Katrina Health Care Bill Blocked

Gulf Coast Governors Pressing For Action, Finger-Pointing Continues

(CBS/AP) 
The joint appearance of government auditors comes amid a flurry of legislation pending in Congress that would create additional layers of oversight to the Katrina contracting and award process.

It also comes amid growing charges of favoritism that critics say led to government missteps in the wake of the Katrina disaster.

In a House hearing Tuesday, both Republicans and Democrats assailed Brown, who critics say lacked proper experience for the job, for his performance in handling emergency aid. Brown admitted making some mistakes but placed the brunt of the blame on the Louisiana governor, the New Orleans mayor and even the Bush White House that appointed him.

"I'm happy you left," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. "Because that kind of, you know, look in the lights like a deer tells me that you weren't capable to do the job."

"You get an F-minus in my book," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss.

Blanco on Tuesday had vehemently denied that she waited until the eve of the storm to order an evacuation of New Orleans. She said her order came on the morning of Aug. 27 — two days before the storm — resulting in 1.3 million people evacuating the city.

"Such falsehoods and misleading statements, made under oath before Congress, are shocking," Blanco said in a statement Tuesday.

Brown acknowledged making mistakes during the storm and subsequent flooding that devastated the Gulf Coast. But he accused New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Blanco, both Democrats, of fostering chaos and failing to order a mandatory evacuation more than a day before Katrina hit.

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Brown told a special panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe.

"He said that he asked for the money, but he wasn't given the money to deal with it," Shays said Wednesday on CBS News' The Early Show. "He also said that the department was eviscerated in the last three years, and he spoke up privately about it but never publicly made it an issue."

Asked about Brown's claim that his agency's funding had been cut and that state and local officials were to blame for many response failures, White House spokesman Scott McClellan Wednesday said, "Washington tends to get caught up on bickering and finger-pointing. The president is focused on problem-solving."

Lawmakers were turning their attention to the lucrative Katrina contracts.

In the weeks after the Aug. 29 storm, more than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts awarded by FEMA for Katrina work were handed out with little or no competition or had open-ended or vague terms that previous audits have cited as being highly prone to abuse.