This is not surprising…

A week after
Hurricane Katrina, a senior official with the Federal Emergency
Management Agency in charge of streamlining the flow of disaster aid
issued a directive that would have helped a staggering 1,029 rebuilding
projects and $5.3 billion in funds cut through the agency’s infamous
red tape.

But in a
decision critics say led to losing precious time in the post-storm
recovery, her three-day deadline to clear projects through a final
bureaucratic hurdle was rejected. The rebuilding of schools, roads,
hospitals, firehouses and other desperately needed infrastructure was
stalled for months of interagency reviews that ended at the White House
Office of Management and Budget.

Gil Jamieson,
FEMA’s head of Gulf Coast recovery and one of the officials who
dismissed the directive of colleague Nancy Ward, said her order would
have given federal agencies too little time to check for funding
duplication.

The article goes on to descibe a “queue” to which projects go and then reports this…

DHS failed to
answer a Freedom of Information Act request on the queue, citing
regulations that can give it nearly a year to respond. OMB, in a FOIA
response, said 95 pages of interoffice e-mails and statements about the
queue exist, but it released only 12, with all contents redacted.

OMB said making the information public would “inhibit the frank and
candid exchange of views that is necessary for effective government.”

WOW can’t have the public screwing up our effective government agencies like FEMA