Diaper Dave Vitter is blocking the FEMA nominee

[HopeOverFear]

WASHINGTON — A Louisiana senator is stalling Florida emergency management director Craig Fugate's nomination as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Fugate had sailed through his nomination hearing and Monday cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by a unanimous voice vote. Republican Sen. David Vitter said, however, that he'd blocked Fugate because of concerns he has with FEMA.

"I have a hold on the FEMA nomination because I sent a list of hurricane recovery questions and projects to FEMA, many of which have not been adequately addressed," Vitter said in a statement. "I'm eager to get full responses and meet with the nominee immediately."

The hold — which comes a month before the start of hurricane season — was reported in CQ Today, a Capitol Hill newspaper, which noted that Vitter's home state "bore the brunt of the botched agency response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005."

At that time, FEMA was led by Michael Brown, who had little emergency management experience. Fugate, however, garnered widespread praise for deft handling of back-to-back hurricanes in Florida and won bipartisan support at his confirmation hearing and was expected to be confirmed swiftly.

Vitter's fellow Louisiana senator, Democrat Mary Landrieu, backs Fugate. She said, however, that she understands Vitter's concerns, which apparently relate to FEMA's maps of controversial "high-velocity flood zones," a designation related to coastal areas that are at high risk in a hurricane or an area that faces significant risk in the event of a flood. Federal regulations currently prohibit FEMA from funding new construction in such zones, and Louisiana officials want more flexibility.

"When we all understand the problems with a particular nominee, we can all work to address those issues," Landrieu said in a statement.

She noted that she shared Vitter's concerns, and at Fugate's confirmation hearing, she questioned him about changing the federal rules that ban new construction.

"One of the things I want to be able to do is look at V-Zones and make sure we are pragmatic in our decision making," Fugate said at the time. "Obviously, when a community is at risk and we can move that community and minimize that risk to their lives and property in the future, we should achieve that.

"But there are times when moving a community is not practical and we should look at what are the potential options through engineering or other types of mitigation techniques," he said.

[niyad]

1. go back to what you do best, diaper dave--and it isn't being a senator.

[ncteechur]

2. Obviously his diaper is overdue for a change.

[Teaser]

3. mail that fuck some diapers

that's all he wants. and a bot bot.

[NV Whino]

4. Oh well, let's just get Brownie back

I bet Diaper Dave liked him.

[crimsonblue]

5. There's a reason new construction is banned in flood zones...

It's because they flood all of the time! The Government cannot afford to pay for new construction in these high risk areas every 5-10 years. People need to just move out of the areas and leave nature be.

[Igel]

8. I agree.

I'm usually outvoted, however.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/floodzone_work_wont_get_money.html lists projects in the NOLA area (and a bit farther out) that can't be funded by FEMA. Quite a few, affecting a lot of people.

http://www.fema.gov/hazard/flood/recoverydata/katrina/katrina_la_index.shtm talks about the new maps, in principle. I'm not sure they've been released.

However, in Houston the flooding from Allyson was incorporated into floodplain maps and a lot more properties are now in 100- and 500-year floodplains. FEMA's continuing to revise some of the maps. (We've been house hunting recently, so I've been a frequent visitor to the TSARP site, which contains the recent FEMA floodmap update for Houston and Harris County--nothing like seeing a house you like and then finding out it's in a 100-year floodplain, or even in a floodway.) I consider the mapping to be primarily a technical issue with a lot of political ramifications--of course, how typical was Allyson, and how representative was she? For example, in the last week places that were spared by Allyson or received scant flooding from her were inundated. "Technical" doesn't mean "easily resolved."

If they take this to its logical conclusion, you have to start wondering about portions of NOLA itself. Then issues of class and race, beyond simple local political representation, intrude into what's still primarily a technical matter.

[Cha]

6. For any reason other than

his diapers need changing?

[Canuckistanian]

7. Harry Reid can ignore that hold, can't he?

I've heard that there are procedures to ignore holds.

No that he's ever lifted a hold by a Repub before.

[Kdillard]

9. Lovely a month before Hurricane season and instead of letting

the man who has experience and bipartisanship support go through and get things going Diaper V is holding things up. See Swine flu and how holding up the nomineee works out Vitter.

[Doctor_J]

10. I have noticed that the LA Repukes

like death and destruction in their state. Much like the national Repukes may lots of political hay out of the 9/11 attacks, those in LA like Diaper Dave and Piyish Jindal did well in the aftermath of Katrina. I am guessing that Vitter and the rest of the LA GOP think they can make some electoral gains if another disaster occurs.