WASHINGTON IN BRIEF

White House Defends Army's Levee Repairs

The White House yesterday defended the quality of materials being used to rebuild the levees around New Orleans, as President Bush got assurances from the Army Corps of Engineers that it was on track to restore the system by the start of hurricane season.

Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, head of the Corps, told Bush in a private briefing that 100 miles of the 169 miles of levees damaged by the Aug. 29 hurricane have been restored. He repeated the briefing later for reporters at the White House.

Strock took issue with findings from two teams of independent experts who said the Corps was taking shortcuts and using substandard materials, leaving large sections of the system substantially weaker than before the hurricane.

"We are using the right kind of materials," Strock said. "There is no question about that."

The findings were made by engineers on a National Science Foundation-funded panel and by a Louisiana team appointed to monitor the rebuilding.

Strock suggested the monitors may have been testing the wrong soil. He said the Corps is trucking in clay from Mississippi to rebuild the system because the local soil does not meet quality standards.

Ex-Disaster Officials To Head New Fund

Two former U.S. disaster management officials have joined an effort led by insurance industry leaders to create government catastrophe funds. The funds would offset private insurers' exposure to the rising financial risk of devastating hurricanes and earthquakes.

James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bill Clinton, and James M. Loy, former deputy secretary of Homeland Security for the Bush administration, will head ProtectingAmerica.org. The coalition is led by the Allstate insurance company, State Farm Insurance Co., emergency management officials and about 60 private and municipal groups.

The coalition's goal is to create federal and state catastrophe programs funded by private premiums. The money could be tapped to pay for the most costly disasters -- those in which insured losses exceed $2 billion at the state level, for instance, or $5 billion to $9 billion at the federal level, Loy said. It could also pay for public education, first-responder preparedness and stronger building codes.

Breakaway Union To Pay AFL-CIO

The Service Employees International Union has agreed to pay the AFL-CIO $3.9 million it owed when the SEIU split with the labor federation last year, union officials said yesterday.

The AFL-CIO had filed a lawsuit seeking $10 million that it said the service employees union owed in payments to the federation -- called "per capita" payments. The AFL-CIO plans to withdraw the lawsuit when details of the agreement are worked out.

The service employees and the union's president, Andrew Stern, led a separation from the AFL-CIO. Five unions left the umbrella federation and helped form the "Change to Win" coalition, which also includes one union that left the AFL-CIO a long time ago and another that is still in the federation.

-- Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu and news services