WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Friday that Gulf Coast residents still struggling to rebuild three years after Hurricane Katrina “have not always received the support they deserve” from Washington.

He announced he was extending the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding, a position created by former President George W. Bush that was set to expire at the end of this month. Obama extended it through the rest of the current fiscal year, which goes to the end of September. Acting coordinator Paul Conway, a holdover from the Bush administration, will remain in the position until Obama chooses a replacement to head the office.

The president also is dispatching two Cabinet secretaries to visit New Orleans and other storm-ravaged parts of the Gulf Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan will tour the region March 5-6.

Obama promised a stepped-up and sustained commitment to the region.

“The residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast who are helping rebuild are heroes who believe in their communities and they are succeeding despite the fact that they have not always received the support they deserve from the federal government,” he said in a statement. “We must ensure that the failures of the past are never repeated.”

Obama’s words amounted to sharp though indirect criticism of Bush’s oversight of the Katrina recovery. Bush was widely panned for his immediate response to the massive August 2005 storm that ripped through New Orleans and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. But Bush also has been the subject of intense criticism, though less high-profile, from those who said he never committed enough money or effort to rebuilding, and eventually appeared to lose interest in it altogether.

Katrina was blamed for more than 1,600 deaths and $41 billion in property damage.

The federal government has devoted more than $175 billion to the region since Katrina. It’s unclear how much more money will be needed to fix the leftover damage. But nearly everyone agrees the federal government should continue investing heavily to significantly strengthen the region’s levees and make other flood control improvements to prevent a repeat of Katrina’s devastation.

Bush argued that additional reconstruction money wasn’t necessary, because billions of those federal dollars remain unspent – bogged down in bureaucracy or tied up in long-range planning.

The same reasons were given for not including Katrina money in the recent economic stimulus package.

WASHINGTON — With President Barack Obama urged by some to reinstate the Federal Emergency Management Agency to separate cabinet-level status, a new federal report argues that such a move would hurt the nation’s homeland security “apparatus.”

The debate over FEMA’s fate comes amid reports that Florida’s disaster management chief Craig Fugate is one of the leading candidates to head the much-criticized federal agency.

The White House wasn’t commenting Wednesday on Fugate’s chances or what, exactly, Obama intends to do with the disaster-relief agency that was absorbed into the huge 22-agency Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

During his campaign for president last year, Obama repeatedly criticized FEMA’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and seemed to indicate he would reorganize FEMA into a free-standing agency.

“The director of FEMA will report to me,” Obama declared in a campaign speech in New Orleans.
But in his report this week, the Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner argues that taking FEMA out of the department would cause “considerable upheaval, to both FEMA and the department.”
Skinner’s “white paper” also argues that FEMA benefits from shared resources with other department agencies such as intelligence gathering, communications and search and rescue capabilities..

Asked Wednesday about Skinner’s report, White House spokeswoman Gannet Tseggai said it “will be considered as the Administration continues to evaluate what is and is not working in our federal emergency response system.”

Florida Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Palm Harbor, the top Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security subcommittee on management, investigations, and oversight, said Wednesday he agrees with Skinner that FEMA should stay put.

“Taking FEMA out of DHS could do more harm than good by restricting its resources and bringing back the bureaucratic barriers that impede coordination and sharing of information necessary for effective responses to manmade and natural disasters,” Bilirakis said.

Congratulations, Mr. President-elect. Take a moment to relax and savor your victory – but not too long. There already are plenty of pressing matters piling up in your in-box:
 
ECONOMY: This is problem No. 1. The nation is in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. Unemployment now stands at 6.1 percent, and economists predict it could go as high as 7.5 percent in 2009. Consumers are pessimistic about the future and cutting back on borrowing and spending, the lifeblood of America’s economy. A painful recession is looming and in many parts of the country it already has landed with a sickening thud.

The good news? Congress has come up with $700 billion to bail out the sinking financial system by buying toxic mortgages. The bad news? Everybody wants some of the money and the program is rapidly changing to dole out money in unexpected directions. Shifting gears, the government decided to buy stakes in banks. Automakers and the insurance industry are clamoring for help. Others are, too. Many Democrats want Congress to pass another economic stimulus bill. Americans already have lost trillions of dollars in investments, savings and college accounts. What’s your move?

ENERGY: You’ve promised to move quickly to deal with the country’s energy problems and reduce U.S. dependence on Persian Gulf oil. But oil prices have plummeted and the political will to act may be waning as well. Getting agreement from Congress, where Democrats and Republicans have long-standing differences on the best approach, won’t be easy.
  
There are sharp divisions over offshore oil drilling and precious little federal money available to help develop alternative energy sources such as wind and solar. Increasing use of nuclear power would require finding a way to deal with nuclear waste, a politically volatile issue. You’ve said the government needs to act quickly to address climate change; the hard part will be working out the details with Congress for a plan to cap carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions.

FOREIGN POLICY: Iraq and Afghanistan may get most of the attention, but there are a host of other pressing foreign policy issues. At the top of your agenda is Iran’s nuclear program. While Iran denies trying to build a bomb, most experts say that’s the goal and your pressing task is to choose an option to stop Iran. Diplomacy with economic and political concessions remains the preferred approach. But there is the issue of whether to threaten Iran, either implicitly or explicitly.

U.S. policy on Pakistan needs retooling. Generous aid and warm embraces have not eliminated Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders thought to be hiding in frontier regions. U.S. decisions are pending on whether to expand U.S. attacks in those areas and whether to support the government as it moves ahead on reconciliation with some militants.

Russia, once on a promising path to democracy, has retreated somewhat. Apart from domestic crackdowns on the press and other hardline tactics, Russia has taken steps to revive its influence in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics and is in a tense standoff with Georgia on the future of two breakaway provinces. The question is whether a way can be found to restrain Russia while retaining its vital support on Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear programs.

Pyongyang has reached a tentative agreement to get rid of its nuclear weapons and capabilities in return for economic and political concessions from Asia and the West. However, it continues to zigzag on tough terms for outside inspections. A careful eye must be kept on whether North Korea backtracks on its commitments, obtained with promises of economic assistance.

In the Middle East, a pause is in order while Israel sorts out formation of a new government. But even before that is accomplished, decisions are needed on how much to intervene in the Arab-Israeli dispute, including whether to appoint a special U.S. mediator, and whether to outline a U.S. framework for a settlement with the Palestinians.

GLOBAL FINANCES: World leaders will meet Nov. 15 in Washington to address the global financial crisis – the first in a series of summits to address what could be a long and deep economic downturn. The first meeting will focus on the underlying causes of the crisis and the principles that should guide any reforms. President Bush will play host for the meeting, but the White House is promising to seek input from the president-elect.

GUANTANAMO BAY: There are about 250 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The current defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff both want to see the detention center shut down, and it was a rare area of agreement on the presidential campaign trail, too. The hard part will be making it happen. Where to send the prisoners? How to try them? And how to shut down the Gitmo center itself?
 
HEALTH CARE: 45 million Americans don’t have health insurance, and expectations that coverage can be broadly expanded were stoked by both sides in the presidential campaign. Now comes the time to act. But history has shown that interest groups and patients become more wary of overhauling the system once they learn the details and potential trade-offs of a specific proposal. And the financial crisis made significant changes even more unlikely because any proposal will be costly.
  
HOME FORECLOSURES: Each day from July through September, more than 2,700 Americans lost their homes in foreclosure. That number, up from 1,200 a day a year ago, is a sign that the mortgage industry and government programs have done little to help troubled homeowners. The mortgage market’s troubles have proved to be far more serious and intractable than most in government or the private sector had predicted a year ago. All eyes are on Washington to see if the government can craft a fix.

INTERROGATION: The war on terrorism continues, and that means more prisoners and more interrogations. The military has its own set of rules restricting how interrogations can be carried out. But what rules should govern CIA interrogations? Will waterboarding be on the list? The technique – which critics liken to torture – remains an option for the agency, according to its chief, but has not been exercised since 2003.

IMMIGRATION: Now that the voting’s over, pressure to revisit immigration reform will build quickly from Latino supporters, immigration groups and some business interests. Larger Democratic majorities could help to move a bill through Congress, but those majorities will be built, in part, with Democrats from conservative districts who are wary of going too far. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said Democrats may have to give up some of their priorities in immigration reform to get an agreement, such as giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

KATRINA FAMILIES: By March 1, you will need to find homes for as many as 11,600 families who were displaced after the 2005 hurricanes. Temporary housing for these families expires at the end of February.

MEDICARE/MEDICAID: Both of these government programs face huge financial problems. The expense of delivering promised benefits under Medicare, the giant health care program for older Americans, is expected to rise much more quickly than tax revenue. And Medicaid’s growing strain on federal and state budgets is unlikely to abate over the coming decade as the cost of providing health care to the poor is expected to increase by 7.9 percent annually.

SOCIAL SECURITY: The venerable retirement security needs a fix. Currently, 34 million retirees and their dependents receive monthly benefit checks, as do 6 million survivors of deceased workers and 9 million disabled workers and their dependents. Government experts project the Social Security trust funds will begin paying out more than they collect in payroll taxes in 2017, and be exhausted in 2041.

TERRORISM: The threat of terrorism is an ongoing reality in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Government planners worry about a window of vulnerability in the first days and months of a new presidency. Adversaries may try to take advantage of the shift in administrations, and the president-elect must be prepared for an early test. There are countless details that come with facing the threat of terrorism. For one, the government must find a way for America’s police officers and fire fighters to talk to each other during disasters. It’s been more than seven years since the 9-11 attacks, and this problem has not been resolved.

TRANSITION: You have 77 days to put together a government. This is the first wartime presidential transition in 40 years, and the first in the age of terrorism anxieties that became a reality after the 9-11 attacks. By one count, there are 7,840 presidential appointee jobs to be filled, including 1,177 requiring Senate confirmation. Some recommended deadlines: Try to choose your Cabinet members by Christmas, and have them briefed and ready for confirmation hearings by about Jan. 10. Try to have 100 appointees in place by April 1 and 400 by August. Those are worthy, but ambitious goals: No president has been able to complete confirmation for more than about 25 Cabinet and sub-Cabinet appointees by April 1, or more than about 240 by its eighth month.
 
WAR: The United States is fighting two wars at once. There are 152,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 32,000 in Afghanistan, where violence has escalated and American casualties are running higher than in Iraq. An immediate challenge: the U.N. resolution that governs the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq expires at the end of the year. The U.S. military has advised Iraqi authorities that it will have to shut down security and service operations in Iraq if the year ends without a security agreement or a renewed U.N. mandate for American forces. Then come the larger questions of when and how to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq, and how many more troops to send to Afghanistan.