June 18, 2008: Off-shore drilling, McCain said today, is "safe enough these days that not even hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston," referring to the devastating Category 5 storms of 2005.
Sept. 19, 2005: More than 500 specialists are working to clean up 44 oil spills ranging from several hundred gallons to nearly 4 million gallons, the U.S. Coast Guard said in an assessment that goes far beyond initial reports of just two significant spills.
The report comes nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, and reflects the fact that the Coast Guard and other agencies are able to only now tackle environmental problems since the search and rescue effort is winding down.
The Coast Guard estimates more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled from industrial plants, storage depots and other facilities around southeast Louisiana.
That is about two-thirds as much oil as spilled from the Exxon Valdez tanker in 1989.
Showing posts with label The Katrina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Katrina. Show all posts
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
next on k-mad's fun summer reading list after the book on genocide
Clarke minces no words in his examination of the breadth and depth of the mediocrity, entropy, and collapse endemic in America's national security programs. In order for the United States to stop its string of strategic mistakes, we first need to understand why they happen. Drawing on his thirty years in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and intelligence community, Clarke gives us a privileged, if horrifying, look into the debacle of government policies, discovering patterns in the failures and offering ways to stop the cycle once and for all.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
McBush's free ride (cont'd)
New Chapter - How the media has covered McCain since Free Ride went to press
Many may have forgotten by now that the Iowa contest was actually won by Mike Huckabee, but the media proclaimed McCain -- who came in fourth place, with 13 percent of the vote -- the actual winner. "A fantastic night for John McCain," said the Politico's Mike Allen. Tim Russert immediately booked McCain, and not Huckabee (or second-place finisher Mitt Romney, or third-place finisher Fred Thompson), to be the guest on that Sunday's Meet the Press. Matthews seemed to sum up the media's thoughts about the senator in a January 28 interview: "Senator McCain, you know you're in my heart."
"I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina [sic] came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing."
-- John Hagee, whose chickens never seem to come home to roost
Many may have forgotten by now that the Iowa contest was actually won by Mike Huckabee, but the media proclaimed McCain -- who came in fourth place, with 13 percent of the vote -- the actual winner. "A fantastic night for John McCain," said the Politico's Mike Allen. Tim Russert immediately booked McCain, and not Huckabee (or second-place finisher Mitt Romney, or third-place finisher Fred Thompson), to be the guest on that Sunday's Meet the Press. Matthews seemed to sum up the media's thoughts about the senator in a January 28 interview: "Senator McCain, you know you're in my heart."
"I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina [sic] came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing."
-- John Hagee, whose chickens never seem to come home to roost
Sunday, March 30, 2008
So how much are the bastards in the finance game going to have to pay back again?
How long does this kind of stuff go on before people fight the huge amounts of power giving to assholes who don't deserve to lick the slime off the streets?
Katrina Victims May Have to Repay Money
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 30, 2008
Filed at 3:10 a.m. ET
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Imagine that your home was reduced to mold and wood framing by Hurricane Katrina. Desperate for money to rebuild, you engage in a frustrating bureaucratic process, and after months of living in a government-provided trailer tainted with formaldehyde you finally win a federal grant.
Then a collector calls with the staggering news that you have to pay back thousands of dollars.
Thousands of Katrina victims may be in that situation.
A private contractor under investigation for the compensation it received to run the Road Home grant program for Katrina victims says that in the rush to deliver aid to homeowners in need some people got too much. Now it wants to hire a separate company to collect millions in grant overpayments.
The contractor, ICF International of Fairfax, Va., revealed the extent of the overpayments when it issued a March 11 request for bids from companies willing to handle ''approximately 1,000 to 5,000 cases that will necessitate collection effort.''
The bid invitation said: ''The average amount to be collected is estimated to be approximately $35,000, but in some cases may be as high as $100,000 to $150,000.''
The biggest grant amount allowed by the Road Home program is $150,000, so ICF believes it paid some recipients the maximum when they should not have received a penny. If ICF's highest estimate of 5,000 collection cases -- overpaid by an average of $35,000 -- proves to be true, that means applicants will have to pay back a total of $175 million.
One-third of qualified applicants for Road Home help had yet to receive any rebuilding check as of this past week. The program, which has come to symbolize the lurching Katrina recovery effort, is financed by $11 billion in federal funds.
ICF spokeswoman Gentry Brann said in an e-mail Friday that the overpayments are the inevitable result of the Road Home grant being recalculated to account for insurance money and government aid given to Katrina victims.
Brann said there was a sense of urgency in paying Road Home applicants, and ICF and the state knew applicants would have to return some money.
''The choice was either to process grants immediately or wait until the March 2008 deadline (for submitting Road Home applications) before disbursing any funds,'' Brann said in her e-mail.
Brann pointed out that 5,000 collections cases would represent a 4-percent error rate for the Road Home that is ''quite good for large federal programs.''
Frank Silvestri, co-chair of the Citizen's Road Home Action Team, a group that formed out of frustrations with ICF, sees it far differently.
''They want people to pay for their incompetence and their mistakes. What they need to be is aggressive about finding the underpayments,'' he said. ''People relied, to their detriment, on their (ICFs) expertise and rebuilt their houses and now they want to squeeze this money back out of them.''
The prospect of Road Home grant collections comes less than two weeks after the Louisiana inspector general and the legislative auditor said they were investigating why former Gov. Kathleen Blanco paid ICF an extra $156 million in her waning days in office to administer the program. With the increase, ICF stands to earn $912 million to run Road Home, a contract that also sweetened its initial public stock offering, and helped it buy out four other companies. It now reaches into government contracting sectors that include national defense and the environment.
Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state body that asked for the Blanco-ICF investigations, acknowledged the collections could be painful for applicants, many of whom have used up their nest eggs to rebuild.
''The state must walk a fine line of treating homeowners who have been overpaid with fairness and compassion and ensuring that all federal funds are used for their intended purpose,'' said Rainwater, an appointee of new Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Upon receiving money from Road Home, grantees sign a batch of forms, including one that says they must refund any overpayments.
Melanie Ehrlich, co-chair of Citizen's Road Home Action Team, which has documented Road Home cases that appear littered with mistakes, said she had no confidence that ICF had correctly calculated overpayments. She charged that the company was more likely using collections as retribution against people who had appealed their award amounts in effort to get the aid they deserved.
''I think they are looking for ways to decrease awards and that's part of dissuading people,'' she said.
Brann said applicants are told an appeal could boost or diminish their award. She called Ehrlich's charge ''a totally unfounded assertion.''
Katrina Victims May Have to Repay Money
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 30, 2008
Filed at 3:10 a.m. ET
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Imagine that your home was reduced to mold and wood framing by Hurricane Katrina. Desperate for money to rebuild, you engage in a frustrating bureaucratic process, and after months of living in a government-provided trailer tainted with formaldehyde you finally win a federal grant.
Then a collector calls with the staggering news that you have to pay back thousands of dollars.
Thousands of Katrina victims may be in that situation.
A private contractor under investigation for the compensation it received to run the Road Home grant program for Katrina victims says that in the rush to deliver aid to homeowners in need some people got too much. Now it wants to hire a separate company to collect millions in grant overpayments.
The contractor, ICF International of Fairfax, Va., revealed the extent of the overpayments when it issued a March 11 request for bids from companies willing to handle ''approximately 1,000 to 5,000 cases that will necessitate collection effort.''
The bid invitation said: ''The average amount to be collected is estimated to be approximately $35,000, but in some cases may be as high as $100,000 to $150,000.''
The biggest grant amount allowed by the Road Home program is $150,000, so ICF believes it paid some recipients the maximum when they should not have received a penny. If ICF's highest estimate of 5,000 collection cases -- overpaid by an average of $35,000 -- proves to be true, that means applicants will have to pay back a total of $175 million.
One-third of qualified applicants for Road Home help had yet to receive any rebuilding check as of this past week. The program, which has come to symbolize the lurching Katrina recovery effort, is financed by $11 billion in federal funds.
ICF spokeswoman Gentry Brann said in an e-mail Friday that the overpayments are the inevitable result of the Road Home grant being recalculated to account for insurance money and government aid given to Katrina victims.
Brann said there was a sense of urgency in paying Road Home applicants, and ICF and the state knew applicants would have to return some money.
''The choice was either to process grants immediately or wait until the March 2008 deadline (for submitting Road Home applications) before disbursing any funds,'' Brann said in her e-mail.
Brann pointed out that 5,000 collections cases would represent a 4-percent error rate for the Road Home that is ''quite good for large federal programs.''
Frank Silvestri, co-chair of the Citizen's Road Home Action Team, a group that formed out of frustrations with ICF, sees it far differently.
''They want people to pay for their incompetence and their mistakes. What they need to be is aggressive about finding the underpayments,'' he said. ''People relied, to their detriment, on their (ICFs) expertise and rebuilt their houses and now they want to squeeze this money back out of them.''
The prospect of Road Home grant collections comes less than two weeks after the Louisiana inspector general and the legislative auditor said they were investigating why former Gov. Kathleen Blanco paid ICF an extra $156 million in her waning days in office to administer the program. With the increase, ICF stands to earn $912 million to run Road Home, a contract that also sweetened its initial public stock offering, and helped it buy out four other companies. It now reaches into government contracting sectors that include national defense and the environment.
Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state body that asked for the Blanco-ICF investigations, acknowledged the collections could be painful for applicants, many of whom have used up their nest eggs to rebuild.
''The state must walk a fine line of treating homeowners who have been overpaid with fairness and compassion and ensuring that all federal funds are used for their intended purpose,'' said Rainwater, an appointee of new Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Upon receiving money from Road Home, grantees sign a batch of forms, including one that says they must refund any overpayments.
Melanie Ehrlich, co-chair of Citizen's Road Home Action Team, which has documented Road Home cases that appear littered with mistakes, said she had no confidence that ICF had correctly calculated overpayments. She charged that the company was more likely using collections as retribution against people who had appealed their award amounts in effort to get the aid they deserved.
''I think they are looking for ways to decrease awards and that's part of dissuading people,'' she said.
Brann said applicants are told an appeal could boost or diminish their award. She called Ehrlich's charge ''a totally unfounded assertion.''
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