Aliso Viejo-based Fluor Corp. said Friday it plans to join in the rebidding of federal contracts to clean up and rebuild the Gulf of Mexico region destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Within hours after the hurricane blew ashore on Aug. 29, Fluor deployed hundreds of workers to the affected area.
Fluor received an initial $100 million contract from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide temporary housing and communications gear to some of the more than 200,000 households displaced by the disaster.
That contract is set to be rebid.
“We will participate in the open-bidding competition and feel confident that our past track record supporting FEMA will make our competitive bid very attractive,” Fluor said in a statement.
FEMA Acting Director David Paulison, who took over at FEMA last month after the previous director quit under heavy criticism for his handling of the disaster, told a Senate panel on Thursday that the cleanup contracts would be opened up for rebidding.
The process that awarded more than $1 billion worth of contracts without bids to companies such as Shaw Group Inc. and Halliburton Co. were criticized by some observers who said local companies should have been able to go after the work. Rebuilding the area could cost as much as $200 billion, according to estimates.
“Fluor has had a strong working relationship with FEMA for the past eight years, supporting disaster-related recovery work across the nation, and our long-standing relationship with FEMA has been based on competitively bid and won contracts,” Fluor said.
