FEMA Awards Hurricane Housing Contracts (worth up to $1.5 billion)

[Purveyor]

(08-09) 19:18 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The Bush administration on Wednesday awarded temporary housing contracts worth up to $1.5 billion for future hurricane disasters, including four to companies that previously received no-bid contracts for Katrina work.

Four of the six contracts awarded will go to Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure, Bechtel National, CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Enterprises Inc., which received similar contracts but without competition after Hurricane Katrina last fall.

---snip---

Some of the companies have strong political and government ties, and Homeland Security inspector general Richard Skinner has been reviewing the propriety of the contracts, with a report expected in October.

The Shaw Group's lobbyist, Joe Allbaugh, is a former FEMA director and is a friend of President Bush, while Bechtel CEO Riley Bechtel served on Bush's Export Council from 2003-2004, and CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. have done extensive previous work for the government. The companies have denied that connections played a factor.

---end of excerpt---

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/08/09/national/w123951D18.DTL

[Donnachaidh]

1. ahh, the Crony Chronicles continues

[Purveyor]

2. Surprising this wasn't a friday night release but I guess with wars

and elections, they figured it would get little coverage anyway.

[geomon666]

3. Wasn't Jim Bernhard, the CEO of Shaw...

head of the Louisiana Democrats for like 9 months? Total centrist and rich blowhard.

[sandnsea]

4. Albaugh appointed Brownie

This is just stomach churning that these companies just keep getting more and more and more while doing less and less and leaving real people in serious need. Not to mention all the people out there who could have an opportunity at real financial security with these contracts. Katrina has been the most nauseating display of out of control cronyism that could ever be imagined.

[XemaSab]

5. I don't see why this is a big deal

There are a few very large engineering and environmental consultants out there that can handle this type of work, so the same names are going to come up again and again.

What's more, the bidding process takes months. Maybe there are times when you want results a little sooner, like after a huge hurricane that leaves hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

I am not excusing the documented corruption, I am simply stating that the fact that these companies were awarded these contracts is, at the end of the day, not all that suspicious.

[leesa]

7. Probably because it was just announced that the contracts went from 400 M

to 3.4B and STILL people don't have housing

http://www.hutchnews.com/news/regional/stories/fema080906.shtml

It IS documented that they are ripping us off and it goes ahead anyway. Just like Halliburton

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. You can see how the success of the US economy under Clinton

must have driven those neocons so mad that they couldn't help behaving like crazies towards Clinton and the country, can't you; all that money they could be ripping off; hence the kleptomania once they did get back in power. They must have felt he was mocking them. Like the birds outside my window, taunting our cat and setting him off chittering like mad.