|
|
| |
| Mon, Dec. 1, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Bill boots trailers from Hope airport Saturday, Nov 17, 2007 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - An Arkansas lawmaker on Friday urged Congress to give the Federal Emergency Management Agency an ultimatum to move thousands of unused trailers from Hope. Sen. Mark Pryor introduced legislation giving FEMA nine months to put together a plan to use, store, sell or trash the nearly 20,000 mobile homes and travel trailers. The trailers intended for displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina have sat vacant since 2005 on land owned by the Hope Municipal Airport. FEMA pays $400,000 a year rent for the land. Pryor said security and maintenance costs put the total spent on the trailers in the millions of dollars. "I have no doubt FEMA would like to see this black eye just go away, but the agency refuses to make it a priority," Pryor said in a statement. "Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to pick up an expensive tab for maintenance, storage and security, and that is unacceptable to me." The legislation, the FEMA Accountability Act of 2007, gives the agency three months to determine how many mobile homes it needs to keep for future disaster victims. FEMA would have six months to provide a plan for storage of those housing units, sale of usable surplus units and disposal of the rest. Implementation of the plan would be required nine months after passage of the legislation. The agency would report the results to Congress after one year. Pryor's bill isn't the first by Arkansas lawmakers in an effort to rid the state of the trailers. Last month, Rep. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, introduced legislation to allow FEMA to transfer or sell the trailers to government agencies or nonprofit groups after a disaster. The trailers would be available even if damages are not significant enough to warrant an official disaster declaration. Ross' bill is in response to the bureaucratic red tape involved in moving some of the trailers to Dumas to house victims of a February storm there. A year ago, Congress gave permission to FEMA to donate the homes to municipalities or nonprofit groups. |
