Feb. 4, 10:30 a.m. — In their final budget, the Bush Administration keeps up the pressure on the Corps of Engineers, providing the agency $4.7B in FY09. While this is in line with previous administration budgets, it compares to $5.6B Congress provided in FY08 and $5.4B in FY07. However, this year, the administration included an additional $5.8B in emergency funding for flood and hurricane damage reduction projects in New Orleans and Louisiana. More than half of the funding would fully fund project construction (no local cost-share) and the rest would be cost shared on 65% federal – 35% state/local basis.

The needs in New Orleans and Louisiana are real. But the budgetary challenge will be can Congress keep their hands off of this funding or will history repeat with some of it getting siphoned off to pay for pet projects across the country?

Here’s a link to the Corps budget in the appendix, the New Orleans emergency funding is on page 1012 (p. 2 of the PDF)

President’s Budget of the United States Government — FY2009 (html)