(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sen. David Vitter applauded today’s U.S. Senate passage of the hurricane emergency supplemental bill, which included many top Louisiana hurricane priorities.

            “We scored a major victory in terms of hurricane protection today. The Senate passed the latest hurricane relief bill, which is extremely important to jumpstarting our recovery and pushing it along,” said Vitter.

            The Senate’s hurricane emergency supplemental includes key provisions for Louisiana. First, the relief bill contains $4.2 billion for homeowner relief and housing-related infrastructure in Louisiana. This additional money builds a total pool of $12.1 billion for needs in Louisiana only.

            The bill also includes funds for emergency levee and hurricane protection work. The Senate increased the amount of levee money originally in this bill by more than $2 billion, bringing the total up to about $3.9 billion.

            “This $3.7 billion is very important to protect us in the near term with further necessary emergency levee work, some of which will be done by this hurricane season,” Vitter said.

            In addition, Vitter was successful in securing a number of amendments on the bill dealing with small business, fisheries and the Community Disaster Loan program to help local governments that have taken serious hits to their local revenue make it through the next several months.

            Through the amendment process, Vitter was able to redirect $200 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be used for critical Louisiana projects. These projects include realigning three outfall canals in Jefferson and Orleans parishes and removing old pumping stations on these canals, repairing and improving levees in Terrebonne Parish and the east bank of Plaquemines Parish, armoring levees and floodwalls in south Louisiana and creating a plan to outline the levels of hurricane protection in lower Plaquemines Parish.

            In addition, Vitter’s legislation calls for a report by the National Academies to describe the amount of vertical protection lost due to design and construction flaws and the design of a comprehensive plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in consultation with St. Bernard Parish and the National Academies, to close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

            “Senate passage of this bill is a very important win for our disaster recovery efforts,” Vitter said. 

            The hurricane emergency supplemental bill also has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and now moves to a House-Senate Conference Committee.