Jindal to ask Obama about FEMA money

• By JOHN MCMILLAN
• Advocate River parishes bureau
• Published: Dec 2, 2008 - Page: 7A - UPDATED: 12:10 a.m.

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VACHERIE — Gov. Bobby Jindal said Monday he intends to talk to President-elect Barack Obama about “freeing up federal dollars” from FEMA and other funding sources.

Jindal stopped in Vacherie to address a St. James Parish town hall-type meeting en route to Philadelphia, where he and 39 other governors are scheduled to meet with Obama.

Jindal told about 100 St. James residents that the meeting in Philadelphia will be a bipartisan effort “to support our president” and to “talk about how to work together to solve real problems” in the economy and with terrorism.

In a brief interview after the meeting, Jindal said he wants to ask the president-elect who will be running the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whether it will remain under the Department of Homeland Security and if FEMA will have more flexibility in placing federal dollars in “the pipeline” to Louisiana and other hurricane-ravaged states.

Additionally, Jindal said, he wants to talk with Obama about federal funds for coastal restoration and flood protection. “We have already put up the matching funds” for the federal dollars, but have not received them, he said.

“We need this for our future,” he said.

He told those attending the town hall meeting that Republicans and Democrats “need to work together. The election is over and we need to support the president-elect” in an effort to cure the country’s economic woes.

On another subject, the governor said he is “cautiously optimistic” about Nucor Corp. locating a pig-iron plant in St. James Parish.

The North Carolina-based corporation has narrowed its plans to build a new plant to either St. James Parish or Brazil.

“They haven’t used other states as a leverage as other companies have,” he said, apparently referring to ThyssenKrupp, the German steel manufacturer that ultimately located in Alabama after considering a site in St. James Parish.

In addition to Nucor training local residents for 1,250 high-paying jobs in the steel mill, 6,000 ancillary jobs would be created if Nucor locates in St. James, Jindal said.

He said he expects a decision from Nucor later this month or early in January.

On another subject, Jindal said Louisiana teachers are leaving the state, not because of better salaries elsewhere but because of a lack of classroom discipline.