Cameron whitewashes Barbour's record on Katrina

During the June 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, chief political correspondent Carl Cameron stated that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) is a potential presidential candidate in 2012 and is "one of the few politicians to emerge from the Katrina disaster with a reputation for competence and effectiveness in crisis." However, according to reports, Barbour, leading the recovery effort in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, repeatedly sought and obtained waivers from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) allowing the state to redirect funds designated for low-income Katrina victims.

An April 25, 2006, Congressional Research Service report noted that "Congress included $11.5 billion in supplemental CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] disaster recovery assistance" for the five states affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes in the Defense Appropriations Act for FY2006. The CRS also noted that the CDBG "program's authorizing statute requires each state and entitlement community to allocate 70% of its CDBG funds to activities that primarily benefit low- and moderate-income persons," but that the Defense Appropriations Act "lower[ed] the income targeting requirement for activities benefiting low- and moderate-income persons from 70% to 50% of the state's allocation." According to the report, the act also allowed HUD to "grant waivers of program requirements" -- including the already reduced requirement that 50 percent of CDBG funds go to low- to moderate-income people.

After Congress passed the supplemental appropriations bill, Mississippi sought and obtained waivers to the 50 percent CDBG requirement, according to reports. According to a March 9, 2007, memo from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Mississippi sought and failed to obtain a blanket waiver for the requirement but instead obtained "piecemeal" waivers from HUD going back to June 2006, at the request of Barbour. According to a May 21 (Jackson, Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger article, an attorney for the Mississippi Center for Justice stated that Congress "intended for states to use 50 percent of the funding to help low- and moderate-income families, but the state sought waivers for the requirement and spent only 21 percent on housing for those families." The Clarion-Ledger also reported that "Mississippi officials dispute the figure, saying it's closer to 73 percent, including funding for such programs as wastewater treatment." The article also reported that Barbour has requested additional housing subsidies for low-income hurricane victims.

The New York Times reported on November 16, 2007, that Mississippi was the only state that had requested waivers to the 50 percent rule; that it had "spent $1.7 billion in federal money on programs that have mostly benefited relatively affluent residents and big businesses"; and that "[j]ust $167 million, or about 10 percent of the federal money, has been spent on programs dedicated to helping the poor":

Like the other Gulf Coast states battered by Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi was required by Congress to spend half of its billions in federal grant money to help low-income citizens trying to recover from the storm.

But so far, the state has spent $1.7 billion in federal money on programs that have mostly benefited relatively affluent residents and big businesses. The money has gone to compensate many middle- and upper-income homeowners, to aid utility companies whose equipment was damaged and to prop up the state's insurance system.

Just $167 million, or about 10 percent of the federal money, has been spent on programs dedicated to helping the poor, mostly through a smaller grant program for lower-income homeowners.

And while that total will certainly increase, Mississippi has set aside just 23 percent of its $5.5 billion grant money -- $1.25 billion -- for these programs. About 37 percent of the residents of the state's coast are low income, according to federal figures.

Mississippi is the only state for which the Bush administration has waived the rule that 50 percent of its Community Development Block Grants be spent on low-income programs, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which administers the program. It is also the only state to ask for such waivers.

Moreover, on December 11, 2008, The Washington Post reported on a lawsuit "to stop the distribution of nearly $600 million in Hurricane Katrina relief aid to expand the Port of Gulfport, as sought by Gov. Haley Barbour," which then-HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said would "divert emergency federal funding from other more pressing recovery needs, most notably affordable housing":

Mississippi civil rights and housing groups sued the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development yesterday to stop the distribution of nearly $600 million in Hurricane Katrina relief aid to expand the Port of Gulfport, as sought by Gov. Haley Barbour (R).

Filed in federal court in the District, the lawsuit alleges that the money is part of $5.5 billion approved by Congress for Mississippi after the August 2005 storm -- emergency relief that was supposed to pay largely for affordable housing. But HUD granted waivers allowing the state to use 21 percent of the money for low-income housing, instead of 50 percent as required for Katrina aid channeled through the Community Development Block Grant program, plaintiffs charged.

[...]

In a January letter to Barbour, then-HUD Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson wrote that he shared concerns that the port expansion "does indeed divert emergency federal funding from other more pressing recovery needs, most notably affordable housing."

Congress, however, "allows me little discretion," Jackson wrote. He approved the funding shift before resigning in April.

Barbour's office released a statement saying the port project is part of the state's recovery program that was vetted by Congress. "It's always been in the plan," Barbour said. "Restoration of the Port of Gulfport is critical to recovery of the Gulf Coast from the worst natural disaster in American history."

A June 2 Associated Press article reported that, according to the plaintiffs' attorney, a federal judge will likely hold a hearing on HUD's motion to dismiss the lawsuit this summer.

From the June 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier:

CAMERON: With Republican would-be candidates seemingly sort of dying on the vine, however, there is no shortage of hopefuls coming to the Granite State.

[begin video clip]

CAMERON: It's a White House hopeful two-step to the two leadoff presidential voting states. Mississippi's governor, Haley Barbour, visited New Hampshire, home of 2012's first presidential primary, to raise money for Granite State Republicans. Tomorrow he'll go to Iowa, home of the leadoff caucuses.

Like all early water-testers, the former chairman of the National Republican Party plays coy, lest he draw too much attention too early.

BARBOUR: You never say never. I have no plan to run for president. I don't have any intention to run for president. But I do have an intention of trying to [unintelligible] Republican governors as I can between now and the end of 2010. I'm going to take a deep breath and see where we are.

CAMERON: As Mississippi's governor, he's one of the few politicians to emerge from the Katrina disaster with a reputation for competence and effectiveness in crisis. A strong social and fiscal conservative, he campaigned for gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell in Virginia recently and says the GOP must broaden its appeal.

BARBOUR: The mathematics of politics is not about subtraction and division, it's about addition and multiplication. And that's what we need as a party to be doing. Not looking for the purer, but finding the people that agree with us on most things.

[end video clip]

CAMERON: And though he says he still hasn't made up his mind about running for president, as you heard there, he'll think about it after the midterms of 2010.