RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: NPR's Greg Allen reports.</s>GREG ALLEN: The Baker bill would set up a corporation that would help New Orleans and other communities move people out of badly damaged neighborhoods, and relocate them to areas that will be rebuilt. But this week, the plan ran into trouble. Donald Powell, the president's coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding, told Louisiana officials that the administration would not support the plan, because it would create a new federal bureaucracy.</s>DONALD POWELL: I think we would all be served better if the government did not get into the real estate business, and leave that to the private sector.</s>GREG ALLEN: Andy Coplan heads the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state body overseeing rebuilding across the state. He notes that, of that $11.5 million, Louisiana is receiving just over half.</s>ANDY COPLAN: And no one believes that Louisiana suffered only 54 percent of the damage.</s>GREG ALLEN: White House Building Coordinator Don Powell says Louisiana can come back later for more funding requests, but, that like Mississippi, the state should first take care of the 20,000 people whose houses were destroyed, and who lived outside of the flood plane.</s>DONALD POWELL: I think the homeowner clearly is the person here that should be first in line; the homeowner whose home was outside the flood plane, and his home was destroyed, and did not have flood insurance.</s>GREG ALLEN: Louisiana Recovery Authority board member Sean Reilly says many of those homeowners did not have flood insurance.</s>SEAN REILLY: Greg Allen, NPR News.
Officials in Louisiana are disappointed by President Bush's decision not to support a comprehensive plan for rebuilding New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The proposal, now in Congress, would set up a corporation funded by government-backed bonds that would buy and sell properties in flooded neighborhoods.