The Gulf Coast hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma made landfall long before Barack Obama became president, but for the first part of his term, the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act -- and the "GO Zones" created by the law -- were in force.

When Obama was running for president, he promised to "target tax incentives to lure businesses to the hardest hit areas of the Gulf Coast including downtown New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish."

Because of the timing of the law -- it was passed in 2005 -- Obama can't claim credit for creating GO Zones. But the provisions of the law were extended on Obama's watch, and overall, the program has received plaudits from officials in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

The law provides tax-free, low interest bonds to investors and developers to urge them to build businesses and housing in select counties and parishes hard hit by the hurricanes. The idea is that, without the incentives offered by these bonds, businesses would be less willing to invest in the storm-savaged zones, resulting in economic stagnation. The law also provided special tax treatment of environmental remediation costs resulting from the storms, a temporary tax credit for disaster-damaged businesses so they could continue to pay wages to their employees, and a tax break for employer-provided housing.

As we noted in our previous update, GO Zone bonds were originally supposed to expire at the end of 2010. But Congress voted to extend them as part of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Authorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 -- the bill that extended all the Bush-era tax cuts for another two years.

However, the tax relief bill only renewed GO Zones for one additional year, and subsequent efforts to extend the program for one more year -- to the end of 2012 -- didn't make it through Congress, despite support from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.

As the program was about to expire in December 2011, the trade publication Bond Buyer quoted several regional officials praising GO Zones.

In Louisiana, Whit Kling, director of the state bond commission, told Bond Buyer that the GO Zone program eased a decision by Nucor Corp. to build a $3.4 billion iron and steel project in St. James Parish. The project is expected to employ 500 temporary construction workers and at least 150 permanent jobs earning an average salary of $75,000 plus benefits, with the possibility of more permanent workers as the complex expands.

And in Alabama, bonds aided ship builders, paper manufacturers, utility companies, downtown redevelopment authorities, metal companies, a port authority, an asphalt company, an aerospace engineering firm, and manufacturers, state deputy finance director Clinton Carter told Bond Buyer. "The demand was immense. We had to turn away projects at the end."

Rating this promise is tricky, because Obama didn't create the program and his administration failed in its effort to extend it for one more year. However, it was operational during Obama's tenure, he did sign a one-year extension for it, and even without the final extension, it lasted for six years, which seems a reasonable amount of time for a program designed to aid victims of a specific disaster. On balance, we rate it a Promise Kept.