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“At last count, there were at least 785 criminal cases under investigation by the Hurricane Katrina Task Force, a joint effort of 19 federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Postal Service, the Defense Department and even the Environmental Protection Agency. State prosecutors in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are similarly swamped. And scores more cases wait in the wings. … So far, FEMA and the Red Cross say they have amassed more than $8 million in disaster-aid funds that have been voluntarily returned by recipients. Some repayments have been accompanied by letters professing that they were mistakenly paid or confessing to fraud, while others have been anonymous remittances via money order. A few people have asked to arrange a payment plan for reimbursing the government for benefits they took but weren't entitled to.”
- Scripps Howard News Service, 08/25/06
One year after America’s most destructive natural disaster, appropriators continue to ignore the physical and fiscal realities as families and businesses try to rebuild the Gulf Coast. Of the $20.8 million dollars in pork designated for the home state of Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee member Mary Landrieu (D-La.), $13.5 million, or 65 percent, is for the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, even though it is only used by 4 percent of Louisiana’s commercial traffic. Additionally, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, the waterway’s costs will not be justified until 2046.
- CAGW Pork Alert, 08/25/06
“Many federal relief dollars fail to reach their intended targets. Oxfam's report points out that although $17 billion has been approved by Congress to rebuild homes in Louisiana and Mississippi, not one house has been rebuilt with that money in either state. A report from the Democratic members of the House Small Business Committee found that 80 percent of small businesses on the Gulf Coast have not yet received loans promised by the federal government. The Small Business Administration has approved loans in excess of $10 billion, but only $2 billion has found its way to business owners.”
- AP, 08/22/06
FEMA has implemented new procedures for dispensing emergency cash assistance to disaster victims. The procedures include: Computer background checks for applicants; the requirement that the affected state signs off on the program and agrees to cover 25 percent of the benefit; lowering the limit for immediate; unrestricted assistance from $2,000 to $500; Registration with FEMA before someone is allowed to check into a federally financed hotel room.
The agency also announced a procedure to work with local and state officials to identify available apartments or homes for the displaced, and then offer to pay the rent directly. That would eliminate the need for a financially complicated system like the one ultimately set up in Houston, where the city paid rent for 34,000 families and then sought reimbursement from the federal government.
FEMA also changed its debris removal policy. Local and state governments will be encouraged to arrange debris removal contracts in advance, with FEMA setting up a registry of companies to do the job. The old system sometimes created a financial incentive to turn the work over to the federal government, particularly to the Army Corps of Engineers.
- New York Times, 07/24/06
In an attempt to provide 18 months of free housing to Hurricane Katrina victims, th FEMA has deployed more than 160,000 trailers and mobile homes across the Gulf Coast region. First, some of the victims were issued key sets that could open as many as 50 different trailers, creating a serious security risk in heavily-populated trailer parks. Second, The Sierra Club has detected high levels of formaldehyde in the trailers. The gas is an airborne form of a chemical that is considered a human carcinogen, or cancer-causing substance. Air quality tests of 44 FEMA trailers conducted by the Sierra Club since April have found formaldehyde concentrations as high as 0.34 parts per million a level nearly equal to what a professional embalmer would be exposed to on the job.
- MSNBC, 07/24/06
A Government Accountability Office investigator Gregory D. Kutz told a hearing by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee a report on Homeland Security employers found many abusive and questionable expenses:
-More than 2,000 sets of dog booties, costing $68,442, that have sat unused in storage since emergency responders decided they were not suited for canines assisting in Gulf Coast recovery efforts.
-Three portable shower units for $71,170 from a contractor who investigators said overcharged the government. Customs and Border Protection agents could have gotten similar showers for nearly a third of the price - and faster.
-12 Apple iPod Nanos and 42 iPod Shuffles, priced at $7,000, for Secret Service "training and data storage." Because the Shuffles cost less than $300, the Secret Service said they were not required to track them to ensure they were used properly.
-37 black Helly Hansen designer rain jackets, costing nearly $2,500, for use in a firing range that the Customs and Border Protection purchaser later acknowledged shuts down when it's raining.
-Conference and hotel rooms at a golf and tennis resort at St. Simons Island in Georgia, worth $2,395, for training 32 newly hired attorneys when they could have used a nearby federal law enforcement training center.
-A beer brewing kit and ingredients for more than $1,000 for a Coast Guard official to brew alcohol while on duty as a social organizer for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. "The estimated price for a six-pack of USCG beer was $12," the investigators noted, adding: "Given that the six-pack cost of most beers is far less than $12, it is difficult to demonstrate that the Academy is achieving cost savings by brewing its own beer."
-Investigators also noted that Customs and Border Protection wasted up to $464,586 by buying meals-ready-to-eat over the Internet instead of contracting through the Pentagon, as is standard procedure. And they found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot locate 22 printers and two GPS units worth $170,000, as well as 12 of 20 boats the agency bought for $208,000.”
- AP, 07/19/06
A $10 billion federal program will give up to $150,000 to Gulf Coast residents to repair homes that were destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Katrina. In Louisiana, the grants will go to banks. The Mississippi grants will go directly to homeowners after they agree to guidelines on flood insurance and rebuilding design. “Putting the money in homeowners' hands sparked concerns about fraud from mortgage companies and watchdog groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste. “
- USA Today, 07/19/06
FEMA spent $7.9 million spent to renovate the former Fort McClellan Army base in Anniston, Ala. But when the doors finally opened, only about 10 people showed up each night, leading FEMA to shut down the shelter within one month.
Costing $34,500 each, mobile homes were supposed to provide temporary housing to hurricane victims. “But after Louisiana officials balked at installing them inland, FEMA had no use for them. Nearly half, or about 10,000, of the $860 million worth of units now sit at an airfield in Arkansas, where FEMA is paying $250,000 a month to store them.”
The most recent audit from the GAO estimated that as much as 21 percent of the $6.3 billion given directly to victims might have been improperly distributed.
“One Louisiana Department of Labor clerk, Wayne P. Lawless, has been charged with issuing about 80 fraudulent disaster unemployment benefit cards in exchange for bribes of up to $300 per application. … Two other men, Mitchell Kendrix of Memphis and Paul Nelson of Lisbon, Me., have pleaded guilty in connection with a scheme in Mississippi in which Mr. Kendrix, a representative for the Army Corps of Engineers, took $100 bribes in exchange for approving phantom loads of hurricane debris from Mr. Nelson. In New Orleans, two FEMA officials, Andrew Rose and Loyd Holliman, both of Colorado, have pleaded guilty to taking $20,000 in bribes in exchange for inflating the count on the number of meals a contractor was serving disaster workers. And a councilman in St. Tammany Parish, La., Joseph Impastato, has also been charged with trying to extort $100,000 from a debris removal contractor. …
“Because the Red Cross did not keep track of the hundreds of thousands of recipients — they were only required to provide a ZIP code from the hurricane zone to check in — FEMA frequently sent rental assistance checks to people getting free hotel rooms, the GAO found. In turn, some hotel managers or owners, exploited the lack of oversight and submitted bills for empty rooms or those occupied by paying guests or employees.”
- New York Times, 06/27/06
“FEMA gave about $5.3 million to registrants claiming post office boxes as their damaged residence. One individual claimed a New Orleans cemetery for a damaged property. There were government debit card purchases for diamond jewelry, a Caribbean cruise, professional football tickets, and even services from a Houston divorce lawyer. Other items were a $600 tab at a strip club, $400 for ‘adult erotica products,’ a $200 bottle of champagne at Hooters, $300 worth of ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos, fireworks, and a sex change procedure.”
- CAGW Wastewatcher, 06/2006
Sens. Trent Lott and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) are seeking a $700 million earmark to divert a Mississippi railroad track a few miles to the north. CSX, the owner of the rail line, just paid $300 million to rebuild the tracks after Hurricane Katrina. A company spokesman said of the rebuilt line, “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.” In a move reminiscent of the “Bridges to Nowhere” in Alaska, this has been aptly designated as “The Railroad to Nowhere.””
- CAGW Wastewatcher, 04/2006
Two reports released by the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department’s office of inspector general detail a series of accounting flaws, fraud or mismanagement in their initial review of how $85 billion in federal aid is being spent:
-FEMA bought 26,000 for $900 million only to find its own regulations prohibit using them in flood plains.
-Up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under FEMA’s emergency cash assistance program — which included the $2,000 debit cards given to evacuees — were based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.
-The $2,000 debit cards issued to hurricane evacuees for emergency supplies were often used for purchases unrelated to disaster aid, including: adult entertainment, gambling, a $450 tattoo, a .45-caliber handgun for $1,300 and a diamond engagement ring for $1,100.
-There was little or no verification of the names, addresses or Social Security numbers of applicants registering by phone or the Internet for the $2,000 in aid, resulting in thousands of checks issued to those with duplicate or bogus information.
-Duplicate payments were made to about 5,000 of the nearly 11,000 debit card recipients who received Katrina aid, first with debit cards and then again via electronic bank transfer.
-Although FEMA says it bought 114,341 trailers for $1.7 billion, discrepancies abound in FEMA’s documentation of the number ordered, received and occupied, making it difficult to ascertain the exact units available or whether government-owned property was otherwise accounted for.
-FEMA may have bought too many temporary homes — 24,967 manufactured homes obtained for $857.8 million and 1,295 modular homes at $40 million — resulting in 10,777 such homes sitting empty in Hope, Ark., in sinking mud without proper storage. “It was unclear how the decision was made,” the Homeland Security audit stated.
- MSNBC, 02/13/06
“Even given the scope of the disaster and FEMA’s need to get money to victims quickly, experts say the Government Accountability Office report is damning. The GAO found ‘significant fraud and abuse.’ Investigators studied more than 200 cases, and say in 70 percent of them aid recipients gave bogus Social Security numbers — numbers that belonged to dead people, to someone else or to no one at all. And when investigators checked out addresses given in these cases, about 40 percent were bogus — vacant lots or nonexistent apartments. … The report says FEMA basically did nothing to verify the identity or address of hundreds of thousands of aid recipients. One individual managed to collect 18 emergency payments of $2,000 using the same name, 18 different Social Security numbers and 12 bogus addresses. … GAO also found that FEMA was in such disarray that almost half of those who received a $2,000 debit card got paid a second time.”
- MSNBC, 02/10/06
“Hundreds of available trucks, boats, planes and federal officers were unused in search and rescue efforts immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit because FEMA failed to give them missions, new documents show. Additionally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency called off its search and rescue operations in Louisiana three days after the Aug. 29 storm because of security issues, according to an internal FEMA e-mail. The documents, released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, are further evidence of lapses in FEMA’s response to Katrina. They also detail breakdowns in carrying out the National Response Plan, which was issued a year ago specifically to coordinate response efforts during disasters.”
- Associated Press, 01/29/06
“Mathematical errors contributed to more than $3 million in overcharging by Clearbrook, LLC, a private contractor that provided food and lodging at base camps in Louisiana. FEMA agreed to suspend payment to Clearbrook, as recommended by inspectors. Clearbrook officials have said that the inaccurate bills were tallied by an accounting firm that has since been fired.
Four no-bid contracts to housing and construction companies were authorized without spending limits immediately after Katrina hit. The contracts to Bechtel National Inc., CH2M Hill Constructors, Inc., Fluor Enterprises, Inc., and Shaw Environmental, Inc. were initially estimated to cost up to $100 million each. Investigators have called for negotiating a spending cap and payment schedule with the companies.
The Veterans Affairs Department began work on a $28.4 million temporary housing project for evacuees, even though FEMA had not yet approved the funds. That project should "continue work at its own risk" of not being reimbursed," the inspectors found.
FEMA paid $2.7 million more than aid requested by officials in Jefferson Davis Parish, La. Inspectors said FEMA needed to ensure that better damage estimate procedures were followed. Congress in September approved $62 billion in hurricane relief aid. The review estimated that $57 billion had been spent, allocated or otherwise obligated as of Nov. 30.”
- Associated Press, 01/11/06
“The Next Big Katrina Solution is the Louisiana Recovery Corporation, being pushed by Rep. Richard H. Baker (R-La.), a normally “small government” Republican. The recovery plan would temporarily make the federal government the biggest landowner in New Orleans. Louisiana Recovery Corporation would spend as much as $80 billion to pay off lenders, restore public works, buy huge ruined chunks of the city, clean them up and then sell them back to developers. (similar in general nature to the Resolution Trust Corporation set up by Congress in 1989 to bail out the savings and loan industry). There are signs that Congressional leaders and the White House may be interested in pursuing it. But many fiscal conservatives oppose it: "It is irresponsible for Congress to write a blank check, drawn on the account of American taxpayers, bound only by the imagination of politicians," said Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas. "We need to ensure that taxpayers are not asked again two or three years from now to pay for the same disaster." “
-New York Times, 01/6/06
Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. Federal agencies aiding in the crisis were given the authority to bring their employees’ credit card limits from $15,000 to $250,000. That authority was repealed on October 3, but in the intervening period some federal employees had free reign to purchase any supplies they deemed necessary. Charges from the Federal Emergency Management Agency include $150,000 worth of Jockey underwear, $3,200 for golf carts, and six nail clippers. The Department of Transportation’s expenses totaled more than $400,000, including $5,728 for boots and T-shirts with DOT logos. Charges on government credit cards ultimately get billed to taxpayers. Federal officials admit that little was done to purchase items at volume prices and below cost. More than $215,000 was charged for sleeping bags, golf carts, and underwear at regular store cost. The GAO estimates that the federal government could have shaved at least 10 percent from total credit card charges by leveraging its power to pay lower-than-retail cost.
- CAGW Wastewatcher, 01/2006
“Shortly after the two hurricanes, Gov. Kathleen Blanco decided to renovate some of her staff's offices. At the time of her decision, Blanco also was hinting at deep budget cuts to state programs and the possibility of laying off 20 percent of the state workforce. The project cost: $564,838. The newly refurbished office space on the sixth floor of the State Capitol includes hookups and mounts for two flat screen televisions, Swedish granite countertops, walnut paneling and frosted laminated glass. The floor, which will not be accessible to the public, was redesigned to add three new offices, a conference room and file storage areas.”
-The Advocate, 12/31/05
450 portable classrooms are being installed across Mississippi by the Army Corps of Engineers. Provided by a politically connected Alaskan-owned business under a $40 million no-bid contract, the classrooms cost FEMA nearly $90,000 each, including transportation, according to contracting documents. That is double the wholesale price and nearly 60 percent higher than the price offered by two small Mississippi businesses dropped from the deal. Akima's majority owner is the NANA Regional Corporation. It is represented in Washington by Blank Rome Government Relations, a lobbying firm with close ties to the Bush administration and particularly Tom Ridge, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA's parent agency. NANA's federal contracts have grown rapidly in recent years, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Akima (pronounced AH-kahmah) is a 10-year-old enterprise jointly owned by 14,000 Inupiat and Unangan Native Alaskans. Thanks to a law passed in 1971, it is one of several native-owned businesses eligible for no-bid federal contracts. Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, has long championed contracting rules that have helped enrich Alaskan companies.
-New York Times, 11/11/2005
Louisiana will spend $45 million on sports and livestock facilities and other new projects in spite of a looming deficit, frustrating some officials who say the frivolity reinforces the state's history of political patronage. Supporters of the $4 million Morehouse Parish Equine Center say it will give a much-needed boost to the economy. Jimmy Christmas, center chairman, says it will be used for horse, cow, dog, goat and art shows; rodeos; auctions; crawfish festivals; lawn-mower races; religious functions; an animal shelter; and a community center. The list of projects also includes reservoirs, a cargo airport, sewer systems, an Audubon Institute building, a hospital, a performing-arts center, a cruise-ship terminal, a light-rail line, a gene-therapy research building, a library, an arboretum, and a technology transfer center.
-The Washington Times, 11/7/05
Congress has appropriated $62.3 billion in emergency relief for stricken areas still struggling to meet citizens’ basic needs, with most of the money moving through the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). But agency records from late October show nearly $40 billion still sitting in FEMA’s disaster-relief fund, including $2 billion in unassigned money intended for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
-The Hill, 11/2/05
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) proposed amendments to eliminate pork-barrel projects in the recently-passed highway bill. The first amendment would have revoked funding for two extravagant bridge projects in Alaska: $223 million for the Knik Arm Bridge (renamed Don Young’s Way) and $229 million for a bridge in Gravina referred to as the “Bridge to Nowhere.” The amendment would have redirected $125 million of the savings to hurricane recovery in the Gulf Coast. The second amendment targeted $950,000 for a parking facility for a private museum in Omaha, Nebraska, $500,000 for a sculpture park in Seattle, Washington, and $200,000 for an animal facility in Westerly, Rhode Island. The Senate rejected both amendments to the Transportation, Treasury, HUD, Judiciary, and District of Columbia Appropriations Act (H.R. 3058) by votes of 18 to 82 and 13 to 86.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) reacted hysterically on the Senate floor. With the petulant fist pounding of a five year-old whose candy had been taken away, he threatened to resign from the Senate and declared that “I will be taken out of here on a stretcher” if the amendment passed.
-CAGW press release, 10/26/2005
It was widely reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) greatly overpaid for the use of cruise ships, with Carnival Cruise Lines reaping more than $236 million to house a few thousand storm victims for six months.
-CAGW Wastewatcher article, 10/26/05
Louisiana state health officials received $352 million from the federal government for storm-related expenses. The Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) was “baffled” as to how the federal government arrived at the amount, according to the Capitol News Bureau. The DHH Undersecretary expects only $60 million to be spent. DHH spent only $10 million of the initial funds and gave the rest of the money to the state government.
--CAGW Wastewatcher article, 10/26/05
The Army Corps of Engineers’ effort to repair the roofs on 300,000 homes by the end of October could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Knight Ridder News Service reported that the government is paying contractors an average of $2,480 for less than two hours of work to cover each damaged roof with a blue tarp, which is 10 times what the temporary fix would normally cost. The government is also giving contractors endless supplies of blue sheeting for free. Simon Roofing and Sheet Metal of Youngstown, Ohio was awarded the initial $10 million contract to begin "Operation Blue Roof." Complaints about this deal and others led Congress to provide $15 million for investigations by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.
-CAGW Wastewatcher article, 10/26/05
The Bush administration will reinstate rules requiring that companies awarded federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina pay prevailing wages, usually an amount close to the pay scales in local union contracts. The White House promised to restore the 74-year-old Davis-Bacon prevailing wage protection on Nov. 8, following a meeting between chief of staff Andrew Card and a caucus of pro-labor Republicans. The Act requires private contractors to pay the “prevailing wage” of an area to all employees on federally funded construction projects costing more than $2,000. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that the mandate inflates the cost of applicable government projects by 15 percent and costs taxpayers more than $1 billion annually, not including the added $100 million in administrative costs.
-AP, 10/26/05
The federal government doled out $2,000 checks throughout the Gulf area, many to needy households but more than a few to fraudulent claimants, costing taxpayers millions. With hundreds of thousands forced from homes battered by Hurricane Katrina, the federal government cut red tape to rush $2,000 checks and debit cards to help victims pay for clothes, food, transportation and a place to live. But in three Louisiana parishes, FEMA issued more checks than there are households, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $70 million, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation has found.
-Seattle Times, 10/22/05
In a series of investigative reports, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has documented that the Federal Emergency Management Agency over a five-year period gave more than $330 million nationwide to people who had not experienced disasters. Last year it wasted $31 million on Miami-Dade County residents for relief from a storm that missed the county.
-South Sun-Sentinel, 10/21/05
Trying to track who’s getting what portion of the billions of dollars in federal Hurricane Katrina aid is enough to give any auditor a headache — and is a problem that critics say creates alarming gaps in public oversight. The database of contracts is incomplete. Information released by federal agencies is spotty and sporadic. And disclosure of many no-bid contracts isn’t required by law.
-AP, 10/17/05
FEMA struggled to locate food, ice, water and even body bags in the days following Hurricane Katrina, a frantic effort punctuated by bureaucratic chaos, infighting and concerns about media coverage, according to memos.
-AP, 10/17/05
The government spent nearly $300 million for a private contractor to hire buses, trucks and planes for hurricane relief efforts - apparently with little control or oversight, according to a Transportation Department memo released Monday.
-Associated Press, 10/17/05
The government is spending $347 million on Hurricane Katrina-related contracts that were awarded with little or no competition, despite a public pledge by FEMA's chief to reopen no-bid agreements.
-AP, 10/14/05
On October 4, FEMA announced it was extending the life of its hotel program beyond the initial October 15 deadline. FEMA’s initial plan to house more than 400,000 hurricane victims in trailer homes, cruise ships, and market-rate apartments largely failed. Instead, the displaced flocked from shelters to hotel rooms arranged for by the Red Cross and paid for by the federal government. Major national apartment owner associations criticized FEMA for extending the $8.3 million-per-day program, citing 50,000 vacant apartments in Dallas-Fort Worth alone and 1 million in the southeastern United States at rents ranging from $700 to $1,200 a month. There are currently tens of thousands of available rental units that would offer evacuees the opportunity to more quickly recover from their devastating losses.
-Washington Post, 10/12/05
The federal government is acquiring temporary homes for victims of Hurricane Katrina far faster than it can distribute them, with more than 9,000 campers and mobile homes now sitting empty at staging areas awaiting delivery.
-AP, 10/12/05
Dauphin Island, Alabama is one of the most vulnerable barrier islands in the nation. Since 1979, it has been struck by six hurricanes and has lost nearly 500 expensive vacation homes and rental properties. Yet owners keep building back, trying to elevate their homes out of harm's way. And the island has received more than $21 million in federal flood payments to help spur redevelopment. The National Flood Insurance Program was established by Congress in 1968 to cover property owners who build in flood-prone areas, which are considered too great a risk by private insurers. It followed years of devastating floods and political debate over whether the government should step in to offer insurance. Nearly from its inception, the program has struggled to pay all its claims. It collects $2 billion in annual premiums but has no reserves, heavily subsidizes some of its riskiest customers and relies on the Treasury to bail it out when losses exceed income. Losses this year from Katrina and Hurricane Rita alone could top $10 billion, experts say, forcing the program to borrow billions from taxpayers with no guarantee of repayment.
Some researchers, however, question that assertion and say that FEMA's policies feed a vicious circle: They enable a boom in coastal development that leads to increasingly costly flood insurance payments that in turn fuel even more development. The researchers argue that FEMA and Congress ought to make such programs contingent on communities doing everything possible to lessen risks, including pulling back from the shoreline.
-Washington Post, 10/11/05
CAGW criticized the $250 billion Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act proposed by members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation. The plan costs more than the Louisiana Purchase on an inflation-adjusted basis. The bill includes $40 billion for Army Corps of Engineer projects; many are unrelated to flood protection. CCAGW also called for strict oversight of all contracts awarded for hurricane cleanup and relief. The request for $40 billion is 10 times the Army Corps’ annual budget of $4 billion for the entire nation, or 16 times the amount necessary to protect New Orleans from a category 5 Hurricane. The bill would create a “Pelican Commission” controlled by Louisiana residents that would prioritize projects. According to the Post, the legislation is based on a “working group dominated by lobbyists for ports, shipping firms, energy companies, and other corporate interests.” The bill waves the normal cost-sharing requirements to shift the entire cost to the federal government. The bill suggests funding for potential boondoggles like the New Orleans Industrial Canal and the Port of Iberia, two projects that have flunked the Corps’ cost-benefit analysis. The 440-page bill also includes items such as $8 million for alligator farms and $25 million for a sugar-cane research laboratory which has not yet been completed.
-CAGW press release, September 26
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