It's Obama's fault!

Here's a hypothetical scenario that I'd really like to collect reader thoughts on.

If the President or local Congressperson were to propose a $20 billion program to fund a variety of Gulf Coast infrastructure projects and social programs, would it pass? What if it were $10 billion? Or $5 billion? What do you think the tally in the House and Senate would be?

My initial assumption is that there would not be sufficient votes in either chamber but I haven't given it a whole lot of thought.

From Worst To Worster

Wahmbulance.

Just to deprive President Obama of credit for a forward-thinking stimulus package that funds rail expansion, we get deprived of a no-brainer high speed rail project.

Maybe the feds should offer to name the railway the Jindal High Speed Line to smooth things over.

But that sounds like something that would be built to connect Jefferson Parish to Washington D.C. only to veer off about a fifth of the way there and crash into the ocean.

Thanks for effing over the whole state because Keith Olbermann said something true about you.

Late to the party (Cowing to the Party Update)

Update: Uh-oh! Flip-Flop! Cao says no to jobs, schools, roads, and levies for his own district. So much for yesterday's playful explanation of his intention to vote yea on stimulus:

"The GOP leadership, they fully understand my situation and the needs of my district, " [Cao] said.

Scalise, the assistant Republican whip, laughed when asked whether it was his responsibility to keep Cao in line, adding that a few Republican defections are to be expected.

Joked Cao, "Steve Scalise doesn't know kung fu. I know kung fu. He can't whip me."

So just how did Congressman Scalise 'whip' the rookie Cao into dis-understanding the needs of his district?

Does this mean Joseph Cao's honeymoon is over now?

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Original post

Congressman Cao's noble pledge to vote for the stimulus bill on his second-go-round with the legislation is like sneaking your name onto someone else's gift at an office birthday party after the present has already been opened.

Not an office guy myself, but I'm confident in the analogy.

"I'm voting along what my conscience dictates and the needs of the 2nd Congressional District dictate, even if I were to be the only member of the GOP to vote for the stimulus package, " he said.

"Even though it is going to be a humongous bill, even though we will be in debt for years, I believe that more likely than not, I will vote for it because the 2nd Congressional District needs a stimulus package."

The Times-Picayune's Jonathan Tilove certainly doesn't get in the way of Cao's self-congratulation.

In fact, Cao was totally MIA when this bill was being crafted. He did absolutely nothing to articulate the needs of the district and was not properly engaged with the detailed plans of various municipal and state agencies. He did not leverage his vote to try and get money for schools, roads, public transit, or energy infrastructure. He voted 'no' when it counted, when his vote would have meant something in terms of the structure of the bill. Then, he was in lock-step with his obstructionist, do-nothing, Hooverite brethren.

And it cost the city of New Orleans.

I've been doing a lot of heavy examination behind the scenes of how various state and municipal agencies collaborated with our Congressional delegation, national organizations, and with the Obama transition team. I'm trying to work it all into one big picture but there are many layers. I promise results soon.

Suffice it to say, we could have used some real representation in the House. I'm not sure Bill Jefferson would have been appreciably better but he at least would have tried.

I'm glad to see Cao is voting for the stimulus now but the Congressman from the most devastated city in the nation needs to bring more to work than a lunch box and a 'yea' vote. Legislate, my good man. Legislate.

Links Purge

1. James Gill takes no prisoners in commentary on the Pope and Archbishop Hughes.

2. Interesting passage from David Hammer's article on the Road Home:

The LRA has begun lobbying Congress for the right to move leftover Road Home money into other projects, rather than having to pay it back to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. LRA board members have expressed interest in using the surplus to help finance Louisiana State University's proposed hospital near downtown New Orleans.

Hmm. Which LRA board member(s) might have floated that ridiculous trial balloon? And why?

3. I've continued to conduct research into the various strategies employed by different state and municipal agencies to get money for Louisiana and New Orleans from the big federal stimulus bill. A few weeks ago I highlighted this article about what lobbyists were doing to get spending approved for their clients to contrast Bobby Jindal's early intention to submit a very bare-bones ask for Louisiana. Following up on that, read this from TPM about an earmark for the "clean" coal lobby.

The stuff I've been hearing and reading about Louisiana strategy has been absolutely fascinating, IMO. I can't wait to distill it down for you. Give it time.

What Is Bill Cassidy Saying?

The House version of the stimulus bill passed yesterday and included something in the order of $5 billion for the state of Louisiana. Big chunks of that are going to go toward state highway projects and existing Army Corps projects.

I'm also happy to report that Louisiana schools will see a big infusion of funding.

There will be some help for our public transit system, but nothing in the order of what the RPC and the City proposed. This is regrettable given the needs here but considering how little advance planning officials did in anticipation of this stimulus money, Louisiana came away with a respectable haul with perhaps the least amount of Congressional support out of any state in the country. Besides Charlie Melancon and Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Congressional delegation has tried to obstruct the flow of money to our state. Not one Louisiana House Republican crossed over to support the bill and Vitter has positioned himself as the most belligerent and reactionary member of the Senate.

Congressman Bill Cassidy of the 6th Congressional District had an interesting rationale for his nay vote yesterday. Try to wrap your mind around this.

Cassidy voted against a massive stimulus bill that would send checks to working families, build infrastructure, and cut business taxes because...

A better bill, Cassidy said, "would focus on providing tax relief for working families and small businesses and strengthening our infrastructure."

Wow, what a stickler for progressive principles! I agree, this bill should have had more infrastructure spending and more tax relief for working class families. Who said Don Cazayoux would have been a better Congressman?

House Passes Stimulus

Not one Republican crossed over to support the bill. Nice to see the GOP coming out 100% against job creation, tax cuts, and infrastructure improvements. That's right the caucus voted against tax cuts.

Louisiana tally:

Yeas: Melancon

Nays: Cao, Boustany, Cassidy, Alexander, Fleming, and Scalise

Stimulus: Crossing Our Fingers

I've tried to stay on top of the New Orleans implications of the big federal stimulus bill being negotiated in Congress. When I last broached the topic, I discussed the competing asks coming from the state and municipal levels.

Under a directive from Governor Bobby Jindal, the Department of Transportation and Development released an approximately $1.4 billion plan that is almost entirely comprised of major highway expansion projects outside of Orleans Parish. DOTD Secretary Ankner is on the record saying that the state is really only expecting to receive something in the ballpark of $400 million from the feds.

That's not very much money at all, and almost none of it would go to New Orleans, you know, the place with the most crippling infrastructure needs in the United States of America.

But as it turns out, New Orleans has come up with it's own ask. I alluded to the competing plan by the Regional Planning Commission, Regional Transit Authority, and the City of New Orleans.

Here are some more details:

Total ask: $6.3 billion
Estimated "shovel ready" spending for 2009: just under $1 billion.

First up is public transportation, where we request a total of half a billion dollars,

This portion of the draft document proposes seven streetcar projects, including:

-extending the Carrolton ave. line to connect to the Canal st. line
-extending the riverfront line to Jackson Avenue, building a new line north along Jackson Ave to St. Charles
-extending the riverfront line to Poland Avenue, building a new line along Poland from the river to St. Claude
-building new line to link union passenger terminal to Canal
-new line from Canal to Elysian Fields along N. Rampart and then from N. Rampart to the river along Elysian Fields
-a new line along convention center boulevard
-a new line connecting Canal all the way to Poland Ave, perhaps extending the proposed line along N. Rampart all the way down St. Claude

Also there is several tens of millions of dollars in spending proposed to build Bus Rapid Transit lines from the CBD to N.O. East and Algiers as well as for shelters, new buses, kiosk technology, etc. etc.

Then there's what is known as 'infrastructure resilience' spending, which actually comprises close to half of the city's total request. This includes an ask of $2.5 billion to supplement efforts to replace our sewer lines and pipes and half a billion to bury electrical and telephone wires.

Another section details our requests for regional rail spending, about $1.2 billion. There's a 450,000,000 request for a light rail line from downtown New Orleans to the airport. The city also proposes high speed rail connections to Baton Rouge, Mobile, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Hattiesburg, and Meridian.

Then there's just over a billion dollars proposed for "pedestrian enhancements" like new sidewalks, curbs, gutters improved drainage systems, street lights, trees, crosswalks, etc.

What else?

$120,000,000 for airport improvements
$240,000,000 for road repaving in Orleans Parish
$65,000,000 for bicycle infrastructure

Of course, all amounts are approximated and project details are heavily annotated.

But after a quick browse, it's a pretty solid package. I'm not sure what's "shovel ready" for 2009 but it's not hard to imagine how helpful these projects would be for our short, medium, and long term regional health.

Just think if all we got funded out of this was half of the proposed streetcar lines and half of the proposed sewer replacements. Even that would be an extremely significant, if not a game-changing investment.

I'd been wondering why it was that the city of New Orleans and the RPC were putting out a plan that would compete with the state plan, why the DOTD plan didn't just include our region's requests.

It turns out that this was by design - as a result of lobbying by the Mayor - to counteract what might happen if states were not given strict guidelines on how to allocate federal money. This was something discussed within the US Conference of Mayors, so I don't mean to insinuate that Nagin just invented the strategy out of thin air.

In fact, it would appear that the USCM thinks that a lot of the infrastructure money in the stimulus bill can and will be funnelled directly to cities and regional planning organizations through existing programs like CDBG.

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I have also heard from a couple of different sources that, to a significant extent, the amount of stimulus money allocated for New Orleans depends on the lobbying efforts of folks like Karen Carter Peterson and Desiree Glapion Rogers instead of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation.

My question now is why our Congressional Delegation isn't up to bat for us. Is it just because New Orleans doesn't have political clout within our state delegation? Or is it because Congress in general isn't actually doing much "earmarking" of the package?

I have some theories but I'd like to know what you guys think...

Lobbyists Get the Memo

No "pork" in the stimulus bill means no "pork" in the stimulus bill.

"Somebody's going to earmark it somewhere,"

Something for New Orleans to keep in mind.

That's Right, Butter Him Up

New Orleans making its case for a fair share of the stimulus.

Infratructure and You: City v. State

Following up from earlier...

Bobby Jindal was early proponent of a possible infrastructure stimulus package. Here's what he had in mind in December:

At a news conference before leaving for the Philadelphia meeting, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he would like to see more federal investment in coastal restoration projects, barrier island recovery efforts and the project to close the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. He also listed hurricane protection and levee projects in Jean Lafitte and the restoration of a Charity Hospital medical complex in New Orleans as priorities.

"There are literally billions of dollars that can be pushed through the pipeline that have already been allocated by Congress that have yet to come to our communities, that have yet to come to our state, " Jindal said, before leaving for the summit with Obama.

"I think it's unprecedented for a newly elected president to sit down with Democratic and Republican governors, " Jindal said. "We're going to have the opportunity to share with him what's going on in our states and make some recommendations to his administration so they can hit the ground running."

The Times-Picayune made it seem as if Jindal would be making hurricane protection and coastal restoration the centerpiece of Louisiana's ask. We also know that the funding shortfall for the LSU/VA hospital development is a big priority.

Jindal has remained in control of the state's stimulus strategy. He held a press conference announcing the state's priorities last weekend. The article only briefly summarizes what might be in Louisiana's request but there are some interesting things to infer. For one, many of the things that Jindal has put on the table are not actual infrastructure projects. In no order, some examples of that from the article include:

- aid to farmers who experiences losses from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike

- "removal of red tape for local governments negotiating with [FEMA]"

- "changes to the Medicaid financing formula for states affected by disasters"

For flood protection, the article alludes to the Governor's desire to address the issue but the only concrete measure that gets fleshed out is the long-requested rule change that would mandate the Army Corps to use materials collected from dredging for existing coastal restoration projects.

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So what is actually concrete?

Highways. We can build highways.

"I'll make the case that projects like I-49 north should be a priority for his administration.

I will personally be advocating to President-elect Obama that this project be included in the stimulus package that the federal government is hoping to get done by Jan. 20 at the latest next year."

In fact, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has been hard at work in anticipation of a federal infrastructure bill since summer.

DOTD started compiling a list in August - three months before the presidential election - because "I assumed that whoever was elected president was going to have to do something like this," Ankner said. "But I didn't think it was going to be this big."

Because of DOTD's planning, it was one of the first states to submit a proposal and one of only three states that included a separate plan for improving ports and airports, too.

The list of projects comes out to a price tag of $1.314 billion. But Secretary Ankner is setting lower expectations:

“I think $400 million is a good number for us to think about,” Ankner said.

We know that finishing the I-49 project around Shreveport and renovating I-12 and I-10 around Baton Rouge are major state priorities. In the metro area, we know that there are projects already underway on I-10 in Jefferson Parish that have made it on the list. What's going to be left over for New Orleans?

If you browse the actual DODT list, next to nothing. Though measures improving highways in Jefferson Parish will have a direct impact on Orleans Parish, the absence of money for New Orleans is striking. There's $7 million proposed for improving an access road at Louis Armstrong International and $10 million proposed for improving the Crescent City Connection ferry terminals. The DOTD also proposes spending $30 million to help the RTA do "preventative maintenance."

Part of the issue, I suppose, is that only a small percentage of the projects in the city are "shovel-ready." The Obama administration apparently favors projects where construction can begin immediately and be completed within the next 2-3 years. This, they say, will maximize the extent to which federal spending stimulates economic growth over the short term.

I've argued that those strings shouldn't be attached when it comes to allocating resources to New Orleans because of the last administration's broken promises and our city's sobering list of imminent needs. Given the political opportunity, it makes sense to approach the infrastructure stimulus as an opportunity to secure money that might not be available at any other time. Whatever limits the Congress or the President want to attach to how that money is allocated by local officials are more than fine with me. The important thing is getting the money through Congress, especially since it isn't at all clear when or if New Orleans might get its own turn at the top of the docket or if there will be any political will to allocate resources when or if that time comes.

In fact, I have recently learned that New Orleans, the Regional Planning Commission, and the RTA are indeed drafting their own list of smart-growth transportation infrastructure projects totalling a very large number. It will be very interesting to see how the Louisiana Congressional delegation reconciles competing lists.

Other state agencies will be submitting their own recommendations for stimulus dollars. We should be careful to monitor those also.

I don't like this process at all. There is very little information in the public domain and it doesn't seem like the local professional media is particularly curious.

Am I overstating the local implications of the stimulus? Why isn't all of this a much bigger deal in the papers?

Infratructure and You: Stimulating Strategies

I've been interested in the Louisiana implications of the mega economic stimulus package currently being negotiated in Congress. I think it's a very very big deal and believe it's something to which we need to be paying better attention.

When was the last time the federal government sunk so much money into infrastructure projects?

Louisiana and especially New Orleans have incredible infrastructure needs that directly impact the basic premise of 'recovery.' If this state doesn't quickly reimagine it's transportation and hurricane protection blueprint, arguments for rebuilding hinging on long and medium term economic viability go completely out the window. SE Louisiana simply will not remain a sustainable place in which to invest (whether we're talking about starting a business or purchasing a home) unless some of our major infrastructure flaws are fixed. The case for levees is indisputable. To a certain extent, even our social needs (housing, literacy, health care, education, criminal justice reform) are more easily understood. Less often articulated are our needs related to sewerage, the power grid, regional rail, and municipal transit - other areas in which SE Louisiana remains far behind other metropolitan competitors.

It has been many years since these types of projects have been on the table in Washington. This is a rare opportunity. It is not obvious to me that Louisiana will have many other chances to come away with globs of money as sizable as what might be possible right now. Barack Obama made some campaign promises on Gulf Coast Recovery but I'm not sensing much Congressional urgency in terms of allocating additional resources this way. The President has said that there will be no pork projects in this stimulus bill. But if there's a little extra money sprinkled into Louisiana for projects critical to issues of hurricane recovery and basic regional sustainability (and therefore, national security), well I don't see why we have to call that pork. It's not as if Congressman Cao and Senator Vitter are negotiating an extra $2 million allocation for the New Orleans Madam Museum. We're the poorest city in the poorest state in the poorest region and then we got hit with a bunch hurricanes and a federal flood. We need and deserve a little extra attention. That's how progressive values work.

So what is Louisiana's strategy for shaking loose that extra coin?

More later.

New Orleans and the Obama Administration: We Won't Receive What We Don't Ask For

Deon Roberts of the City Business blog tossed out an interesting concept for a blog post recently where he examined who was to blame for the slow pace of New Orleans' recovery.

(I've never met Deon Roberts, I've heard that he's a great guy and was a decent reporter when he stayed on beat, but his blog leaves a lot to be desired. He never seems to actually analyze or interpret, he just pastes quotes from articles and summarizes.)

Anyway, in his two part post, Roberts introduces quotes from different local and federal officials blaming each other for the slow pace of recovery.

Though the quotes apply to specific recovery-related programs, it's worthwhile to consider them in the context of the big picture because I think we can create some pretty interesting hypotheses to explain the different layers of our recovery's slowness.

On one hand, you have Doug O'Dell, the Federal Recovery Czar. The AP summarized his view of things: (emphasis mine)

The Bush administration says more than $126 billion has been earmarked for Gulf Coast rebuilding following the 2005 hurricanes. Retired Maj. Gen. Doug O'Dell, who began in the job earlier this year, said he never believed the pace of recovery was about lack of resources and he said Thursday he couldn't identify any need for additional federal funds immediately.

Mayor Nagin, on the other hand, recently ordered FEMA officials out of his office: (emphasis mine)

"I had FEMA in my office yesterday and almost, kind of, threw them out," the mayor said. "They're just not aggressively helping us."

Mayor Nagin is correct that FEMA has routinely shortchanged the city for different recovery-related reimbursements. But let's also recall how our local state and municipal governments have tended to prioritize economic development over recovery. (Using CDBG money on the LSU/VA project and Reinventing the Crescent instead of for affordable housing or main street redevelopment, for instance.)

But let's see if we can zoom out a little bit.

The quotes are indicative of the long-standing disconnect between local and federal officials dating back to the storm itself. Our local officials have tended to blame the slow pace of recovery on federal red tape. Federal officials, in turn, put it back on the laps of local officials, claiming that funds have been approved and are ready to be spent.

Our local officials complain about FEMA shortchanging reimbursements for things like the rehabilitation of Charity and for slowing down the blight removal process, etc. Federal officials point the mirror back at state officials for the failure to do things like build Katrina Cottages or quickly distribute money through the Road Home program.

I'm sure one could parse out who's right and who's wrong about reimbursements and existing aid programs, etc. But would solving these typical complaints about the programs that were designed to address short term rebuilding do anything for our long term recovery?

Even if local and federal officials were working harmoniously to make these programs hum, would New Orleans' long term prospects be appreciably less pessimistic?

I'm not so sure. It would seem to me that if FEMA capitulated to all of Mayor Nagin's reimbursement requests, the only things that would be different would be the estimate for Charity and the speed with which FEMA agrees to repay for other demolitions. That would give us half of a hospital that local officials don't want to rebuild anyway and a bunch more empty lots.

Let's also go back to O'Dell's apparent inability to identify the need for any more immediate additional federal funds. One could take a look at his statement and think that he must be disengaged and unaware of our community's needs. However, I don't think that's the case. Recall his poignant criticism of the leadership of Mayor Nagin and Ed Blakely from last August. His position has been consistent - that until the city and state can intelligently spend what has already been allocated, then the federal government will not distribute additional funds.

(You may disagree with the Bush administration's decision to take a hands-off approach to local recovery failures, but that policy has been remarkably consistent. Replacing Blanco with Jindal did not appreciably alter federal policy, for instance.)

The problem seems to be that our local officials don't know what kind of help to ask for.

The argument that the federal government is failing Louisiana would be a lot more credible if local officials had a long list of things that the federal government was refusing to fund. The squabbles over FEMA reimbursement amounts are small potatoes compared to the overall needs of the region.

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Consider that Obama is pledging an unprecedented trillion dollar stimulus package for infrastructure projects. Yet, if you read this AP article, it would seem that Louisiana is woefully unprepared to request a game-changing share:

Louisiana's post-Katrina wish list for the next Congress and incoming Obama administration, lengthened by 2008 hurricanes Gustav and Ike, boiled down in a transition brief to one essential message: Don't forget us.

While progress has been made since Katrina and Rita lashed Louisiana in 2005, "our state still suffers an extreme housing crisis with affordable rental property hard to come by and billions of housing and infrastructure repairs yet to be completed," the Louisiana Recovery Authority said in the brief dated Dec. 8 and which the LRA provided a copy of last week.

The state's wish list for the Katrina and Rita aftermath include an extension of federal disaster housing assistance, including rental subsidies, set to expire March 1.

It also includes a call to push back by two years, to December 2012, a deadline to finish housing projects benefiting from tax credits due to the sour national economy. And there's also a call for establishment of a "blight removal fund" to help speed cleanup of thousands of derelict properties that are seen as stalling reinvestment in some devastated communities.

Louisiana also may seek a congressional appropriation if it can't come to more favorable terms with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the level of Katrina damage to New Orleans' former public hospital for the poor, Charity. The state believes it's due $492 million; FEMA's offered $150 million.

A few things about this. First of all, the LRA's insistence that the federal government help the state address the massive affordable housing crisis is straight-up laughable given all of the state and municipal policies put in place since the storm that have directly limited the construction of affordable housing. The other things on the LRA wish list are deadline extensions and a better reimbursement figure from FEMA for Charity. That's just not a very ambitious target for the nation's neediest state.

It might explain why the AP encapsulated the Louisiana pitch to the Obama administration as a helpless and flailing "don't forget us."

Have we not drawn up even preliminary plans for any of the following?

Replacing the energy grid

Rail service along the coast

Category Five levees, sea walls, wetlands restoration

Comprehensive metro streetcar system

Granted, the first phase of any Obama stimulus package would fund projects that are immediately ready for construction. But there simply aren't a trillion dollars worth of projects around the country that are "shovel-ready." So I wonder why we haven't put forth targets for the second, third, and forth phases of the stimulus.

Obama transition officials are already reaching out to states and municipalities so that a stimulus bill is submitted to Congress immediately after he takes office. I'd be willing to wager that when they sat down with the numbers from New Orleans and Louisiana, they called back our local officials and whoever else in the planning community and stated somewhat incredulously something along the lines of: "you guys aren't asking for nearly enough."

It will be quite interesting to see how our officials scramble for New Orleans' share of the stimulus pie over the next several months.

Loose Debris on the I-10

From yesterday's T-P:

Two contractors hoping to build the next major piece of the ambitious Interstate 10 expansion have submitted bids 10 percent to 29 percent more expensive than the state's estimate for the job.
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James Construction Group quoted $35.6 million, and Boh Brothers Construction Co. bid $41.9 million. The state estimated the job to cost $32.5 million, but neither bid exceeds that amount by a margin large enough to scrap them and start over, Department of Transportation and Development officials said.

See how we get taken to the cleaners by the state contracting process? We need this road and the contractors know we need it. We're awarding contracts for individual sections of this road and quoting an estimate that we pre-allow to be exceeded by a certain amount. So construction companies like Boh Bros. and James Construction Group, both extremely politically connected, already know exactly how much they can screw us. We're locked in now to accepting bids 10%-29% above estimate.

Am I crazy?

Is it common practice in other states to publicly disclose the cost estimates? Doesn't it guarantee that many bids will come in right at the upper overrun limit and guarantee that the state constantly has to pay above their own estimate, especially for projects that will only see 2-3 bidders from the same local social/political/industrial circle?