WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Louisiana's Hurricane Katrina response support may suffer because the state's congressional delegation has few positions of power, The New York Times said.
In recent years several high-profile members of Congress form Louisiana have retired, and their replacements may be dedicated but wield relatively little influence in Washington. And the current outpouring of support is likely to lessen when public attention is drawn elsewhere.
Former U.S. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., told the Times: "Right now there is huge public sympathy for all those people down there. The problem is, what is the shelf life of that sympathy?"
When Johnston was in the Senate (1974-97), he was a member of the energy and appropriations committees, the Times said. And former Rep. Bill Tauzin, R-La., was chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee before he left Congress last year. Former Rep. Robert Livingston, R-La., was chairman of the Appropriations Committee before he resigned in 1999. It is clout that Louisiana will miss.
However, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., is chairman of the Senate's Appropriations Committee, which could bode well for relief efforts in Mississippi.
