| March 15, 2006 - (Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sen. David Vitter introduced new legislation today to create a new federal council that would oversee a comprehensive hurricane and flood protection, navigation and coastal restoration program for south Louisiana that will be completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The council would provide outside engineering and other expertise to offer new insight to the Army Corps of Engineers process and work. “This will be the first effort to take a system-wide, coordinated implementation on the Corps’ work in south Louisiana,” said Vitter. “We need to have a new, successful implementation strategy of Corps’ projects. The council would be able to integrate the implementation to ensure consistency between projects, expedite completion of projects and save taxpayer dollars.” Vitter’s bill, the “Louisiana Hurricane and Flood Protection Council Act,” would create a new federal council to oversee the Corps of Engineers’ work in south Louisiana until 2026. The council could make recommendations to improve projects or project implementation directly to the congressional authorizing committees for an expedited approval process. In addition, the council will be able to coordinate projects to get the best use of taxpayer funds and expedite the completion of projects. The nine-member council would be made up of three members of the Corps of engineers, two civil engineers with expertise relating to hurricane and flood protection, a civil engineer with expertise relating to navigation, two experts in the environment relating to ecosystem restoration and an expert in fiscal matters and project management. One of the three Corps members would serve as the council chair, and the vice chair would be one of the non-Corps members of the council. Council members would be nominated by Congress and appointed by the president. “This bill builds on legislation I filed earlier this year to get us to true Category 3 protection. It provides expertise and oversight to the Corps and better coordination of their projects,” Vitter said. In his ongoing efforts to ensure that the Corps of Engineers completes critical flood protection projects by next hurricane season, Vitter also recently introduced the “Louisiana Emergency Needs Corps of Engineers Authorization Act.” This bill would give the Corps of Engineers full congressional authorization to begin construction on projects that will go beyond pre-Katrina levels of hurricane protection for south Louisiana. |