MR. CONWAY: -- $126 billion. If you add in tax credits, overall it's $140 billion. But let me concentrate on the $126 billion that's been authorized by the Congress and approved by the President.

Of that $126 billion that's been authorized, $102 billion of that has been obligated; and of that, $80 billion has been actually expended. So when you look at the number of $126 billion, at this point roughly 81 percent of that has been obligated, meaning it's actually designated to go to a certain project. This is important because the delta between authorization and obligation usually involves an actual plan being presented by a state or the federal government, like the Corps of Engineers, and that's what triggers the money flow.

The actual expenditure is then an approved contract where the money actually gets spent. And I outline that for you because there are oftentimes questions about how much has actually been authorized, what's been spent, where is the money? So you have an idea of that.

One of the things that people often ask is, with all this money being spent, who's looking out for the money? And I want to make a very serious point here, that Congress has oversight responsibility for the spending in the Gulf Coast region, and they exercise that quite well. The Government Accounting Office has done a very good job, doing a series of reports, looking at different things like nonprofit organizations, public assistance. We use a tremendous amount of their work for our daily activity.

But there's another side of this story on the federal side that should be told, and this is the extensive work of the U.S. Attorneys, David Dugas of Baton Rouge, who is head of the Katrina Fraud Task Force, and Jim Letten, who is the U.S. attorney down in New Orleans. Those two U.S. attorneys have been driving very hard on the prevention side of fraud and public corruption. They have been joined at the federal level by the Offices of Inspector General, at the federal Cabinet level.

The Offices of Inspector General work together really under the leadership of the OIG at HUD, Ken Donahue -- he's also been supported by other OIGs, including the OIG at the U.S. Department of Labor, which has a lot of funds that flow into that area. The OIGs work very closely with the Inspector General for the state of Louisiana, who is backed very strongly by the Governor. His name is Mr. Street, John Street. They also have a very aggressive legislative office in Louisiana that we work with very closely, that keeps an eye on how state funds are spent.

Supporting this continuum is the Inspector General for the city of New Orleans -- new officeholder; it was a position that was created a number of years ago and never funded. This gentleman's name is Robert Cerasoli. Mr. Cerasoli has been extremely aggressive in looking at city funding, where the money is being spent at the federal, state dollars come into the city and how the city is administering funds.

When the American taxpayer says, where is my money going, why am I being asked to spend more, what they need to know is there is a continuum of professional career civil servants that are working diligently to keep an eye on the money and to prevent fraud, and to prosecute those who are basically victimizing people a second time. David Dugas, under his leadership alone, over 890 convictions since the Katrina Fraud Task Force was stood up.

The other point I want to make here is on transparency. When folks ask, where is the money, there's a very significant portion of this money, over $13 billion, that FEMA spends on public assistance. Public assistance money is usually the money that becomes the most visible for people down in the Gulf Coast region. That means the schools, the hospitals, all these types of things. What FEMA has done is they've been very creative, starting with the school funding, and basically created a website that you can access on the FEMA website, that actually goes in and maps where the dollars are in public assistance that are going into the schools.

The reason why this was created is because of great interest among press, tremendous interest among community activists and teachers on when schools would be reopened, but really, where are the dollars that are coming into the schools at the local level. So FEMA went ahead and did this website; they've worked on it with our office. We've vetted it with GAO, a number of stakeholders. Next week they'll be rolling out additions to this website that include police stations and fire stations, a huge development for the community who wants to know, A, is it safe to move back; is there going to be a police station there soon; what's the status of it? Our office has been driving that with FEMA. We see this as a significant development for showing people where the dollars are.

At this point, three years into rebuilding, I'd characterize the rebuilding effort with three words: one of intense civic engagement, ongoing volunteerism, and a true spirit of reform in every single policy sector.

Let me highlight some of those issues. On the volunteerism side, as of last year 1.1 million people had gone into the Gulf Coast region to volunteer their time. It has gotten to be so complex to try to track volunteerism that it's become difficult for us to get hard count numbers. But we know that the level of effort has been sustained there. We see it every day. We talk to many, many people down there. Church groups around the country are doing this.

One of the most interesting developments is schools, colleges and universities that have sent down a class in 2005 and 2006. It's almost now in a lot of universities become a university tradition to go down to New Orleans, go down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and volunteer. I had somebody in my office the other day; we were interviewing for our team. He goes to The Citadel; he had graduated. He wanted to come to our office and work because two classes before him, his class had gone down to Alabama to help people out. We hear this all the time down in Louisiana, and all the time down in Mississippi; the schools are returning with full classes.

On the civic engagement side, the President, in 2005, said, ultimately the success of the rebuilding effort will depend upon the involvement of local officials. And this is the one thing that I think at this point is probably the unheralded story of what's really going down in New Orleans and Mississippi. You have every single sector -- the business sector, the non-profit sector, private enterprises, entrepreneurs -- all banding together in different organizations to drive change. They really do believe in the motto, "If it is to be, it is up to me." And they get very, very engaged at the federal, state and local level to find out where is the money, or what's the next thing that's going to be done.

In terms of the spirit of reform -- and I'll tick through some of these issues -- health care reform, education reform, reform in terms of public housing, how housing services are delivered, all of these are being driven very, very aggressively by folks that are non-governmental. You have the government involved, but very much you have chambers of commerce, New Orleans Business Council. In Mississippi you have business councils and chambers of commerce, all of them holding people accountable and demanding action. It's a good thing for us. It makes our job easier in the Federal Coordinator's Office.

On the levee front, this is the second strategic issue in addition to federal funding. Several major developments on the levee front. About a week and a half ago, the President and Governor Jindal came to an agreement. General Douglas O'Dell was the President's representative in negotiations with the Governor that began in May, to extend to the state of Louisiana 30 years for them to repay the non-federal share of levee construction. That cost is about $1.8 billion.

The agreement was 30 years to repay, and keep the cost share at 65-35. There had been a lot of debate about trying to change the cost share, bring it back to historic levels, but that's what the agreement was. To the state of Louisiana, what this represents is it represents their opportunity to get more economic stability in their budget, and also to dedicate funds to things that are critical to long-term protection such as wetlands restoration. It also means they don't have to make a choice between health care funding, education and that type of thing; they can go ahead and plan out their repayments. Very significant.

One point I absolutely want to emphasize: This conversation began in May -- began with General O'Dell, began with the Governor. There have been some recent reports that this was all in a reaction to a congressional visit about a month ago. That's just not accurate. They just chose not to have a public dialogue in the press about it.

One other major thing that's going on, on the levee front which is significant, right now we're in the midst of negotiations with the Corps of Engineers and the state on a project partnership agreement on Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity. It's called LPV. This project partnership agreement will trigger a large series of PPA agreements through January of next year, and amendments that basically take the entire hurricane protection system, stand it up, get it under contract, and get it underway. From the federal standpoint, we are absolutely on target for the 2011 deadline. And we're working very closely with the state. Governor Jinal has been an excellent partner in that effort.

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