Louisiana GOP Seeks to Divert $190M in Flood Aid to Protection Project

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House Republican lawmakers are proposing to divert $190 million of Louisiana’s congressional disaster-recovery money to a flood-protection project, a move that would shrink aid earmarked for homeowners struggling to recover after last year’s flooding. The state’s Democratic governor is opposed to the idea.

The House Appropriations Committee added language to next year’s budget proposal to shift the dollars to the Comite River Diversion Canal. The years-old, long-delayed project is aimed at lessening flood risks in parts of East Baton Rouge and Livingston parishes.

Rep. Valarie Hodges, a Denham Springs Republican whose home flooded in the August 2016 deluge, proposed taking the money from $1.6 billion in federal block grant aid allocated to Louisiana for recovery from separate floods across the state in March and August of last year.

“We’ve been working on this project for 17 years, and I think this is the best opportunity we have to get it done,” Hodges said.

The committee agreed in a 14-6 vote on House Bill 1 , with Democrats opposed. For the money to be shifted, the proposal would need approval from the full House and Senate, along with federal officials who oversee the disaster-recovery spending.

Even if the full Legislature agrees to Hodges’ proposal, it’s unclear if the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — which already has approved Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration’s plan to spend the $1.6 billion in disaster aid — would agree to divert the dollars to the flood project.

The Edwards administration objects to taking the money from homeowners, saying it could mean 3,500 to 4,000 fewer homes are rehabilitated with the money from Congress. The administration says the river-diversion canal should be funded separately.

“To take these funds from homeowners who have been waiting for help and reallocate them to a project that should be funded from the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers from a separate pot of money is problematic,” Richard Carbo, the Democratic governor’s spokesman said in a statement. “Our goal was and is to get families back into their homes, and this amendment is not in keeping with that effort.”

Edwards intends to spend nearly all the federal block grant assistance Louisiana has received on homeowner aid. About 36,000 homeowners are expected to receive rebuilding assistance, only a fraction of the 112,000 homes estimated to have been damaged by the floods.

The governor and Louisiana’s congressional delegation have been seeking additional dollars from Congress for homeowner rebuilding — and for the Comite River Diversion Canal.

The flood-control project involves constructing a 12-mile diversion channel that would siphon high water from the Comite River and send it to the Mississippi River, to reduce flooding in areas near the Comite River.

Hodges said if the channel had existed during the August flooding in south Louisiana, many homes and businesses would have been spared damage. But funding has been the repeated stumbling block to construction.