WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Bush intends to seek as much as $40 billion to cover the next phase of relief and recovery operations from Hurricane Katrina, congressional officials said Tuesday as leading lawmakers and the White House pledged to investigate an initial federal response widely condemned as woefully inadequate.
One week after the hurricane inflicted devastation of biblical proportions on the Gulf Coast, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the total tab for the federal government may top $150 billion.
Relief and recovery needs will be the "number one priority for the foreseeable future," pledged House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas as Congress convened after a five-week vacation.
Republicans and Democrats alike heaped criticism on the Federal Emergency Management Administration, the government's front-line responder agency for national disasters. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told Bush to his face at the White House that he should fire the agency's director, Michael Brown. "The president thanked me for my suggestion," the California Democrat told reporters afterward.
Stung by earlier criticism, Bush invited congressional leaders to the White House for an afternoon meeting, their first since the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast and left much of New Orleans underwater.
"Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people," the president earlier told reporters after meeting with his Cabinet.
At the Capitol, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she intended to hold an initial hearing of the Governmental Affairs Committee next week into the aftermath of the storm. "It will focus on the way ahead," she said. An investigation into the faults of the recovery effort will be deferred until "after the situation is stabilized and people are no longer in danger."
The unprecedented scope of the destruction swiftly shot to the top of Congress' autumn to-do list.
Majority Bill Frist, R-Tenn. put off planned votes on elimination of the inheritance tax, a GOP priority, and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the need to address hurricane-related difficulties would further postpone action Bush's long-delayed call for overhauling Social Security.
At the same time, Frist, like Bush, made clear Republicans want John Roberts confirmed as the nation's 17th chief justice in time to take his seat before the Oct. 3 opening of the Supreme Court's term. Hearings on Roberts' nomination open next Monday.
Individual lawmakers floated suggestions to ease the burden caused by the storm and ensuing NewOrleans-area flood that left an unknown number of people dead, uncounted thousands of homes and businesses damaged or destroyed and drove hundreds of thousands of Americans from their homes. Many are poor and normally receive welfare. Others are sick and are now cut off from their health care and prescription medication. Still others are school-age and will suddenly find themselves enrolled in classrooms not built to accommodate them.
Individual lawmakers outlined numerous suggestions to help, although it was not clear which of them might reach the floor of the House or Senate as legislation.
Grassley said he favors loan relief for farmers whose grain harvest may not reach market on schedule because of difficulties at the New Orleans port. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, called for relief from Medicaid costs for states that take in victims of the storm. DeLay said legislation would include help for students who have Pell grants, yet can't attend colleges and universities because of the storm. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said he favors tax relief for airlines hardhit by a spike in fuel costs.
The storm disrupted oil drilling and distribution along the Gulf Coast, and the Senate Energy Committee convened a hearing into the rising price of gasoline.
At his meeting with congressional leaders, Bush did not say how much additional money he would seek, and Scott Milburn, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said officials have not yet completed their estimate.
The congressional officials who relayed word of Bush's decision to seek another $40 billion from Congress did so on condition of anonymity because it was not clear when the formal announcement would be made. Reid said he expected a request in the range of $40 billion to $50 billion, and that the administration would make its request within 24 hours.
Congress approved a $10.5 billion first installment in relief funding last week. Another congressional official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Federal Emergency Management Administration, spending about $750 million a day, would soon need additional funds.
In the House, DeLay said the GOP leadership hoped to have legislation on the floor this week dealing with Pell grants, reducing red tape for the newly unemployed and making it easier for FEMA to transfer money to private organizations.
"It is fair to say that the overall response to this emergency could have and should have been better," the Texan told reporters.
Not everyone was as indirect.
Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., criticized FEMA for not assisting non-Red Cross shelters housing thousands of evacuees in his northwest Louisiana district. "There's no excuse not to have people available for these kinds of needs for these poor people who have been displaced from their homes," he said in a telephone interview from Shreveport.
Pelosi's criticism was far sharper.
"The people of the Gulf region were struck by two disasters. First was the hurricane and then the failure of the federal government in time of great need," she said... "The buck stops at the president's desk. The president said he's going to lead the investigation into what went wrong. He needs to look only in the mirror."
Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who lost a home in the storm, said he hoped investigations would not interfere with recovery. Collins said hers would not.
"Governments at all levels failed," the Maine Republican said. "It is difficult to understand the lack of preparedness and the ineffective initial response to a disaster that had been predicted for years, and for which specific, dire warnings had been given for days."
Uncharacteristically, Bush conceded last week that his administration's initial response had been unacceptable. Now, after two trips to the region and other steps designed to show him personally involved, he told reporters he was dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney to the Gulf Coast on Thursday.
AP-WS-09-06-05 1745EDT
