a sad day," Republican Assemblywoman Sharon Runner of Lancaster, California, said of the bill's passage. "I think the people of California want us to do the business of jobs, the economy, education, illegal immigration, and today we had to spend several hours talking about an issue that the voters decided back five years ago, that marriage should be between a man and a woman ... I think it shows how out of touch the legislature is." Massachusetts in 2004 became the first U.S. state to allow gay marriage, in response to a ruling by the state's Supreme Court. Massachusetts lawmakers are to vote next week on a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but the proposal is not expected to succeed. (Reporting by Jenny O'Mara in Sacramento California)
Bills seeking reparations, limiting foreclosures clear hurdles Miami Herald
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A bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry won final passage on Tuesday in the California Assembly, marking the first time a state legislature in the United States has endorsed gay marriage. The bill by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno passed by a 41-35 vote, with the help of four Democrats who had not voted for it when the Assembly had previously taken up the legislation. The state Senate backed the same bill last week. "I couldn't do anything but keep going. It says something for being a little bit tenacious," Leno told cheering supporters. Both the California Assembly and state Senate are controlled by Democrats. The office of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has previously opposed gay marriage, issued a statement saying he believes that the issue is best decided in the courts. California voters in 2000 endorsed a ballot measure defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, but that ban on same-sex marriages is facing court challenges. The California Supreme Court has ruled invalid same-sex marriage licenses issued in 2004 by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, which helped fuel a national debate over gay marriage. Opponents of gay marriage aim to place a measure on next year's ballot that would amend the state Constitution to include a ban. "I think it's a sad day," Republican Assemblywoman Sharon Runner of Lancaster, California, said of the bill's passage. "I think the people of California want us to do the business of jobs, the economy, education, illegal immigration, and today we had to spend several hours talking about an issue that the voters decided back five years ago, that marriage should be between a man and a woman ... I think it shows how out of touch the legislature is." Massachusetts in 2004 became the first U.S. state to allow gay marriage, in response to a ruling by the state's Supreme Court. Massachusetts lawmakers are to vote next week on a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but the proposal is not expected to succeed. (Reporting by Jenny O'Mara in Sacramento California)
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Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthens off Florida Reuters
Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened slightly off Florida's Atlantic Coast on Wednesday and seemed likely to turn away from land but its path was too uncertain to rule out a strike on Florida or Georgia, forecasters said. Tropical storm warnings were in effect for a 120-mile (190 km) stretch of shoreline from Sebastian Inlet to Flagler Beach in Florida, alerting residents to expect the storm within 24 hours. Ophelia coalesced overnight from a loose swirling mass of thunderstorms and had top winds of 45 mph (72 kph). Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said it could dump 3 to 8 inches (8 to 20 cm) of rain on parts of central and north Florida and southeastern Georgia. At 8 a.m. (1200 GMT), Ophelia was centered about 80 miles (130 km) east of Cape Canaveral, Florida, and moving north-northwest. It was expected to slowly strengthen into a hurricane, with winds of at least 74 mph (118 kph) and loop to the northeast away from the U.S. coast by Monday. However, the hurricane center said its forecasting models differed greatly on Ophelia's potential path and, "Given the uncertainty in the longer time periods, possible landfall across northern Florida or Georgia during the next five days can not be ruled out at this time."
New storm gains strength, heads toward Florida St. Petersburg Times
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Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened slightly off Florida's Atlantic Coast on Wednesday and seemed likely to turn away from land but its path was too uncertain to rule out a strike on Florida or Georgia, forecasters said. Tropical storm warnings were in effect for a 120-mile (190 km) stretch of shoreline from Sebastian Inlet to Flagler Beach in Florida, alerting residents to expect the storm within 24 hours. Ophelia coalesced overnight from a loose swirling mass of thunderstorms and had top winds of 45 mph (72 kph). Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said it could dump 3 to 8 inches (8 to 20 cm) of rain on parts of central and north Florida and southeastern Georgia. At 8 a.m. (1200 GMT), Ophelia was centered about 80 miles (130 km) east of Cape Canaveral, Florida, and moving north-northwest. It was expected to slowly strengthen into a hurricane, with winds of at least 74 mph (118 kph) and loop to the northeast away from the U.S. coast by Monday. However, the hurricane center said its forecasting models differed greatly on Ophelia's potential path and, "Given the uncertainty in the longer time periods, possible landfall across northern Florida or Georgia during the next five days can not be ruled out at this time."
New storm gains strength, heads toward Florida St. Petersburg Times
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Man Held in Killings Tries to Plead Guilty Guardian Unlimited
A man arrested in the shooting deaths of two convicted child rapists tried to plead guilty Tuesday before he had even been formally charged.
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A man arrested in the shooting deaths of two convicted child rapists tried to plead guilty Tuesday before he had even been formally charged.
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Prosecutor: Gotti's Son Ordered Sliwa Hit Washington Post
New York was buzzing about Gambino crime boss John Gotti in the spring of 1992, and radio host Curtis Sliwa didn't hide his disdain for the "Dapper Don." Calling the boss "America's No. 1 drug dealer," Sliwa infuriated the late mobster's son and protege, John A. "Junior" Gotti, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday as the younger Gotti's racketeering trial drew to a close.
Trial of 'Junior' Gotti draws to close in New York Reuters
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New York was buzzing about Gambino crime boss John Gotti in the spring of 1992, and radio host Curtis Sliwa didn't hide his disdain for the "Dapper Don." Calling the boss "America's No. 1 drug dealer," Sliwa infuriated the late mobster's son and protege, John A. "Junior" Gotti, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday as the younger Gotti's racketeering trial drew to a close.
Trial of 'Junior' Gotti draws to close in New York Reuters
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Newsday - New York Daily News - Staten Island Advance - New York Post - all 88 related »
Governor candidates head to southwest Va. Boston Globe
Gov. Mark R. Warner was back on the campaign trail Sunday, this time supporting a fellow Democrat vying to replace him on a Labor Day weekend campaign swing through the backyard of his Republican foe. In conservative southwestern Virginia, Warner is Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine's most potent ally. The governor, prevented by the state constitution from serving consecutive terms, is extremely popular in the mountainous, largely low-income region where jobs are scarce and where Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore is the local boy who made it big as a lawyer and former state attorney general. In the symbolic start to the fall campaign, all three men planned to attend parades Monday in Buena Vista and Covington. Winning votes here isn't as simple as just showing up at a rally for sportsmen or hiring a country music band, though, say party activists and elected officials in a region once ignored by statewide politicians. "The main thing is to focus on the issues that people care about here and leading the list -- and this is priority No. 1 -- is economic growth and creating new jobs," said U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat who represents parts of southwest Virginia. Priority No. 2 is health care and providing low-cost insurance for children of the working poor, an initiative Warner has pushed hard during his term. Cultural compatibility is also important, particularly when it comes to issues such as gun control. That's an area where Kaine could be vulnerable and Kilgore may have an edge. Opponents cite Kaine's support as Richmond's mayor for using city money to charter eight buses to carry participants to the antigun Million Mom March in Washington. "The voters of southwest Virginia, when they compare the records of both, will see that he (Kilgore) is not only from southwest Virginia but also is more philosophically aligned with them," said Kilgore campaign manager Ken Hutcheson. Campaigning Sunday, Kaine stuck to what polling shows to be his strength: Warner's popularity and the perception that Kaine was his partner in accomplishments that ranged from providing more money to public schools to closing a $6 billion budget shortfall and getting Virginia Tech's sports teams into the prestigious Atlantic Coast Conference. "With you fighting with us, and even with Republicans fighting with us, we've turned this state around," Kaine said. Warner could benefit from the exposure as well. The telecommunications tycoon hasn't ruled out running for governor again in four years and has been mentioned as a possible Democratic contender for president in 2008
Mr. Wilder's Bravura Washington Post
Va. candidates kick off campaigns in Buena Vista Charlottesville Daily Progress
WVEC.com (subscription) - Richmond Times Dispatch - WAVY-TV - Southwest Virginia Enterprise - all 41 related »
Gov. Mark R. Warner was back on the campaign trail Sunday, this time supporting a fellow Democrat vying to replace him on a Labor Day weekend campaign swing through the backyard of his Republican foe. In conservative southwestern Virginia, Warner is Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine's most potent ally. The governor, prevented by the state constitution from serving consecutive terms, is extremely popular in the mountainous, largely low-income region where jobs are scarce and where Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore is the local boy who made it big as a lawyer and former state attorney general. In the symbolic start to the fall campaign, all three men planned to attend parades Monday in Buena Vista and Covington. Winning votes here isn't as simple as just showing up at a rally for sportsmen or hiring a country music band, though, say party activists and elected officials in a region once ignored by statewide politicians. "The main thing is to focus on the issues that people care about here and leading the list -- and this is priority No. 1 -- is economic growth and creating new jobs," said U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat who represents parts of southwest Virginia. Priority No. 2 is health care and providing low-cost insurance for children of the working poor, an initiative Warner has pushed hard during his term. Cultural compatibility is also important, particularly when it comes to issues such as gun control. That's an area where Kaine could be vulnerable and Kilgore may have an edge. Opponents cite Kaine's support as Richmond's mayor for using city money to charter eight buses to carry participants to the antigun Million Mom March in Washington. "The voters of southwest Virginia, when they compare the records of both, will see that he (Kilgore) is not only from southwest Virginia but also is more philosophically aligned with them," said Kilgore campaign manager Ken Hutcheson. Campaigning Sunday, Kaine stuck to what polling shows to be his strength: Warner's popularity and the perception that Kaine was his partner in accomplishments that ranged from providing more money to public schools to closing a $6 billion budget shortfall and getting Virginia Tech's sports teams into the prestigious Atlantic Coast Conference. "With you fighting with us, and even with Republicans fighting with us, we've turned this state around," Kaine said. Warner could benefit from the exposure as well. The telecommunications tycoon hasn't ruled out running for governor again in four years and has been mentioned as a possible Democratic contender for president in 2008
Mr. Wilder's Bravura Washington Post
Va. candidates kick off campaigns in Buena Vista Charlottesville Daily Progress
WVEC.com (subscription) - Richmond Times Dispatch - WAVY-TV - Southwest Virginia Enterprise - all 41 related »
Behind the story Chicago Tribune
A Tribune Special Report in 2 parts: On the eve of Chai Vang's trial, the question isn't whether the Hmong immigrant killed 6 hunters on a crisp Wisconsin day, but why?
Jury selection begins in hunters' slayings Seattle Times
Jury Selection to Begin in Wis. Shootings Washington Post
Los Angeles Times - Guardian Unlimited - Cleveland Plain Dealer - Pioneer Press - all 133 related »
A Tribune Special Report in 2 parts: On the eve of Chai Vang's trial, the question isn't whether the Hmong immigrant killed 6 hunters on a crisp Wisconsin day, but why?
Jury selection begins in hunters' slayings Seattle Times
Jury Selection to Begin in Wis. Shootings Washington Post
Los Angeles Times - Guardian Unlimited - Cleveland Plain Dealer - Pioneer Press - all 133 related »
Officials spent at least $900K on schmoozing Modesto Bee
When Larry Salinas took a job 4½ years ago as governmental relations director for the University of California at Merced, his Honda Accord had less than 4,000 miles.
University of California opens new campus in Merced San Diego Union Tribune
UC Merced Opens for Its Freshman Year Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Chronicle - San Jose Mercury News - Daily Californian - Fresno Bee (subscription) - all 33 related »
When Larry Salinas took a job 4½ years ago as governmental relations director for the University of California at Merced, his Honda Accord had less than 4,000 miles.
University of California opens new campus in Merced San Diego Union Tribune
UC Merced Opens for Its Freshman Year Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Chronicle - San Jose Mercury News - Daily Californian - Fresno Bee (subscription) - all 33 related »
FTCR: Internal Memos Show Oil Companies Intentionally Limited Refining Capacity to Drive Up Gasoline Prices
9/7/2005 9:00:00 AM
To: National Desk
Contact: Jamie Court, 310-392-0522 ext 327; Tim Hamilton, 360- 495-4941, both of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights; Web: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) today exposed internal oil company memos that show how the industry intentionally reduced domestic refining capacity to drive up profits. The exposure comes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as the oil industry blames environmental regulation for limiting number of U.S. refineries.
The three internal memos from Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco (available at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/ show different ways the oil giants closed down refining capacity and drove independent refiners out of business. The confidential memos demonstrate a nationwide effort by American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying and research arm of the oil industry, to encourage the major refiners to close their refineries in the mid-1990s in order to raise the price at the pump.
"Large oil companies have for a decade artificially shorted the gasoline market to drive up prices," said FTCR president Jamie Court, who successfully fought to keep Shell Oil from needlessly closing its Bakersfield, California refinery this year. "Oil companies know they can make more money by making less gasoline. Katrina should be a wakeup call to America that the refiners profit widely when they keep the system running on empty."
"It's now obvious to most Americans that we have a refinery shortage," said petroleum consultant Tim Hamilton, who authored a recent report about oil company price gouging for FTCR. (Read the report at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/rp/ ) "To point to the environmental laws as the cause simply misses the fact that it was the major oil companies, not the environmental groups, that used the regulatory process to create artificial shortages and limit competition."
The memos from Mobil, Chevron and Texaco show the following.
-- An internal 1996 memorandum from Mobil demonstrates the oil company's successful strategies to keep smaller refiner Powerine from reopening its California refinery. The document makes it clear that much of the hardships created by California's regulations governing refineries came at the urging of the major oil companies and not the environmental organizations blamed by the industry. The other alternative plan discussed in the event Powerine did open the refinery was "....buying all their avails and marketing it ourselves" to insure the lower price fuel didn't get into the market. Read the Mobil memo at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/5105.pdf
-- An internal Chevron memo states; "A senior energy analyst at the recent API convention warned that if the US petroleum industry doesn't reduce its refining capacity it will never see any substantial increase in refinery margins." It then discussed how major refiners were closing down their refineries. Read the Chevron memo at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/5103.pdf
-- The Texaco memo disclosed how the industry believed in the mid-1990s that "the most critical factor facing the refining industry on the West Coast is the surplus of refining capacity, and the surplus gasoline production capacity. (The same situation exists for the entire U.S. refining industry.) Supply significantly exceeds demand year-round. This results in very poor refinery margins and very poor refinery financial results. Significant events need to occur to assist in reducing supplies and/or increasing the demand for gasoline. One example of a significant event would be the elimination of mandates for oxygenate addition to gasoline. Given a choice, oxygenate usage would go down, and gasoline supplies would go down accordingly. (Much effort is being exerted to see this happen in the Pacific Northwest.)" As a result of such pressure, Washington State eliminated the ethanol mandate - requiring greater quantities of refined supply to fill the gasoline volume occupied by ethanol. Read the Texaco memo at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/5104.pdf
FTCR is nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer group. For more information visit, http://www.consumerwatchdog.org .
http://www.usnewswire.com/
9/7/2005 9:00:00 AM
To: National Desk
Contact: Jamie Court, 310-392-0522 ext 327; Tim Hamilton, 360- 495-4941, both of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights; Web: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) today exposed internal oil company memos that show how the industry intentionally reduced domestic refining capacity to drive up profits. The exposure comes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as the oil industry blames environmental regulation for limiting number of U.S. refineries.
The three internal memos from Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco (available at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/ show different ways the oil giants closed down refining capacity and drove independent refiners out of business. The confidential memos demonstrate a nationwide effort by American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying and research arm of the oil industry, to encourage the major refiners to close their refineries in the mid-1990s in order to raise the price at the pump.
"Large oil companies have for a decade artificially shorted the gasoline market to drive up prices," said FTCR president Jamie Court, who successfully fought to keep Shell Oil from needlessly closing its Bakersfield, California refinery this year. "Oil companies know they can make more money by making less gasoline. Katrina should be a wakeup call to America that the refiners profit widely when they keep the system running on empty."
"It's now obvious to most Americans that we have a refinery shortage," said petroleum consultant Tim Hamilton, who authored a recent report about oil company price gouging for FTCR. (Read the report at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/rp/ ) "To point to the environmental laws as the cause simply misses the fact that it was the major oil companies, not the environmental groups, that used the regulatory process to create artificial shortages and limit competition."
The memos from Mobil, Chevron and Texaco show the following.
-- An internal 1996 memorandum from Mobil demonstrates the oil company's successful strategies to keep smaller refiner Powerine from reopening its California refinery. The document makes it clear that much of the hardships created by California's regulations governing refineries came at the urging of the major oil companies and not the environmental organizations blamed by the industry. The other alternative plan discussed in the event Powerine did open the refinery was "....buying all their avails and marketing it ourselves" to insure the lower price fuel didn't get into the market. Read the Mobil memo at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/5105.pdf
-- An internal Chevron memo states; "A senior energy analyst at the recent API convention warned that if the US petroleum industry doesn't reduce its refining capacity it will never see any substantial increase in refinery margins." It then discussed how major refiners were closing down their refineries. Read the Chevron memo at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/5103.pdf
-- The Texaco memo disclosed how the industry believed in the mid-1990s that "the most critical factor facing the refining industry on the West Coast is the surplus of refining capacity, and the surplus gasoline production capacity. (The same situation exists for the entire U.S. refining industry.) Supply significantly exceeds demand year-round. This results in very poor refinery margins and very poor refinery financial results. Significant events need to occur to assist in reducing supplies and/or increasing the demand for gasoline. One example of a significant event would be the elimination of mandates for oxygenate addition to gasoline. Given a choice, oxygenate usage would go down, and gasoline supplies would go down accordingly. (Much effort is being exerted to see this happen in the Pacific Northwest.)" As a result of such pressure, Washington State eliminated the ethanol mandate - requiring greater quantities of refined supply to fill the gasoline volume occupied by ethanol. Read the Texaco memo at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/5104.pdf
FTCR is nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer group. For more information visit, http://www.consumerwatchdog.org .
http://www.usnewswire.com/
5 children killed in Carson condo fire Daily Breeze
One girl died en route to the hospital. Firefighters found the other four victims dead in bedrooms. By Deepa Bharath. Five sleeping children died Sunday morning after a fire ripped through their bedrooms scorching the second story of their Carson condominium, Los Angeles County fire officials said. Officials did not release the names of the children Sunday.
Firefighters Contain Blaze at 2,500 Acres Los Angeles Times
Five Children Die in Calif. Apartment Fire Guardian Unlimited
Detroit Free Press - KESQ - Long Beach Press-Telegram - Los Angeles Daily News - all 164 related »
One girl died en route to the hospital. Firefighters found the other four victims dead in bedrooms. By Deepa Bharath. Five sleeping children died Sunday morning after a fire ripped through their bedrooms scorching the second story of their Carson condominium, Los Angeles County fire officials said. Officials did not release the names of the children Sunday.
Firefighters Contain Blaze at 2,500 Acres Los Angeles Times
Five Children Die in Calif. Apartment Fire Guardian Unlimited
Detroit Free Press - KESQ - Long Beach Press-Telegram - Los Angeles Daily News - all 164 related »
Dems Assail White House on Katrina Effort San Francisco Chronicle
Congress' top two Democrats furiously criticized the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday, with Sen. Harry Reid demanding to know whether President Bush's Texas vacation impeded relief efforts and Rep. Nancy Pelosi assailing the chief executive as "oblivious, in denial" about the difficulties. With much of New Orleans still under water, Bush readied a request for about $52 billion for relief and recovery along the Gulf Coast, and the White House indicated millions more would be needed later. Congressional officials said they expected to approve the next installment as early as Thursday, to keep the money flowing without interruption. There was no formal announcement of the details in the request, although the Associated Press learned that the government planned to distribute debit cards worth $2,000 to victims of the hurricane. "They are going to start issuing debit cards, $2,000 per adult, today at the Astrodome," said Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The cards could be used to buy food, transportation, gas and other essentials that displaced people need, according to a state official who was on the call and requested anonymity because the program had not been publicly announced. GOP congressional leaders met privately to plan their next step, possibly including an unusual joint House-Senate committee to investigate what went wrong in the government's response and what can be fixed. Establishment of a joint panel would presumably eliminate overlapping investigations that might otherwise spring up as individual committees looked into the natural disaster and its aftermath. In a letter to the Senate's Homeland Security Committee chairwoman, Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, pressed for a wide-ranging investigation and answers to several questions, including: "How much time did the president spend dealing with this emerging crisis while he was on vacation? Did the fact that he was outside of Washington, D.C., have any effect on the federal government's response?" At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials." She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown. "He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said. "'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'" "Oblivious, in denial, dangerous," she added. In the first government estimate of Katrina's economic impact, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office said the damage seemed likely to reduce employment by 400,000 in coming months and to trim economic growth by as much as a full percentage point in the second half of the year. The impact should be temporary, with gasoline prices declining and consumer spending rebounding, said the assessment obtained by The Associated Press. At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration was acting quickly on an emergency supplemental measure for Katrina efforts because a $10.5 billion down payment approved last week "is being spent more quickly than we even anticipated." Bush is expected to return to the region, but the White House would not say when. Separately, first lady Laura Bush planned to travel to Mississippi on Thursday, the same day Vice President Dick Cheney heads to the Gulf states. Buffeted by criticism of the Republican administration, GOP Senate chairmen stood in unison and announced that Congress first would open hearings on how to help the Gulf Coast recover from the disaster, and then later examine the response. "Our role in the United States Senate will be, yes, to investigate and provide appropriate oversight, but also to lower barriers for the recovery and the rebuilding and the economic growth of the Gulf states," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Susan Collins, the senator whom Reid's letter was addressed to, said her panel would open hearings on "what should we be doing right now." Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said that as chairman of the energy and water subcommittee, he could convene a panel this week to provide the Army Corps of Engineers with the money it needs to help the region recover. The House on Wednesday was expected to pass two Katrina-related bills: One would allow the secretary of education to waive the current rule that recipients of Pell Grants for low-income students must repay those grants when they are forced to withdraw from classes due to natural disasters. The other would allow circuit, district and bankruptcy courts to conduct special sessions outside their geographic boundaries when they are unable to meet because of emergency conditions. Even as they called for investigations of the government's response, several Democratic senators said it was already clear that Brown, the FEMA director, should go. Hillary Rodham Clinton bristled when asked about Republican accusations that she was trying to capitalize on a natural disaster to help her political career. She said on NBC's "Today,""Every time anyone raises any kind of legitimate criticism and asks questions, they're attacked." Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D, said in a telephone call with reporters Wednesday that he and other members of the Senate may try to push legislation that would separate FEMA from the Homeland Security Department. He said they may try to add the language to a spending bill that would fund the Commerce and Justice Departments. Reid said in his letter that Collins' panel should pursue answers to several questions. Among them, why Bush and administration officials said no one anticipated the breach of the levees despite public studies and warnings, whether budget cuts thwarted the Army Corps of Engineers and whether enough troops were dispatched promptly.
Associated Press Writers Laurie Kellman, Mary Clare Jalonick and Jim Abrams contributed to this report.
Bush to request $51.8 billion for Katrina relief Reuters
Bush asks Congress for recovery aid Scotsman
CNN - Los Angeles Times - News24 - Houston Chronicle - all 715 related »
Congress' top two Democrats furiously criticized the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday, with Sen. Harry Reid demanding to know whether President Bush's Texas vacation impeded relief efforts and Rep. Nancy Pelosi assailing the chief executive as "oblivious, in denial" about the difficulties. With much of New Orleans still under water, Bush readied a request for about $52 billion for relief and recovery along the Gulf Coast, and the White House indicated millions more would be needed later. Congressional officials said they expected to approve the next installment as early as Thursday, to keep the money flowing without interruption. There was no formal announcement of the details in the request, although the Associated Press learned that the government planned to distribute debit cards worth $2,000 to victims of the hurricane. "They are going to start issuing debit cards, $2,000 per adult, today at the Astrodome," said Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The cards could be used to buy food, transportation, gas and other essentials that displaced people need, according to a state official who was on the call and requested anonymity because the program had not been publicly announced. GOP congressional leaders met privately to plan their next step, possibly including an unusual joint House-Senate committee to investigate what went wrong in the government's response and what can be fixed. Establishment of a joint panel would presumably eliminate overlapping investigations that might otherwise spring up as individual committees looked into the natural disaster and its aftermath. In a letter to the Senate's Homeland Security Committee chairwoman, Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, pressed for a wide-ranging investigation and answers to several questions, including: "How much time did the president spend dealing with this emerging crisis while he was on vacation? Did the fact that he was outside of Washington, D.C., have any effect on the federal government's response?" At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials." She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown. "He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said. "'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'" "Oblivious, in denial, dangerous," she added. In the first government estimate of Katrina's economic impact, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office said the damage seemed likely to reduce employment by 400,000 in coming months and to trim economic growth by as much as a full percentage point in the second half of the year. The impact should be temporary, with gasoline prices declining and consumer spending rebounding, said the assessment obtained by The Associated Press. At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration was acting quickly on an emergency supplemental measure for Katrina efforts because a $10.5 billion down payment approved last week "is being spent more quickly than we even anticipated." Bush is expected to return to the region, but the White House would not say when. Separately, first lady Laura Bush planned to travel to Mississippi on Thursday, the same day Vice President Dick Cheney heads to the Gulf states. Buffeted by criticism of the Republican administration, GOP Senate chairmen stood in unison and announced that Congress first would open hearings on how to help the Gulf Coast recover from the disaster, and then later examine the response. "Our role in the United States Senate will be, yes, to investigate and provide appropriate oversight, but also to lower barriers for the recovery and the rebuilding and the economic growth of the Gulf states," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Susan Collins, the senator whom Reid's letter was addressed to, said her panel would open hearings on "what should we be doing right now." Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said that as chairman of the energy and water subcommittee, he could convene a panel this week to provide the Army Corps of Engineers with the money it needs to help the region recover. The House on Wednesday was expected to pass two Katrina-related bills: One would allow the secretary of education to waive the current rule that recipients of Pell Grants for low-income students must repay those grants when they are forced to withdraw from classes due to natural disasters. The other would allow circuit, district and bankruptcy courts to conduct special sessions outside their geographic boundaries when they are unable to meet because of emergency conditions. Even as they called for investigations of the government's response, several Democratic senators said it was already clear that Brown, the FEMA director, should go. Hillary Rodham Clinton bristled when asked about Republican accusations that she was trying to capitalize on a natural disaster to help her political career. She said on NBC's "Today,""Every time anyone raises any kind of legitimate criticism and asks questions, they're attacked." Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D, said in a telephone call with reporters Wednesday that he and other members of the Senate may try to push legislation that would separate FEMA from the Homeland Security Department. He said they may try to add the language to a spending bill that would fund the Commerce and Justice Departments. Reid said in his letter that Collins' panel should pursue answers to several questions. Among them, why Bush and administration officials said no one anticipated the breach of the levees despite public studies and warnings, whether budget cuts thwarted the Army Corps of Engineers and whether enough troops were dispatched promptly.
Associated Press Writers Laurie Kellman, Mary Clare Jalonick and Jim Abrams contributed to this report.
Bush to request $51.8 billion for Katrina relief Reuters
Bush asks Congress for recovery aid Scotsman
CNN - Los Angeles Times - News24 - Houston Chronicle - all 715 related »
States sue US over energy efficiency of appliances Reuters AlertNet
A coalition of 15 states led by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued the US Energy Department on Wednesday, accusing the agency of failing to set efficiency standards for household appliances that would save enormous amounts of energy. The states and the city of New York said the DOE violated Congressional mandates to adopt stronger energy-saving standards within deadlines stated by law for 22 appliances. The suit was filed in Manhattan Federal Court after the DOE declined to respond to a July 1 notice letter asking it to take action, Spitzer said at a press conference. "As oil and gas prices hit record levels and the impacts of global warming become more apparent, it is profoundly disappointing that the federal government has failed to adopt these crucial energy saving standards," Spitzer said. DOE spokeswoman Christina Kielich declined immediate comment. Spitzer and Peter Lehner, head of the attorney general's environmental bureau, said that updating efficiency standards for appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners and ovens could reduce U.S. electricity use by the equivalent of 3 percent to 12 percent over 25 years, based on 2002 usage, and the equivalent of the power generated by 13 to 42 power plants. Eighteen years ago, Congress passed laws requiring higher efficiency for household appliances and charged the DOE with setting standards and, over time, raising them. The states argued that the DOE has not complied with that mandate and is from six to 13 years behind schedule, depending upon the type of appliance. In July, the coalition told U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman in a letter that DOE must agree to meet a timetable for setting efficiency standards, and warned that it would sue the agency if it refused to make such a commitment. Spitzer said the suit was filed on Wednesday after giving DOE 60 days to respond. The suit seeks an injunction that would force the agency to enact these standards, he said. California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the City of New York joined the suit.
States sue US Energy Department over conservation standards Newsday
NYC, 15 states sue feds over energy standards Crain's New York Business
KESQ - WOI - WSTM-TV - WMUR Channel.com - all 122 related »
A coalition of 15 states led by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued the US Energy Department on Wednesday, accusing the agency of failing to set efficiency standards for household appliances that would save enormous amounts of energy. The states and the city of New York said the DOE violated Congressional mandates to adopt stronger energy-saving standards within deadlines stated by law for 22 appliances. The suit was filed in Manhattan Federal Court after the DOE declined to respond to a July 1 notice letter asking it to take action, Spitzer said at a press conference. "As oil and gas prices hit record levels and the impacts of global warming become more apparent, it is profoundly disappointing that the federal government has failed to adopt these crucial energy saving standards," Spitzer said. DOE spokeswoman Christina Kielich declined immediate comment. Spitzer and Peter Lehner, head of the attorney general's environmental bureau, said that updating efficiency standards for appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners and ovens could reduce U.S. electricity use by the equivalent of 3 percent to 12 percent over 25 years, based on 2002 usage, and the equivalent of the power generated by 13 to 42 power plants. Eighteen years ago, Congress passed laws requiring higher efficiency for household appliances and charged the DOE with setting standards and, over time, raising them. The states argued that the DOE has not complied with that mandate and is from six to 13 years behind schedule, depending upon the type of appliance. In July, the coalition told U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman in a letter that DOE must agree to meet a timetable for setting efficiency standards, and warned that it would sue the agency if it refused to make such a commitment. Spitzer said the suit was filed on Wednesday after giving DOE 60 days to respond. The suit seeks an injunction that would force the agency to enact these standards, he said. California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the City of New York joined the suit.
States sue US Energy Department over conservation standards Newsday
NYC, 15 states sue feds over energy standards Crain's New York Business
KESQ - WOI - WSTM-TV - WMUR Channel.com - all 122 related »
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2005, Issue No. 85
September 7, 2005
** DEMONSTRATED DESTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS (1967)
** SECRECY REPORT CARD
** A RAFT OF CRS REPORTS
DEMONSTRATED DESTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS (1967)
Once upon a time, the government of the United States sought ways
and means to achieve negotiated reductions in stockpiles of
nuclear weapons through the verified destruction of such weapons.
In 1965, US Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur J. Goldberg
presented what was known as the "Transfer" proposal, under which
the U.S. would transfer 60,000 kilograms of weapons grade uranium
to nonweapons uses if the Soviet Union would transfer 40,000
kilograms. Each country would destroy existing nuclear weapons to
make these materials available.
In order to assess whether nuclear weapons could be verifiably
destroyed for this purpose without disclosing sensitive design
information, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the
Defense Department conducted a field test of the process in summer
1967.
The field test was part of a program known as "Cloud Gap," a
remarkable government initiative established in 1963 "to test the
feasibility of hypothetical arms control and disarmament
measures."
The 1967 Cloud Gap Field Test-34 was "an investigation of the
demonstration of the destruction of nuclear weapons by visual
observation, use of radiation detection equipment, inspection of
X-ray plates of weapons, and laboratory analyses of the resulting
fissionable material."
The field test, which was documented in more than a thousand
pages, did in fact identify weaknesses in the protection of
classified information and in the ability of inspectors to
distinguish real weapons from decoys. The final report on the
test, however, also noted ways in which these weaknesses could be
mitigated.
Today, Cloud Gap Field Test-34 is scarcely a footnote in the
history of nuclear weapons and national security, a road not taken.
Yet in its unusual dedication to the empirical testing of policy
options, Cloud Gap may still have something to teach.
An assortment of Cloud Gap documents obtained by the Federation of
American Scientists, including the Final Report on Field Test-34,
may be found here:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/cloudgap/index.html
SECRECY REPORT CARD
Many Americans have sensed a qualitative reduction in their access
to government information, particularly when it concerns matters
of security policy.
Now a new publication from the coalition OpenTheGovernment.org
provides some quantitative benchmarks that confirm and document
the rise in official secrecy.
Metrics cited in the report range from formal classification --
which is at a record high -- to the fraction of federal advisory
committee meetings closed to the public -- nearly two-thirds.
See the Secrecy Report Card 2005 by Rick Blum,
OpenTheGovernment.org, September 2005:
http://www.openthegovernment.org/otg/SRC2005.pdf
A RAFT OF CRS REPORTS
Some recent reports of the Congressional Research Service obtained
by Secrecy News include the following:
"Oil and Gas: Supply Issues After Katrina," August 31, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22233.pdf
"Tactical Aircraft Modernization: Issues for Congress," updated
August 30, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/IB92115.pdf
"Strategic Petroleum Reserve," updated August 29, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IB87050.pdf
"Federal Disaster Recovery Programs: Brief Summaries," updated
August 29, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL31734.pdf
"Federal Stafford Act Disaster Assistance: Presidential
Declarations, Eligible Activities, and Funding," August 29, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33053.pdf
"Risk-Based Funding in Homeland Security Grant Legislation:
Analysis of Issues for the 109th Congress," August 29, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33050.pdf
"Sudan: Humanitarian Crisis, Peace Talks, Terrorism, and U.S.
Policy," updated August 26, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IB98043.pdf
"Department of Homeland Security Reorganization: The 2SR
Initiative," August 19, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33042.pdf
"Al Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment," August 17, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33038.pdf
"Legislative Approaches to Chemical Facility Security," August 16,
2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33043.pdf
"Loss-of-Use Damages From U.S. Nuclear Testing in the Marshall
Islands: Technical Analysis of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal's
Methodology and Alternative Estimates," August 12, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL33029.pdf
"Tsunamis and Earthquakes: Is Federal Disaster Insurance in our
Future?," April 6, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32847.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2005, Issue No. 85
September 7, 2005
** DEMONSTRATED DESTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS (1967)
** SECRECY REPORT CARD
** A RAFT OF CRS REPORTS
DEMONSTRATED DESTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS (1967)
Once upon a time, the government of the United States sought ways
and means to achieve negotiated reductions in stockpiles of
nuclear weapons through the verified destruction of such weapons.
In 1965, US Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur J. Goldberg
presented what was known as the "Transfer" proposal, under which
the U.S. would transfer 60,000 kilograms of weapons grade uranium
to nonweapons uses if the Soviet Union would transfer 40,000
kilograms. Each country would destroy existing nuclear weapons to
make these materials available.
In order to assess whether nuclear weapons could be verifiably
destroyed for this purpose without disclosing sensitive design
information, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the
Defense Department conducted a field test of the process in summer
1967.
The field test was part of a program known as "Cloud Gap," a
remarkable government initiative established in 1963 "to test the
feasibility of hypothetical arms control and disarmament
measures."
The 1967 Cloud Gap Field Test-34 was "an investigation of the
demonstration of the destruction of nuclear weapons by visual
observation, use of radiation detection equipment, inspection of
X-ray plates of weapons, and laboratory analyses of the resulting
fissionable material."
The field test, which was documented in more than a thousand
pages, did in fact identify weaknesses in the protection of
classified information and in the ability of inspectors to
distinguish real weapons from decoys. The final report on the
test, however, also noted ways in which these weaknesses could be
mitigated.
Today, Cloud Gap Field Test-34 is scarcely a footnote in the
history of nuclear weapons and national security, a road not taken.
Yet in its unusual dedication to the empirical testing of policy
options, Cloud Gap may still have something to teach.
An assortment of Cloud Gap documents obtained by the Federation of
American Scientists, including the Final Report on Field Test-34,
may be found here:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/cloudgap/index.html
SECRECY REPORT CARD
Many Americans have sensed a qualitative reduction in their access
to government information, particularly when it concerns matters
of security policy.
Now a new publication from the coalition OpenTheGovernment.org
provides some quantitative benchmarks that confirm and document
the rise in official secrecy.
Metrics cited in the report range from formal classification --
which is at a record high -- to the fraction of federal advisory
committee meetings closed to the public -- nearly two-thirds.
See the Secrecy Report Card 2005 by Rick Blum,
OpenTheGovernment.org, September 2005:
http://www.openthegovernment.org/otg/SRC2005.pdf
A RAFT OF CRS REPORTS
Some recent reports of the Congressional Research Service obtained
by Secrecy News include the following:
"Oil and Gas: Supply Issues After Katrina," August 31, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22233.pdf
"Tactical Aircraft Modernization: Issues for Congress," updated
August 30, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/IB92115.pdf
"Strategic Petroleum Reserve," updated August 29, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IB87050.pdf
"Federal Disaster Recovery Programs: Brief Summaries," updated
August 29, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL31734.pdf
"Federal Stafford Act Disaster Assistance: Presidential
Declarations, Eligible Activities, and Funding," August 29, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33053.pdf
"Risk-Based Funding in Homeland Security Grant Legislation:
Analysis of Issues for the 109th Congress," August 29, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33050.pdf
"Sudan: Humanitarian Crisis, Peace Talks, Terrorism, and U.S.
Policy," updated August 26, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IB98043.pdf
"Department of Homeland Security Reorganization: The 2SR
Initiative," August 19, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33042.pdf
"Al Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment," August 17, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33038.pdf
"Legislative Approaches to Chemical Facility Security," August 16,
2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33043.pdf
"Loss-of-Use Damages From U.S. Nuclear Testing in the Marshall
Islands: Technical Analysis of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal's
Methodology and Alternative Estimates," August 12, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL33029.pdf
"Tsunamis and Earthquakes: Is Federal Disaster Insurance in our
Future?," April 6, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32847.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
New Orleans' toxic tide
Chemicals leaking from cars and factories will cause one of costliest
environmental cleanups ever. By Brad Knickerbocker and Patrik Jonsson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p01s01-usgn.html?s=hns
Chemicals leaking from cars and factories will cause one of costliest
environmental cleanups ever. By Brad Knickerbocker and Patrik Jonsson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p01s01-usgn.html?s=hns
Sorting out Katrina: the lessons so far
The president and Congress have promised inquiries into what went
wrong. By Peter Grier and Adam Karlin
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p01s02-uspo.html?s=hns
The president and Congress have promised inquiries into what went
wrong. By Peter Grier and Adam Karlin
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p01s02-uspo.html?s=hns
In Biloxi, helping hands are private groups
A hard-hit city in Mississippi finds that - even 10 days after Katrina
- public agencies are not providing much relief. By Sara B. Miller and
Amanda Paulson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p02s01-ussc.html?s=hns
A hard-hit city in Mississippi finds that - even 10 days after Katrina
- public agencies are not providing much relief. By Sara B. Miller and
Amanda Paulson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p02s01-ussc.html?s=hns
How comets may have 'seeded' life on Earth
A new look at a comet's core could reveal its role in our planet's
early history. By Peter N. Spotts
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p04s01-stss.html?s=hns
A new look at a comet's core could reveal its role in our planet's
early history. By Peter N. Spotts
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p04s01-stss.html?s=hns
Fighting limits to heartfelt giving
At both the UN and in Katrina aid, trust must be restored in official
bodies to help assure US generosity. The Monitor's View
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p08s03-comv.html?s=hns
At both the UN and in Katrina aid, trust must be restored in official
bodies to help assure US generosity. The Monitor's View
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p08s03-comv.html?s=hns
In Katrina's wake, Love's flood tides
A message from The Christian Science Board of Directors.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p08s01-coop.html?s=hns
A message from The Christian Science Board of Directors.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p08s01-coop.html?s=hns
To Katrina's windbags: It's too soon for finger-pointing
For now, focus on the tasks at hand - saving the living, burying the
dead, restoring the rule of law. By Max Boot
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p09s01-coop.html?s=hns
For now, focus on the tasks at hand - saving the living, burying the
dead, restoring the rule of law. By Max Boot
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p09s01-coop.html?s=hns
The Bolton backfire: Weaken UN, imperil Americans
The World Summit next week is a crucial moment for US foreign
relations. By Helena Cobban
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p09s02-coop.html?s=hns
The World Summit next week is a crucial moment for US foreign
relations. By Helena Cobban
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p09s02-coop.html?s=hns
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