Baton Rouge Republican Garret Graves, who was formerly Gov. Bobby Jindal’s point man on coastal issues as head of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, is representing the Capital Region in the new Congress. Business Report recently caught up with the freshman representative and put a number of questions to him about flood insurance, taxes and the so-called ISIS terrorist organization, among other issues.
Graves says the federal government should “absolutely” do more to support Louisiana’s $50 billion coastal restoration plan.
“The federal project implementation process is one of the most inefficient things I’ve ever seen in my life, and money is being wasted. Congress spent close to $150 billion in response to Hurricane Katrina. If we had put a third of those dollars in protecting and restoring the coast, we could have saved lives and money,” he says. “The primary cause of land loss in Louisiana is the federal government’s construction of levees on the river system. The nation benefits from those levees and from the energy production in south Louisiana. Yes, the energy companies contributed to land loss. But the energy companies are paying revenue to the federal government. The federal government should share those revenues with us and allow us to invest those dollars in coastal restoration.”
Graves also supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, but beyond that he also wants health care reform to focus on insurance companies.
“I’m against having the federal government intimately involved in health care. We need to look at allowing insurance companies to cross state boundaries,” he says. “We need to look at other entities than just employers to offer insurance. We need more transparency and consumer choice in health care costs.”
Read the full Q&A with Graves. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
