"Will ensure that New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, with the ultimate goal of protecting the entire city from a Category 5 storm."

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"Will also direct revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling to increased coastal hurricane protection."

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"Will finish rebuilding the region's criminal justice system so that we do not have to rely on the National Guard to patrol city streets..Will establish a special "COPS for Katrina" program to allow communities impacted by the storm to hire and retain new officers and community prosecutors, develop community-based crime fighting strategies, and rebuild their lost infrastructure... Will strengthen Drug Enforcement Administration efforts to stop the reestablishment of drug gangs across the region...Will help local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies come together to establish an integrated regional crime control partnership so that each police chief and sheriff doesn't have to face these crime problems alone."

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"Will ensure resources reach the communities that need it...Will streamline the application process so that communities feel that FEMA is a partner in reconstruction, not an opponent. They
will elevate the federal rebuilding coordinator so that he or she reports directly to the president and so that rebuilding remains a national priority...Will work closely with the state to distribute critical infrastructure dollars. They also will ensure that no unnecessary red-tape or burdensome regulations are holding up state and local plans, while retaining the need for public accountability."

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"Will rebuild broken facilities and provide incentives, such as loan forgiveness, to lure medical professionals back to the region. They will fight to establish a major medical complex in downtown New Orleans that will serve the entire community. They will also push to quickly build a new, state-of-the-art Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in New Orleans so that the city's veterans can get top-quality care."

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"Will help communities in the Gulf make necessary school infrastructure investments so all kids from all backgrounds have safe and supportive environments to learn."

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"Will work with the state to establish a goal for approving all Road Home applications within two months...Will also work to increase the supply of rental property, which is particularly important in New Orleans where 57 percent of pre-Katrina residents were renters."

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"Will help the New Orleans area develop regional transit partnerships so that public transit can be integrated across parish lines, providing seamless transportation options, including a possible light rail line to connect New Orleans and Baton Rouge through the petrochemical corridor in between."

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"Will fight to ensure more Katrina-related recovery or reconstruction activities can be done by local residents. These measures would ensure that Gulf Coast residents, and not big corporations, will rebuild their communities...Will work to improve job training in the area as well."

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"Will target tax incentives to lure businesses to the hardest hit areas of the Gulf Coast including downtown New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish."

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Will reverse a recent policy change by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regarding insurance requirements that local governments and nonprofits must meet to be eligible for public assistance in times of disaster. "Under the new rules, entities would be ineligible to receive help from FEMA to pay an insurance deductible if FEMA has helped them before. This will have a negative impact on governments and nonprofits across the Gulf Coast that have been hit by hurricanes and disasters over the years."

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"Will professionalize and depoliticize the appointment of FEMA's director. Like the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FEMA Director will have a fixed term of office to insulate him or her from politics. The FEMA Director will report directly to President Obama, serve a six-year term and will have professional emergency management experience."

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"Will fix the Small Business Administration (SBA) bureaucracy so that it can step in during a disaster and provide assistance." The SBA was quickly overwhelmed with applications following Katrina.

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"Will dramatically improve disaster planning..Will work with emergency management officials, emergency responders and other experts from all 50 states to create a real National Response Plan that provides for real cooperation between states, locals and the federal government in the face of a disaster. Obama's FEMA will provide real training to emergency responders and professionals in states and localities to ensure that all areas of the country have the human resources necessary to respond to disasters."

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"Immediately following a catastrophe, Barack Obama will appoint a Federal Coordinating Officer to direct reconstruction efforts. The job of the FCO and his or her staff will be to cut through bureaucratic obstacles, get federal agencies to work together and to coordinate efforts with local officials. Obama and Biden will ensure bipartisan staffing to ensure that politics do not override the real needs of the recovering community."

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"Will appoint a Chief Financial Officer to oversee the rebuilding following national disasters to minimize waste and abuse."

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"Will create a National Catastrophe Insurance Reserve that would be funded by private insurers contributing a portion of the premiums they collect from policyholders. Such a framework would neither distort the insurance market nor discourage risk avoidance and risk mitigation investments because insurers would not be forced out of high-risk markets for fear of bankruptcy in the event of a disaster. With this program in place, disaster victims would no longer have to depend solely on taxpayerfunded federal disaster aid loans."

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