Bill would send $6 billion to N.O.

• By GERARD SHIELDS
• Advocate Washington bureau
• Published: May 23, 2008 - Page: 5A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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WASHINGTON — On the heels of a report about a leaking New Orleans levee, the Senate approved an emergency war- spending bill Thursday that includes $5.8 billion to bolster the levees by 2011.

The provision, which passed by a vote of 75-22, also contains $400 million more for crime prevention, hospitals and low-income housing in the region wrecked nearly three years ago by Hurricane Katrina.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported a leak at the 17th Street Canal levee. The levee broke during Katrina, flooding thousands of homes in the adjacent Lakeview neighborhood.

On the Senate floor Thursday, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., pointed to the report while urging colleagues to pass the emergency levee funding.

“We are in a mad dash to get these levees and this infrastructure rebuilt strongly, correctly and safely,” Landrieu said.

The latest report was yet another frustration in the effort to recover from Katrina, Landrieu said off the floor.

“It’s extremely disturbing,” Landrieu said. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but reports like this continue to bolster my argument for radical reforms within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”

The levee money in the war supplemental bill — which still needs approval in the House — is an advance for levee money that already is in President Bush’s 2009 budget.

Corps officials said the money is needed more quickly if they’re going to meet the deadline of shoring up all levees by 2011. President Bush has threatened to veto the war spending bill if it has domestic spending in it.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., encouraged colleagues to vote for it, noting that Bush already has approved spending the money.

“It’s absolutely essential to deliver the help that the president committed, that the nation has committed to our continuing recovery in Louisiana,” Vitter said on the Senate floor.

“This is hardly some Christmas tree that we’re putting ornaments on,” Vitter added. “About 95 percent of this recovery package are things that the president himself has explicitly requested.

In addition to the levee money, the Senate bill contains $76 million to provide 3,000 permanent housing vouchers in Louisiana, where two of every three will go to New Orleans.