NATCHEZ &045; U.S. Rep. Charles W. &8221;Chip&8220; Pickering promised local officials Wednesday he will push for Federal Emergency Management Agency rules to be simplified and the timeline for getting funds from the agency streamlined.

Pickering, R-3rd District, is making the rounds of the counties in his district this week, asking city and county officials about the problems they’ve run into as a result of Hurricane Katrina and offering ways he might be able to help.

Several Natchez and Adams County officials met with Pickering Wednesday in the city council chambers.

And as a member of the House Bipartisan Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina, Pickering had plenty of information to share on changes that will probably be made in the coming months to the way FEMA does business.

An example: Pickering wants to require that when local governments call FEMA for help, the agency must get tell that government within 30 days what action it will take.

Another example is that if a city or county uses a contractor already approved by FEMA to clean up debris following a disaster, the agency reimburses that city or county for 100 percent of the cost. If a local contractor is used &045; or in the case of Natchez and Adams County, if the governments’ public works departments do cleanup themselves &045; FEMA only reimburses them 75 percent.

Pickering said he’s pushing for 100 percent reimbursement in both cases. &8221;I want to take away that bias,&8220; he said.

Some of the miscommunication that occurred between FEMA and local governments following Katrina could be avoided in future disasters with a little pre-planning, Pickering said.

Toward that end, he would like to see FEMA communicate to local governments as soon as possible what they would be allowed to do with FEMA funds in such cases &045; and how long it would take for their costs to be reimbursed. &8221;They could also pre-contract with you for cleanup&8220; after such emergencies, Pickering said.

Although no specific dollar amount was mentioned, Pickering said Congress will probably pass another appropriations bill for Hurricane Katrina-related costs before Thanksgiving.

While Pickering was there, local officials asked him for help to:

4Pay for the costs of damage done to several homes in the John Glenn Avenue area when mud and rain runoff flooded their houses during Katrina-related storms. Also, Alderman and Mayor Pro Tem David Massey asked Pickering for help in getting funds to widen and pave the ditch in question to prevent it from overflowing in the future.

4Set aside funding for the North Natchez Drainage Project instead of lumping it in with other projects in one big appropriations bill, giving it a better chance to survive. That project would shore up and otherwise improve the aging brick canal and its tributaries that drain north and downtown Natchez.

4Get FEMA’s rules changed so that cities and counties could be reimbursed not only for employees’ overtime, but for regular work hours spent dealing with storm-related tasks. Mayor Phillip West pointed out that the city hired 20 workers on a temporary basis to help give out Red Cross vouchers and would like some of that expense paid back.

In other matters, Pickering his office is working with government agencies &8221;on every level&8220; to help land an industrial prospect he and other officials at Wednesday’s meeting wouldn’t name. He also said he is confident a short-line company will be found to run the railroad from Natchez to Brookhaven, a line Canadian National said it intends to abandon.