Obama Administration Urged to Convene Task Force and Take the Lead on Protecting Coastal Louisiana

(Washington, DC - July 24, 2009) - A coalition including Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation today called on the Obama Administration to bring together a task force to speed up efforts to restore coastal wetlands, help communities reduce their exposure to hurricane damage, and resolve critical issues not addressed in the Army Corps of Engineers’ latest plan. 

The groups’ request are part of comments due today on the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration plan (LaCPR). By congressional order, the LaCPR requires the Army Corps of Engineers to put together a plan to protect the communities, infrastructure, and environment of coastal Louisiana. As part of its mandate, the Corps must consider a full range of flood control, coastal restoration and hurricane protection measures.

“As the LaCPR admits, the Corps does not have a plan and program to restore Louisiana’s protective coastal wetlands, nor is it able to provide the tools for people to stormproof their homes. Now it’s time for the White House to get involved, because the job is not getting done and this problem is bigger than any one federal agency,” said Courtney Taylor, a policy analyst and attorney for EDF’s Coastal Louisiana Project. “Given the challenges facing coastal Louisiana and resources the task force can bring together, this group is uniquely qualified to move coastal restoration forward, and finally get the results needed to reverse an economic and environmental mess.”

We recommend that the White House convene the congressionally-mandated Coastal Louisiana Ecosystem Protection and Restoration Task Force, and charge the Council on Environmental Quality with leading the task force. In 2007, Congress said the task force would include Secretaries of the Army, Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, Transportation Energy; the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Coast Guard, Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana; and two representatives of the state of Louisiana selected by the governor.

In addition to calling for the task force to be convened, the coalition called for:

• Congress to appropriate funds for the Corps to complete the comprehensive coastal restoration study
• Federal agencies to study the situation and fill in any gaps still left in LaCPR
• Governments to invest in a non-structural programs like elevating homes and restoring wetlands.                               
• Congress to fund already authorized projects