Partisan bickering affects aid for states

The blame game is interfering with probing what went wrong and fixing it.
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -- Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco gave no ground to Capitol Hill critics Wednesday, saying she and other state officials did all they could to save lives following Hurricane Katrina and that she feared Congress' focus on missteps was an excuse to deny more money for reconstruction.
Blanco offered her first public accounting to Congress on her handling of the crisis as House and Senate negotiators wrangled over a new aid package for the states hit by the massive storm.
"Looking back is a necessary exercise, and we will improve our response," Blanco told a House committee. "But none of this negates the obligation of this Congress to help American citizens from the Gulf Coast who literally and figuratively are feeling they have been left out in the cold."
The sometimes sharp words Blanco exchanged with lawmakers and the difficult negotiations over additional funding underscored the increasingly partisan and politically charged atmosphere surrounding efforts to rebuild in the hurricane's aftermath.
House and Senate committees are wrapping up probes into the much-criticized response by federal, state and local officials to the disaster and preparing to issue their findings in February. The assignment of blame should help shape the debate in next year's congressional campaigns over which party is most capable of governing effectively.
Differing takes
Democrats have said the administration's failure to mount a quick, effective relief effort resulted from its shortchanging the Federal Emergency Response Agency and other offices and programs in order to pour resources into the fight against terrorism, the war in Iraq and tax cuts skewed toward wealthy Americans.
Republicans have responded that it was the incompetence of local and state officials that hampered efforts by the White House and FEMA to help. Days after the hurricane hit, Republican lawmakers charged that Blanco and New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, both Democrats, failed to convey their needs quickly or clearly enough and inadequately implemented their own emergency plan.
The finger-pointing also has hampered the congressional investigations into what went wrong and what should be done to fix the problems.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to appoint Democrats to serve on the House committee investigating the hurricane response. Pelosi and other Democrats demanded an independent, bipartisan investigation, which Republicans rejected.
Despite Pelosi's stance, a handful of Democrats from Gulf Coast states have sat in on the House panel's hearings.
Other demands
One of them, Rep. Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, opened Wednesday's session with a demand that the committee subpoena the White House and Defense Department to hand over documents dealing with their response to the hurricane. Republicans initially rejected the move as political grandstanding, saying they wanted to give the administration more time to voluntarily produce the documents.
But Wednesday night, Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., issued a subpoena demanding the Defense Department turn over documents on its response to the hurricane by Dec. 30.
Also, committee members were scheduled to meet privately today with Ken Rapuano, the White House's deputy assistant to the president for homeland security, to discuss the federal relief efforts.