There’s blood in the water, and the sharks in Louisiana are in a frenzy.

They’re not the great whites or hammerheads. They’re the Washington politicos looking to cash in – big – on Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Last week, Louisiana’s congressional delegation submitted a bill requesting $250 billion in reconstruction money for the state. The Washington Post reports that $40 billion would be dedicated to the Army Corps of Engineers, 10 times its current national budget and 16 times more than it says it needs to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane.

But the absurdity doesn’t end there. The total requested appropriation is more, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it cost Thomas Jefferson to make the Louisiana Purchase ($15 million in 1803 dollars, adjusted for inflation in 2005, about $190 million).

The legislation would create a “Pelican Commission” with enormous power to direct how billions of dollars are spent. It exempts projects from environmental laws, even those intended to protect public health. And it comes on top of the $62 billion that Congress has already OK’d for recovery efforts.

While destruction on the level faced by Southern Louisiana demands a national response and President Bush was correct to guarantee federal assistance to rebuild, the bill submitted by Sens. David Vitter and Mary Landrieu is a cash grab filled with questionable spending and misdirected priorities.

There’s $750 million for a new lock system on a shipping canal that has nothing to do with flood control or economic development. The plan’s been floating around for 50 years, sunk by its own massive price tag and lack of efficacy. There are duplicate projects, overlapping billions earmarked for roads and transportation, and plenty of pork spending.

No amount of goodwill for the residents of Louisiana should be able to generate enough support for the bill to pass. More than likely, it’s the opening salvo, a negotiating position that gives Louisiana’s senators a chance to appear more reasonable when forced to compromise. But rushing forward with such a massive spending bill sullies the intentions of a Congress and a country determined to lift our neighbors back up.

As the transportation and energy bills that passed the Congress this year show, for too long national spending priorities have been determined by a barter system of political patronage, where members of Congress trade money back and forth for their pet projects. Missed opportunities in New Orleans contributed to the destruction of the city.

Louisiana’s cash grab commits the same mistakes all over again.

The Gulf Coast needs help from the rest of the country. Trying to pick taxpayers’ pockets isn’t the best way to get it. A more thoughtful, accountable approach must be taken.