President Bush issued a directive that allows the Army Corps of Engineers to take $23 million in California money repair work on critically weak levees. As expected California did not get a federal disaster declaration that the governor wanted (add a few federal tax paying Californian’s also).
We are told by Connaughton it is a down payment on federal monies that somewhere (over the rainbow), sometime, the government will pay triple the amount for the levee projects.
It is a down payment of sorts on federal money, James Connaughton, the president‘s chief environmental adviser said, that will flow to California at some unspecified point in the future, contingent on congressional actionand the administration expects the federal government to pay three times as much as the state for the projects.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles is quoted in news stories as reacting angrily:
“The headline on this story should be: ‘Bush to California: Drop Dead,’ ” Nunez said. “California needs federal money to prevent a Katrina-like emergency, and we need it now.”
January 05, California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) warned in a report entitled Flood Warnings: Responding to California’s Flood Crisis that levee failures during the Central Valley’s annual winter and spring flood season posed a “ticking time bomb for flood management in California.”
California Climate change information March 06
If the federal government does not “get it” soon we might not drop dead but we sure will be floating off into the sunset. Taking our agricultural tax base with us.
Typical of Bush and his cronies. Since day one, he’s tried to pretend California didn’t exist. Screw him and the horse he rode in on.
I keep saying to myself…”two more years, two more years, two more years….”
It can’t come soon enough. The man is evil.