BATON ROUGE, La. -- House Speaker Jim Tucker is proposing that federal hurricane recovery money that remains unused since hurricanes Katrina and Rita be spent on blight remediation and infrastructure repairs in New Orleans.
Congress appropriated $13.4 billion in block grant aid for Louisiana's recovery from the two storms. Tucker estimated Thursday that as much as $1 billion won't be used in the programs for which it's allocated. He wants that money split in half between a blight program and a repair program to help rebuild roads and city infrastructure.
Tucker pitched his idea to the Louisiana Recovery Authority board of directors on Thursday. The board is expected to debate the proposals at its meeting next month.
The LRA doesn't yet have an official estimate of what money is available for reallocation.
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