The Department of Defense Undersecretary for policy Michele Flournoy met with Congressmen for the second time in the past few months Wednesday, addressing some of the changes Iraq will face if U.S. troops are able to successfully follow President Obama’s recently reiterated commitment to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by 2012.

Blue Dog Coalition member U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) expressed concerns about the plan, saying after Hurricane Katrina, his state had a “desperate need for generators” and warned that “something like Katrina is going to happen again, whether it’s man-made, or the hand of God.”

Taylor challenged the panel of witnesses, asking “to what extent are you taking those things that the military says they don’t need anymore and putting them on line… and to what extent are you making those things available to cities, states, and counties?”

The National Guard and reserve components will take their equipment with them when they redeploy from Iraq, Pentagon officials told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

But while reserve units back home, who earlier were forced to leave gear in Iraq, will be able to fill their shortages with other excess equipment coming back for refurbishment at a U.S. depot, much of that materiel will go to initially to units with shortfalls that are slated to deploy.

Lawmakers such as Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., expressed concern during the hearing about how war demands had created equipment shortfalls back home for Guard and reserve troops as well as state emergency responders tackling homeland catastrophes such as 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

“The 890th Engineers had already done their hitch in Iraq in ’03,” Taylor said. “By the time they returned to Mississippi, they had left every piece of equipment behind. They did a magnificent job after Katrina with only 60 percent of the equipment they should have had. But the fact of the matter is, they only had 60 percent of the equipment they should have had.”

DEMOCRATIC Congressman Gene Taylor, from the shipbuilding state of Mississippi, has introduced a proposed amendment that would effectively block conversion of Jones Act ships at foreign shipyards, while still allowing the rebuilt ships to retain their eligibility under the US cabotage law.

The issue has been contentious within US shipowning circles for several years. It was in the spotlight two months ago, when Seacor won a landmark judgement from an US appellate court that established that conversion of two Seacor tankers to double-hulled configuration at a Chinese shipyard did not jeopardise their eligibility to continue in the Jones Act trades.

The Jones Act requires that ships conducting cabotage business be built, owned, crewed and controlled by US entities.

"If we cannot get these shipbuilding costs under control, we will never again have the number of ships the CNO (chief of naval operations) needs to perform all the tasks that we as a nation ask," he said in a prepared statement. The program to build a "littoral" combat ship for coastal waters, of which the Navy hopes to buy 55, is a "disaster," with surging costs, Taylor added.

"I am not sure the Congress is willing to go forward with that program unless significant progress is made on cost control," he said. "And I do mean significant."

"I urge President Obama to strongly condemn the parties responsible for this act and consider the attack on a US-flag vessel as an attack upon the US.  Persons or organizations who attack US-flag vessels in international waters should be considered enemy combatants and the full might of the US including the use of the world's greatest Navy fleet should be used to safely bring the parties responsible to justice and prevent future harm to any US-flag vessels and crews. Furthermore, any attackers captured in this incident or subsequent attacks should be prosecuted by the US Justice Department, tried in US courts, and sentenced to serve out their sentences in US prisons.

In 1981, Congress voted to stop the sale of leases off the coast of Northern California. The moratorium was included in the Interior Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1982. The provision was supported by almost every member of the California delegation from both political parties. It was approved by the House and by the Republican-majority Senate, and signed it into law by President Reagan.

In 1982, Congress extended the moratorium for Northern California and expanded the area to include the Central California coast. The House also approved an amendment by Republican Congressman Jim Courter to prohibit leases off the coast of New Jersey. Again, the majority-Republican Senate approved the bill and Reagan signed it into law.