Pay Katrina tab.

Byline: The Register-Guard

When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast a year ago, the Oregon National Guard responded to Louisiana's urgent cry for help.

More than 1,100 Oregon Guard troops, including nearly 300 members of the Cottage Grove-based 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry Regiment, were dispatched to New Orleans. They spent weeks helping evacuate people stranded in their homes by floodwaters, delivering food and water to evacuees, protecting businesses from looters, clearing roadways of debris, identifying unsafe buildings - and locating human remains.

Oregon's citizen soldiers did whatever they could to ease the pain and chaos that Katrina left in its monstrous wake. They responded without question or delay, knowing that other states would do the same for Oregon in the event of a major disaster. Such cooperative and ready assistance between states has long been the cornerstone of this nation's disaster-response capabilities.

In order for this system to continue functioning with reliability and predictability, states must be compensated for the cost of sending their Guard units to assist other states. If contributing states are not repaid - or if there is a substantial delay in payment - what historically has been an exemplary states-based system of mutual assistance is undermined.

Although a year has passed since the Oregon Guard responded to Katrina, this state has yet to be reimbursed for the $2.7 million needed to cover salaries and other expenses. That's unacceptable, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state of Louisiana should remedy this situation as swiftly as possible.

While $2.7 million is a blip on the federal government's budgetary radar screen, it's a blip that threatens to create a disruption in Oregon. Because the Oregon Guard has had to cover the Katrina expenses out of its own budget, it will run out of state money budgeted for maintenance and operations by December. If the Guard doesn't get the money it's owed for responding to Katrina soon, it will have to obtain a cash bailout from the Legislature's Emergency Board or find some other way to keep its armories and air bases open across the state.

FEMA officials say federal funding for reimbursing states for National Guard assistance is supposed to be disbursed by Louisiana, although they concede it's not immediately clear if Louisiana already has received the federal dollars it needs to pay Oregon. That's not reassuring. Nor is it surprising, given the bureaucratic gridlock, confusion and corruption that has slowed reconstruction of the Gulf Coast during the past year.

Rather than pointing fingers at Louisiana, FEMA officials should say they're going to make certain that Oregon and every other state that contributed Guard troops and equipment to the battered Gulf Coast are fully reimbursed. If that requires ordering a federal bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., to cut a check for Oregon and making sure Louisiana eventually accounts for the expense, then that's exactly what FEMA should do.

Oregon shouldn't bear the consequences of FEMA's ineptitude. This state was willing to help when Louisiana needed help. One year later, it's time - past time - for the federal government to make sure the bill is paid.