BY LESLEY CLARK AND JACQUELINE CHARLES, Miami Her­ald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/06/1515445/haitian-leader-focusing-on-nations.html

Hait­ian Pres­i­dent René Pré­val arrives in Wash­ing­ton Mon­day for meet­ings with Con­gress and Pres­i­dent Barack Obama as the White House pre­pares to ask law­mak­ers for more than $1 bil­lion in aid for the earth­quake rav­aged country.

Pré­val, though, is likely to also press for more imme­di­ate con­cerns. He told The Miami Her­ald on Fri­day that though mil­lions have been pledged, lit­tle has gone to the Hait­ian government.

“There is an urgency. The urgency is that we have entered into a rainy sea­son,” he said, not­ing that the coun­try needs at least $93 mil­lion imme­di­ately to fix drainage pipes to pre­vent flooding.

The coun­try is also seek­ing money to get stu­dents back in school.

Pré­val arrives in Wash­ing­ton after meet­ing with a series of vis­it­ing U.S. law­mak­ers, Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton and sev­eral Latin Amer­i­can lead­ers. He has been to the neigh­bor­ing Domini­can Repub­lic, Ecuador and Mex­ico but it will mark his first U.S. trip, post-disaster.

It comes just three weeks before the U.S. and other donor nations meet in New York to map out a way to assist in a recon­struc­tion effort that has been esti­mated to cost $14 billion.

“What’s most impor­tant is the phi­los­o­phy of the recon­struc­tion,” Pré­val said he will tell U.S. offi­cials. “It’s not just recon­struct Port-au-Prince. It’s rebuild Haiti.”

Decades of neglect of the provinces and agri­cul­ture, Pré­val said, have forced peo­ple into the over­crowded capital.

“We need to put jobs in the provinces and for that you need roads, elec­tric­ity, edu­ca­tion, health,” he said.

His visit comes as admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials are pulling together an emer­gency spend­ing pack­age on Haiti recon­struc­tion to present to Con­gress. As of March 2, the U.S. has spent more than $712 mil­lion for relief efforts, includ­ing $427 mil­lion by the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment and $285 mil­lion by the Defense Department.

Aid orga­ni­za­tions have pressed the admin­is­tra­tion to ask for $3 bil­lion for relief and recon­struc­tion efforts in what could be the first step in a decade-long recon­struc­tion effort. Con­gres­sional staffers said they expect to see a request for between $1.5 bil­lion to $3 billion.

“The admin­is­tra­tion needs to send up the largest emer­gency spend­ing ever for a sin­gle nation,” said Mark Schnei­der, a for­mer U.S. AID offi­cial who coor­di­nated the U.S. response to Hur­ri­cane Mitch in 1998.

“The real­ity is, the earth­quake in Haiti was one of the worst dis­as­ters in recorded his­tory and I would hope the response reflects that.”

Schnei­der, now with the Inter­na­tional Cri­sis Group, noted that in past dis­as­ters in the hemi­sphere, includ­ing Mitch, the U.S. has pro­vided as much as 60 per­cent of the recon­struc­tion assistance.

COSTS IN FLORIDA

States like Florida are expected to ask for reim­burse­ment for treat­ing injured Haitians and shel­ter­ing and school­ing refugees. Con­gres­sional aides said it’s unclear how much of the request will be for reim­burs­ing fed­eral and state agen­cies and how much will be for new spending.

“In addi­tion to the badly needed assis­tance for the Hait­ian relief efforts, any emer­gency sup­ple­men­tal must reim­burse the state and county gov­ern­ments in Florida,” for the addi­tional costs, said Rep. Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz, D-Weston.

Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials declined to com­ment, but Sec­re­tary of State Clin­ton told the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee on Wednes­day that she expects the spend­ing pack­age to go before Con­gress “in the next few weeks.”

She said it would “include both replen­ish­ment of funds in the Defense Depart­ment and USAID prin­ci­pally, but also fund­ing for the recov­ery and recon­struc­tion efforts going forward.”

Observers sug­gest there is a huge well of bipar­ti­san sup­port on Capi­tol Hill for Haiti — even in a stag­nant econ­omy and amid wor­ries over spend­ing bills. But they cau­tion that the admin­is­tra­tion and Con­gress need to act quickly before atten­tion wanes.

“There’s a gen­uine sense on the Hill that we need to get some­thing done and get it done right,” said Johanna Mendel­son For­man, a senior asso­ciate at the Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tional Studies.

Inter­est was evi­dent Thurs­day as mem­bers of a House Finan­cial Ser­vices sub­com­mit­tee quickly approved a bill aimed at eas­ing Haiti’s eco­nomic sit­u­a­tion by press­ing lenders to for­give the country’s debt and dis­trib­ute any new aid in the form of grants. The bill will be on the House floor Wednes­day. A sim­i­lar res­o­lu­tion cleared the Sen­ate with­out oppo­si­tion Friday.

“Even dur­ing our own eco­nomic sit­u­a­tion, we haven’t lost our com­pas­sion,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala.

Haiti cur­rently owes $1.1 bil­lion to var­i­ous lend­ing insti­tu­tions, includ­ing the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank, the Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund and the World Bank.

Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Tim Gei­th­ner has already called on the banks to can­cel the debt, but treasury’s deputy assis­tant sec­re­tary for the west­ern hemi­sphere, Nancy Lee, told law­mak­ers that Con­gress’ clout would be “critical.

“We can go to the donors and say, ‘This is an idea that’s attrac­tive on the Hill,’ ” Lee told House members.

Thomas Hart of One, a global advo­cacy cam­paign founded by the Irish rock star Bono, wel­comed the leg­is­la­tion, spon­sored by Rep. Max­ine Waters, D-Calif., but noted it will “free up very lit­tle in the short-term for recov­ery efforts.

“Haiti will need far more long-term devel­op­ment assis­tance and trade income than debt relief,” he told law­mak­ers. “Debt can­cel­la­tion is a small but impor­tant piece of a com­plex puzzle.”

‘URGENT’ ROLE

In an opin­ion piece for McClatchy News­pa­pers, includ­ing The Miami Her­ald, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House is await­ing the administration’s request for emer­gency spend­ing and that “Con­gress is com­mit­ted to help­ing Haiti recover from this tragedy.

“We have an urgent respon­si­bil­ity to help pro­vide a foun­da­tion for a sta­ble and more pros­per­ous neigh­bor,” she wrote. “Sus­tained and con­struc­tive Amer­i­can lead­er­ship is essen­tial in this fight.”

And she under­scored a con­sis­tent refrain among politi­cians and the donor com­mu­nity that has long seen money go miss­ing in Haiti: “Strong account­abil­ity and trans­parency must rest at the cen­ter of this undertaking.”

The House has sent three del­e­ga­tions of law­mak­ers to Haiti to see the dam­age for themselves.

Despite vehe­ment oppo­si­tion to recent spend­ing bills, Rep. James Clyburn, D-South Car­olina, the Major­ity Whip whom Pelosi has named her point per­son on Haiti leg­is­la­tion, pre­dicted a Haiti aid bill would gar­ner 400 votes. He noted pri­vate donors have raised nearly $1 bil­lion for Haiti.

“There’s absolutely the sup­port,” Clyburn said.

Clark reported from Wash­ing­ton; Charles from Port-Au-Prince Haiti.