Positive Universe Abstracts

COMMON CAUSE: Hold Washington Accountable for Hurricane Relief! (h)

(My note, there are plenty of other ways along with $ contributions–write about this–disseminate–discuss! Include making The American Red Cross Accountable Publically in the light of so many who said they never saw them in New Orleans! Connie)

As flood waters from Katrina and Rita finally start to recede, some of the most greedy and powerful Washington lobbyists are gearing up for action in Congress to line their pockets.

Just last week, the $250 billion Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Recovery Act was introduced, and a number of well connected Washington insiders quietly cheered because they stand to make a mint for themselves and their clients on questionable “hurricane relief” projects.1

We need your support today to keep the pressure on Congress and the Administration to steer clear of pork-barrel spending in the name of hurricane relief, and to stay focused on the task of repairing the Guld region and preparing for the next disaster. If we can raise $45,000 in the next three weeks we will be able to expand our “Eye on the Gulf” campaign even further. Please go to the following link and contribute to our campaign:

www.commoncause.org/SupportEyeontheGulf

We are outraged that Washington insiders are using Hurricane Katrina to fund their special projects. This week we will be sending our own lobbyists up to the Senate Finance Committee to object to a number of provisions in the bill. And we will be publicly shaming lawmakers who engage in this type of opportunism.

This work is part of our “Eye on the Gulf,” campaign. Just last week we called on the President and Congress to create an independent commission to investigate the government’s responses to the deadly hurricane.2 So far more than 10,000 activists around the nation have joined our call for an independent, nonpartisan commission.

We hope we can count on your support and contributions, so that we can meet our goal of raising $45,000 in the next three weeks to support our campaign to monitor and report on the actions of government at all levels concerning hurricane relief in the devastated Gulf States:

www.commoncause.org/SupportEyeontheGulf

Specifically, during the coming weeks we will be monitoring the response to Katrina on a number of fronts and blowing the whistle on inaction and self-dealing. Some of our research and advocacy projects will include:

Cashing in on Katrina: We will take a close look into how the government is making sure it is properly accounting for the billions of dollars worth of reconstruction contracts it is disseminating in the Gulf States. So far, the government has awarded a number of large reconstruction contracts, with little or no competition, to the same politically-connected companies like Halliburton that won no-bid contracts for reconstruction work in Iraq.

The communications breakdown : We are going to press Congress to take up pending legislation designed to provide emergency first-responders with the radio spectrum, equipment and funding necessary to communicate during a crisis, which would have mitigated the predictable and preventable communications breakdown in the Gulf States.

Elections in the face of disaster: Already local elections in Louisiana that were scheduled for October have been cancelled. We are going to zero in on all election-related issues in Louisiana and other Gulf States to make sure that our lawmakers in and out of Washington do not forget about the millions of voters who were displaced because of this tragedy, and who may have a difficult time maintaining their right to vote.3
We need your support today so that we can have the resources we need to raise awareness of government’s actions in awarding reconstruction contracts, building communications infrastructure, and handling election related issues impacting millions of displaced voters in Gulf States. As a Common Cause activist you understand how important it is to be the watchdog on citizens’ behalf during the ongoing national discourse on the horrible tragedy in the Gulf States. We need your help in getting the truth out front and center so that we can hold the actions of our government accountable to the people it is supposed to represent. Please contribute to our collective quest of preserving the true essence of our democracy:

www.commoncause.org/SupportEyeontheGulf

While we will be working hard to disseminate facts on Katrina via both the mainstream and cutting edge media through press releases, special reports, blog posts, and our special web page focused on this campaign, we will need your help. It is your generous contributions that enable us to continue to speak the truth about Katrina and other important issues. So, please contribute to our campaign today, and help us meet our goal of raising $45,000 in the next three weeks to boost our campaign on Katrina:

www.commoncause.org/SupportEyeontheGulf

Thank you again for all you do for Common Cause.

Sincerely,

Chellie Pingree President & CEO, Common Cause

1http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501413.html

2http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=395891&content_id={C45E4F29-A0CA-493C-B82C-9ECFC3EE0FCA}&notoc=1

3http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=810365&content_id={95D40618-C8F6-4FE3-B745-843387220B62}&notoc=1

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 at 11:10 am and is filed under Article Abstracts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.