Gulf Watch

March 15, 2007 - It's become a familiar theme in the ongoing Hurricane Katrina saga: Businesses with close Bush administration ties get key contracts, only to flub the job they were paid handsomely to do.

March 14, 2007 - For most people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, federal relief aid came in a slow trickle. But not for defense contractor Northrup Grumman: just over two months after the storm, Grumman received over $2.7 billion from the Navy and FEMA to rebuild Naval shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

March 5, 2007 - Humans have no more than a decade left to act before the ongoing loss of Louisiana's coastline becomes irreversible.

March 5, 2007 - Most of the controversy from last week's Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference has centered around Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot" (although many news accounts failed to mention it -- I guess gay-bashing isn't news?).

March 2, 2007 - As we show in our new report, A New Agenda for the Gulf (pdf), the single biggest issue holding back the post-Katrina recovery is lack of bold leadership in Washington. Given the scope of the problem, only thoughtful and effective action by Congress and the White House can turn things around.

March 2, 2007 - President Bush is touring the Gulf Coast and media coverage of his visit and the 18-month anniversary of Katrina has been generally done a good job at revealing the ongoing problems in the region. For example, a piece by Reuters yesterday contrasts Bush's sense of "hope" with the realities on the ground:

March 1, 2007 - Neighborhoods around New Orleans and elsewhere across Louisiana -- many in predominantly minority communities -- are facing toxic threats from dumpsites that have cropped up or expanded in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.