I just got back home.

On the way, CNN was reporting that the oil has been shut off.  If this holds, there will be a collective sigh of relief felt throughout the nation.  This spill has taken on a national life.

While we were at the Mobile Incident Command center this morning, the Coast Guard informed us they were working a major spill as we spoke on the St. Lawrence Seaway and in fact they handle over 100 spills of one sort or another a year.

There were some North Mississippi members of the House and opinion shapers who got a eye-opening experience these last three days.  I had said many times that this

"incident" is not something that can be written about, but has to be experienced.

We will take another group of House members from North Mississippi next week and hopefully they will find out the details of the clean up, without the cloud of more oil flowing into the Gulf hanging over the effort.

On to what I believe will be fraud.

I heard Kenneth Feinberg (appointed by the President to takeover and "streamline the claims process) on radio on the way back announce that he will be taking over the claims process in the next two-to-three weeks and promised that anyone coming in with a claim and corroborative information (the current term is documentation) will get a check, if not right away within 24-48 hours, and that check will be for six months.  There will be no monthly reapplication.

From what I believe I heard, while restaurant owners and charter boat captains expressed an unceasing frustration with the learning curve, they finally learned who, what, where, when and how.

Now a semi-autonomous, non-BP related government agency is taking over the claims process.  The learning curve starts again.  None of the people we talked with complained about the length of time it took to get a check, but they did speak out about the confusion and frustration in their initial applications.

The fraud---We had an "evacuation" center here in Clarksdale where a team of local Clarksdalians and Red Cross personnel wrote thousands of dollars worth of checks to hurricane victims.

Problem is, we knew many of them...a lot of them...were not, could not be victims.  People carpooled from Jackson, staying only enough time in the Center to get a check for thawed frozen food and other damages they said occurred.  And then they asked where the next relief station was.  Some went as far as Memphis to get the FEMA checks.

If this claims oil spill process does not have some checks and balances, I think the feds are going to be spending a significant amount of money on people who have not been impacted by the spill.

The chair of our Agricultural Committee has told me he has had inquiries from corn farmers that disbursements put into the water on the Coast is impacting their corn crop on the northern most tier of Mississippi Counties 350 miles or more away from the Coast.

Part of the frustration I mentioned two days ago are the rumors circulating about one thing or another that is masking the real work being done.

I am not sure that the Feds taking over the claims process is either the right or right thing to do, but in my opinion, so far for every well-intended solution that has been implemented, another problem has arose.

We are taking another group of North Mississippi members of the House and community leaders next Wednesday.