CODEL to New Orleans

Katy Reckdahl, Times-Picayune - August 12, 2007

What exactly can the federal government do to help New Orleans? Boost the Road Home program's coffers, said people walking on French Quarter sidewalks Sunday.

One pedestrian's response was typical. "Send us our money," he said, backed by a chorus of approval from family members and friends.

A 14-member Democratic delegation that included House Majority Whip James Clyburn and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi arrived in New Orleans Sunday to gather intelligence from local residents. The group will spend today and Tuesday touring New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, gauging the pace of recovery since Hurricane Katrina, assessing unmet needs and building relationships with local officials.

"We want to form a partnership and move in a new direction here in Louisiana," Clyburn said as the delegation arrived at its base of operations, the Hotel Monteleone.

Visitors back bid to reform insurance

Ana Radelat, Clarion-Ledger - August 12, 2007

Rep. Gene Taylor's efforts to reform disaster insurance will get a boost from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders at a Bay St. Louis town-hall meeting Monday.

But even with his party's blessing, Taylor's effort to add wind coverage to federal flood insurance - and other attempts to make insurance available and affordable to Gulf Coast residents - face tough obstacles in the Senate as well as opposition from the White House.

The nation's big insurance companies also are lobbying against reform.

"We continue to believe that adding wind coverage to the (National Flood Insurance Program) is not the right solution," said Marc Racicot, president of the American Insurance Association.

Racicot's concerns led him to commission a report saying that if the federal government displaces the private market by providing wind coverage, taxpayers might have to bail out the plan at a cost of $100 billion to $200 billion.

But Taylor, a Democrat, said the plan would remain solvent.

Monday's town-hall meeting is part of a congressional tour of Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish and of the Gulf Coast organized by Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the House whip. Republicans were asked to join the tour, but none accepted.

More to come, in the meanwhile visit out Katrina archive.