NEW ORLEANS (AP) _ Louisiana would have to pay about a billion dollars less than first feared under a White House funding scheme for proposed levee and pump work in southeast Louisiana, the state’s congressional delegation said Wednesday.
State officials had feared that the White House would ask Louisiana to come up with as much as $2.7 billion out of a proposed $7.6 billion for flood defenses around New Orleans.
Now, though, the White House and Donald Powell, President Bush’s Gulf Coast recovery czar, are considering asking the state to pay about $1.7 billion, officials said.
On Aug. 22, Powell announced that it would take about $7.6 billion more to finish upgrading levees and complete overdue flood protection work.
Congress must still approve the new request, which would be added to about $7 billion already approved for levee, flood wall and pump work since Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans and damaged hundreds of miles of levee.
The $7.6 billion in new work would be a potpourri of old and new projects, many that were started before Katrina and others that only became priorities after the storm.
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