In this story from today’s Bee, it is heartening to see the governor exerting pressure, and exhibiting leadership, around flood issues at the national level, as their resolution does ultimately lie there.
While state and local government can help with ongoing levee maintenance, the larger flood control projects, particularly dams, require federal help.
Here is an excerpt.
Bush facing levee pressure
Governor rips funding, plans to discuss it Friday with president.
By Andy Furillo -- Bee Capitol Bureau Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 20, 2006
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday "it is inexcusable" that the federal government has not responded to his emergency request to help fix California's flood-threatened levee system and that he intends to press President Bush on the issue when the two meet on Friday.
A federal failure to act on California's levees, Schwarzenegger suggested, could leave the federal government taking blame for another New Orleans-style flood disaster that is lurking just over the levee walls from Sacramento and other vulnerable Central Valley communities.
Schwarzenegger said Bush's acting secretary of the Interior, Lynn Scarlett, is "dangerously misinformed" if she believes, as reported in one press account, that the federal government is already adequately funding state levee upgrades.
The governor's comments came at a news conference two days before he is set to meet with Bush during the president's weekend visit to California, a trip that will include stops in West Sacramento on Saturday and Southern California on Sunday.
"I'm looking forward to meeting with the president on Friday," Schwarzenegger said. "It's extremely important to let the federal government, let the White House know, let the president know, how important it is for us to get help from them for our levees, because our levees are very vulnerable."
Schwarzenegger added that he thinks it is "irresponsible (for) the federal government, and I think it is dangerously misinformed, I would say ... when they come out here and they say we don't need federal help. It's inexcusable, and I think that is the message I want to get across to (Bush)."
White House press officials forwarded a request for a response to Schwarzenegger's statements to the Department of Homeland Security, whose spokesman, Russ Knocke, noted that the agency's secretary, Michael Chertoff, last month conducted an aerial tour of the state's levee system with the California governor.
"It was a fact-finding mission for the secretary," Knocke said. "He had a very important dialogue with the governor and with California officials. This is a very complex issue and one we continue to look into."
