Obama vows robust Gulf Coast recovery

WASHINGTON, March 12 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said he was committed to vigorous Gulf Coast recovery efforts but undecided about the status of the overseeing U.S. federal agency.

Obama, in an interview with The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans, said he was undecided whether to restore the Federal Emergency Management Agency to its stand-alone department status. FEMA is under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security.

"We're going to be focused on New Orleans' reconstruction and we're going to be paying a lot of attention to the systems that are in place to protect from hurricanes in the future, " Obama said during the interview.

Obama told the newspaper he couldn't indicate when he would visit New Orleans, joking he was "still just trying to figure out my schedule tomorrow."

And while saying he hasn't determined whether FEMA should be an independent agency or remain under the Homeland Security purview, Obama said Craig Fugate, his nominee to run the much-maligned emergency management agency, should instill confidence.

"When you got (Mississippi Republican Gov.) Haley Barbour, (Florida's former GOP Gov.) Jeb Bush and Democrats in Congress agreeing on somebody, they know what they're doing, " he said to The Times-Picayune.