i'm just a bill
Yes I'm only a bill. And I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.
PLEASE CLICK HERE to support Senate hearings for the 8/29 Investigation Team Act, (S. 2826)!!!
I promise to ease up on these activist-type posts soon, but I received an email today from Levees.Org that is actually fairly urgent.
One of the common misconceptions about the flooding of New Orleans and other Louisiana parishes is that the disaster was purely the result of a natural weather phenomenon. The truth is that the levees failed because they were designed and implemented poorly by the Army Corps of Engineers, that they knew about the shortcomings, lied about it for years, and actively covered it up. When it was time to investigate all this, the investigation was conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers - paid for by guess who? The Army Corps of Engineers themselves!
As Clancy Dubois of the Gambit Weekly stated, “Levees can break in virtually any state in the country. This is really a national issue. People have to stop thinking of this as a Louisiana issue."
This is exactly right. If the Army Corps of Engineers isn’t held accountable for its actions (and inactions) in a disaster as great as the one that happened on 8/29/2005, do you think they’ll be held accountable if a similar disaster occurs due to their potentially faulty design and execution in your area? If you don’t have levees near you, you’re not out of the woods. I bet you have a bridge, highway, dam or other federal structure whose stability or instability could affect the well-being and even threaten the lives of you and your loved ones. If the Army Corps of Engineers are not held accountable now, what is their motivation to “get it right” in your neighborhood in the future?
Click here to read a great Associated Press article about the situation.
Here is why I love our Senator Mary Landrieu. On March 27, she made the following statement:
"There have been numerous studies about Katrina and Rita, without any clear direction of how to prevent a flood control system failure in the future. These studies have not adequately zeroed in on the crucial question of how our levees failed us, and the IPET report chaired by the Corps itself did not provide the completely independent examination that is required.
"An analysis similar to that by the 9-11 Commission is the only route to uncovering how 1,071 lives were lost and 786,372 people were displaced when the federal government's levee system failed to protect us. While my efforts to add the commission as an amendment to the 2007 water resources bill were met by partisan objection, I will continue to push this year for a thorough and independent analysis of the events leading up to August 29, 2005.
"When Congress returns from recess next week, I will introduce a standalone 8/29 Commission bill, and will work with our delegation to get it passed in Congress and signed into law. I commend Levees.org for speaking up and working so diligently to keep focused on the many outstanding questions in the wake of the storms."
On April 7, Senator Landrieu kept her word and introduced bill S.2826, which calls for “a truly independent and a truly complete analysis of the flood protection failures in metro New Orleans.”
PLEASE CLICK HERE to support Senate hearings for the 8/29 Investigation Team Act, (S. 2826)!!!
The bill can be read in its entirety here:
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_SN_2826.html
For more info, please visit http://levees.org.
Thank you for taking the time to read all that.
***
The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros is due for publication from The Toby Press in Spring 2009.
PLEASE CLICK HERE to support Senate hearings for the 8/29 Investigation Team Act, (S. 2826)!!!
I promise to ease up on these activist-type posts soon, but I received an email today from Levees.Org that is actually fairly urgent.
One of the common misconceptions about the flooding of New Orleans and other Louisiana parishes is that the disaster was purely the result of a natural weather phenomenon. The truth is that the levees failed because they were designed and implemented poorly by the Army Corps of Engineers, that they knew about the shortcomings, lied about it for years, and actively covered it up. When it was time to investigate all this, the investigation was conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers - paid for by guess who? The Army Corps of Engineers themselves!
As Clancy Dubois of the Gambit Weekly stated, “Levees can break in virtually any state in the country. This is really a national issue. People have to stop thinking of this as a Louisiana issue."
This is exactly right. If the Army Corps of Engineers isn’t held accountable for its actions (and inactions) in a disaster as great as the one that happened on 8/29/2005, do you think they’ll be held accountable if a similar disaster occurs due to their potentially faulty design and execution in your area? If you don’t have levees near you, you’re not out of the woods. I bet you have a bridge, highway, dam or other federal structure whose stability or instability could affect the well-being and even threaten the lives of you and your loved ones. If the Army Corps of Engineers are not held accountable now, what is their motivation to “get it right” in your neighborhood in the future?
Click here to read a great Associated Press article about the situation.
Here is why I love our Senator Mary Landrieu. On March 27, she made the following statement:
"There have been numerous studies about Katrina and Rita, without any clear direction of how to prevent a flood control system failure in the future. These studies have not adequately zeroed in on the crucial question of how our levees failed us, and the IPET report chaired by the Corps itself did not provide the completely independent examination that is required.
"An analysis similar to that by the 9-11 Commission is the only route to uncovering how 1,071 lives were lost and 786,372 people were displaced when the federal government's levee system failed to protect us. While my efforts to add the commission as an amendment to the 2007 water resources bill were met by partisan objection, I will continue to push this year for a thorough and independent analysis of the events leading up to August 29, 2005.
"When Congress returns from recess next week, I will introduce a standalone 8/29 Commission bill, and will work with our delegation to get it passed in Congress and signed into law. I commend Levees.org for speaking up and working so diligently to keep focused on the many outstanding questions in the wake of the storms."
On April 7, Senator Landrieu kept her word and introduced bill S.2826, which calls for “a truly independent and a truly complete analysis of the flood protection failures in metro New Orleans.”
PLEASE CLICK HERE to support Senate hearings for the 8/29 Investigation Team Act, (S. 2826)!!!
The bill can be read in its entirety here:
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_SN_2826.html
For more info, please visit http://levees.org.
Thank you for taking the time to read all that.
***
The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros is due for publication from The Toby Press in Spring 2009.