Congress approved $5 billion in Hurricane Katrina aid for Mississippi in December 2005 – not long after the storm struck South Mississippi and Southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29.
 

About $3 billion of the money was used for the Homeowners Assistance Grant Program, designed to help home owners who flooded because of Hurricane Katrina even though they lived outside the federal flood zone.
 

The grant program is administered by the Mississippi Development Authority, the state’s chief economic development agency whose executive director is appointed by the governor. Haley, therefore, has direct control over the agency.
 

Democrats in the Mississippi House of Representatives supported legislative oversight of the grant program. But Haley balked and staunchly opposed legislative oversight.
 

While Haley and Republicans balked at oversight of the grant program, Haley spent his time pushing for oversight of the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi (funded by money from the state’s tobacco lawsuit and designed to stop and prevent teen smoking). Something doesn’t sound right.
 

Haley’s opposition to grant oversight and his efforts in favor of oversight of the Partnership is another example of how he says one thing but does something else. Or, as the Mississippi Democratic Party’s TV ad from earlier this year put it so succinctly, Haley is two-faced on important issues
 

Republican state Sen. Tommy Robertson of Moss Point and Republican state Rep. Jim Beckett of Bruce formed a company and won a $1.2 million bid from the state of Mississippi to “close” Katrina grants. Robertson and Beckett in turn hired Republican state Rep. Jim Simpson of Gulfport to help with the work.
 

Robertson chairs the Senate Finance Committee and single-handedly killed a bill this year to reduce the sales tax on groceries and raise the tax on cigarettes. Robertson did so at Barbour’s request.
 

Barbour asked Robertson to kill the grocery tax-cigarette tax swap this year. Robertson received a $1.2 million state contract last year from an agency Barbour controls. Is there a connection? Something doesn’t seem right.
 

Robertson and Simpson, both Republicans, are Coast residents who are profiting off the misfortune of fellow residents. Robertson is seeking re-election to the state Senate.
 

As of Oct. 11, 2006, 1,300 checks had been written to Coast residents who applied for grants through the program more than one year after Katrina hit. At that point, more than 17,000 people had applied.
 

The MDA had been dragging its feet in awarding grants to storm victims. The agency speeded the process only after news stories began to appear in The Mississippi Press newspaper in Pascagoula and the Mississippi Democratic Party began questioning the slow progress.
 

As of July 18, 2007, the MDA Web site reported that 13,419 grants have been paid to 15,556 eligible applicants. Hundreds of applicants continue to wait for news about grant awards. Hundreds of storm victims continue to live in FEMA trailers almost two years after Katrina.