WRDA Veto Will Not Stand (Rep. Charles Melancon)

Once again, the President is showing he’s unwilling to compromise with Congress for the best interests of Americans.  Today, the President decided today that the value of the vital needs authorized by this WRDA bill – including over $3 billion in critical hurricane protection and coastal restoration projects for south Louisiana – did not outweigh the portions of the bill he disapproved of.  My fellow Louisianians and I are extremely disappointed in his decision.

Every day WRDA is delayed is another day that 120,000 Louisianians in Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes remain unprotected from storms because we haven’t broken ground on the long-delayed Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane protection system.  Every year that we don’t pass a WRDA bill is another year that Louisiana’s coastal wetlands wash away even further because we haven’t begun work on the comprehensive coastal restoration plan being developed by the state and the Corps.  And every hurricane season that goes by without WRDA becoming law is another season that the citizens of St. Bernard and New Orleans remain more vulnerable to deadly storm surges because the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet – dubbed the “hurricane superhighway